Customer Reviews

A Glorious Way to Die: The Kamikaze Mission of the Battleship Yamato, April 1945

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

At the U.S. Navy Yard in Washington D.C. Southeast among the captured war booty and static displays you will find one rather odd looking display, a giant twisted and tortured looking piece of iron that looks like a modern art sculpture. This section of metal is not an artwork, it is a piece of armor plate taken after the war from the shipyard in Japan that built the warship Yamato, the largest battleship to ever to roam the seas. It is distorted because the Navy wanted to see what US Navy 16" guns would do to the armor plate which was used to protect the Yamato and her two sister ships Musashi and Shinano. Like many countries in the 30's and early 40's in Japan the Imperial Navy was the dominant military force, as such the Imperial Navy wanted to deploy the most powerful ships in the world, at that time the battleship was still viewed as the king of the seas. Three ships were taken under construction in the Kure naval yard, they were to be the most heavily armed and defended battleships ever, larger by far than the German Bismark, British Prince of Wales and Hood and even larger than any battleship ever built by the United States, these warships were to sport giant 18" guns that could devastate any opponent that they should face. Very quickly after the start of hostilities it became clear that the role of the battleship would have to be re-thought, the destruction of the Prince of Wales, The Bismark, the Italian fleet at Taranto and several American battleships at Pearl Harbor by (or at least largely in part due to) airpower and the advent of the submarine force made these once unapproachable ships vunerable. After the Battle Of Coral Sea construction of the last of these three giant ships was halted and changed in mid-stream...Shinano would go on to become the worlds 1st "Super Carrier". Yamato and Musashi went into service as battleships, both saw combat. At the Battle Of Leyte Gulf in Oct 1944 Yamato was able to claim a role in the sinking of several American warships, including an escort carrier (USS Gambier Bay) but more telling was the fate of Mushasi, attacked by US Navy aircraft this seemingly invincible ship was sunk after taking 13 torpedos and an undetermined number of bombs. Yamato retreated to Japan to re-arm and repair her combat damage. As the fortunes of the Japanese Empire went on a steady downward slide the presure to send Yamato back into combat grew. The Battle Of Leyte Gulf is famous for one other 1st, the first major use of Kamikaze aircraft, the Imperial Navy decided to deploy the Yamato in his role after the invasion of the island of Okinawa. This book is the story of that mission. Mr. Spurr has interviewed participants on both sides, he became very familiar with suvivors from the crew of Yamato and I think he has created a very educational and entertaining book. I will not divulge the outcome of the mission any further, most people who will look for this book already know what happened. It is an exciting bullet for bullet and shell for shell account, plenty of graphic first hand accounts to be sure. If you ever are in DC and have in interest in this matter please visit the Navy yard and see with your own eyes the section of metal I mentioned earlier, it will answer all questions as to what it must have been like on Yamato. For those interested in the fate of Shinano, it was sunk by the American sub Archerfish on a shakedown/fitting out cruise, once again emphasising the changing role of these giant ships.

In the passage describing the part played by Torpedo Squadron 84 the attack on the Yamato contains egregious errors in the names of 12 of the 14 pilots of VT-84. The only two that are correct are squadron skipper, Lt.Cdr. Chandler Swanson, and Lt.jg Richard Walsh. This leads me to question the validity of other portions of the account that may be made up. My name is Dewey Ray. An Owen Ray appears in Russell Spurr's account . I was one of the pilots on the attack. There was no Owen Ray in our squadron and the names of the other pilots on the attack are similarly mangled or completely ficticious.

This account certainly deserves five stars, no question about it. Spurr presents an excellent and very readable account of the last sailing of the Yamato on it's suicide mission to Okinawa. The author switches back and forth between the American side and the Japanese side, and, because of this, presents two sides of the same event. And, when reading both sides, the reader gets the impression that the author has done one heck of a job of research. The American characters, and especially the Japanese characters, come alive as real people, in real situations, in real action. Spurr has done an excellent job in both research and presentation; the book is exciting and hard to put down once you start reading. I was also impressed with the clarity of maps and diagrams, which, in most books of this period, are so small and blurry they are impossible to read. A great battleship. A great story.

Other reviews have eloquently praised this wonderful book, so I'll restrict my remarks to related material.

If this subject interest you, try Yoshida Mitsuru's book: "Requiem for the Battleship Yamato". This is a first-person account of Yamato's final mission, and is one of the greatest literary accomplishments of World War II.

And to the reviewer who wanted Spielberg to make a movie of this story, please know that several films about the Yamato's final voyage have already been made in Japan. At least one film was made in the fifties, another version, "Rengo Kantai" (the Grand Fleet) was released in 1981, and a film called the "Battleship Yamato" was released a few years ago. None of these are available in the United States. Hopefully, someone will see fit to import at least one of the recent films (both reportedly lavish productions), as any of these would be preferable to a U.S. production.

Spurr's book, while it may suffer from some transcription errors (see the late Mr. Ray's review below) is none-the-less a superb and highly accurate account of Yamato's "surface kamikaze mission" to Okinawa in April 1945.

Yamato was not only the flagship of the IJN; its very name means 'Japan' as a poetic term dating back hundreds of years. The symbolism was not lost on the Japanese - end of the Battleship Yamato - end of the Japanese Empire.

The final mission was a suicide mission, undertaken by a reluctant admiral who hated throwing away thousands of men, but was in the end convinced to do his duty and turn the world's biggest battleship into the world's biggest decoy, designed to draw USN planes away from the waves of kamikazes attacking the invasion fleet off Okinawa.

Yoshida Mitsuru's first-person account of the final battle from a bridge officer is another must-read for anyone interested in the subject - indeed it is one of the main sources used by Spurr, along with interviews of other survisors.

Battleship Yamato is remembered in Japan today in a similar way to how the Texians of the 19th century remembered the Alamo.

And she was a magnificent ship to boot. In her one action against American ships off Samar in the Philippines in Oct 1944 she hit four different American ships, sinking one light carrier (Gambier Bay), and contributing to the sinking of two destroyers (Johnston and Hoel.)

Outstanding story about a little known WWII battle. Many personal interviews of persons on both sides of the battle make for very interesting reading. Very interesting and informative.

HIJMS Yamato was - and will now forever be, the largest Battleship ever built. It will also forever remain a supreme curiosity that Japan - the one country which had the foresight to recognise how air power and aircraft carriers were the sea-going naval might of the future, should insist on building 2 Yamato class Battleships when their construction almost bankrupted the nation to the extent that their building even deprived the country's fishermen of their nets.

Nevertheless this magnificent vessel of death, doom and destruction went into service at a time when the Imperial Japanese Navy could do no wrong. Prior to WW2 Japan broke the terms of the peace treaties by preparing for their eventual complete domination of the Pacific region. The building of Truk Lagoon being one example. Then, in the aftermath of Pearl Harbour those plans were put into effect with devastating results. In June 1942, however, they failed to take Midway Atoll and from then on it was all downhill. Three years later, the largest Battleship ever to have been built was sent on a final mission from which she never returned.

In "A Glorious Way to Die" Russell Spurr gives an account of this great ship from beginning to tragic end. It is a complete account - as befits one of the world's greatest ships.

Perhaps the Yamato will prove to be the last great ship to be discovered by the great Bob Ballard.

NM.

I rather enjoyed this book. It gave me a sense of really being there. I wish that other books were written this way. I was astonished at how the author had studied and collected so much history from a time so long ago. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys studying WWII

This was a very decent and well researched account of the final mission of the Japanese Battleship 'Yamato'. The story was told well and the author made good use of first hand accounts by the participants on both sides. The book shows that not all Japanese were fanatical in their desire to die for no good cause, a lot where soldiers/sailors doing their duty as they saw fit.

The author presented some very interesting accounts of young Japanese sailors and of some young American pilots. It also offered a overview of the whole suicide campaign against Allied forces off Okinawa. This was a easy book to read and I came away feeling sorry for alot of the American & Japanese servicemen who gave their lives for the country. A good read!

I am trying to read all the books published that are written about, or contain material on, the Yamato-class "super-battleships" of the Imperial Japanese Navy. As I read this book, I felt like I was actually on the deck of the gigantic battleship as she was blown to her destruction.