Customer Reviews

NOVA: Sinking the Supership

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

 

 

IN A NUTSHELL: I HAD BEEN WAITING FOR A YEAR FOR THIS TO BECOME AVAILABLE

From the title, the theme is obvious, but my expectations were NOT meet. To me, a 'NOVA' program about the sinking of the Yamato should include both sufficient detail to satisfy naval history enthusiasts, at least visually, and demonstrate some compelling idea or theory about its sinking that seems valid and insightful.

Well, first off, the detail was lacking and vague. The visuals were mostly of stills plus a few stock footages, and the interviews were short and without much point. Considering there were over 200 survivors, interviews with Japanese 'officers' would have made for better interviews [presuming of course that some were still alive]. However, it was the vague and simplistic nature of the presentation that really soured me on this show.

THIS PROGRAM IS ABOUT FINDING AND IDENTIFYING THE WRECK MORE THAN THE CAUSE OF IT!

The centerpiece of this show was NOT the sinking of the Yamato, but instead, the finding of the Yamato's wreck after 60 years and in 1200 feet of seawater and identifying it correctly. Yes, the bow emblem, a 2 meter in diameter chrysanthemum, was present and indicated that this could only be 1 of two ships, the other being the Yamato's sister ship The Musashi, which is known to have sunk elsewhere.

Okay, so what about the compelling idea, if any? There was a huge explosion which U.S. Naval aviators caught on film which signalled the demise of the Yamato. Now that we can go to the bottom of the sea with 'Nova' we can see more empirically what happened to the ship. To make a long story short, the following hypothesis was confirmed;

1]- That the Yamato was torpedoed mostly on 1 side which led to the ship capsizing and foundering. This fact was already known.

2]- As the ship capsized, the turrets, no longer held in by gravity, slipped away and descended toward the sea floor. This allowed the shells and cordite charges that were secured inside the barbettes that were enclosed by the turrets to careen about and ultimately detonate the Yamato's magazines'. This was confirmed by the absence of the turrets which were lying adjacent to the wreckage and the enormous holes in the hull that occurred adjacent to the magazines, rather than where the torpedoes had struck the Yamato's hull.

In other words, the numerous torpedo strikes, estimated to be around 21, caused sufficent flooding to cause the ship to capsize and thus founder, but it was the exploding magazines that may have greatly added to the death toll, thought to be over 2600.

BOTTOM LINE: THOUGH DISAPPOINTED WITH 'SINKING THE SUPERSHIP' I FEEL THE SHOW IS STILL WORTH WATCHING

'Nova' is arguably the best program of its type on television with the greatest amount of content. This episode of 'Nova' DID NOT meet that standard, and appeared to me to be a 'walk-through' treatment of a topic that many people in both Japan and the United States are deeply interested in. The tone of the 'Nova' program is simple. It's as if to say, we've got the Yamato's wreckage on film, lets go out and make a program to celebrate finding its wreckage!

RECOMMENDED READING: IF YOU WOULD LIKE MORE DETAIL ABOUT THIS CLASS OF SHIP

---> Battleship Musashi : the making and sinking of the world's biggest battleship, Akira Yoshimura,

---> A glorious way to die : the kamikaze mission of the battleship, Russell Spurr,

Very disappointing!! Offered no new information. Instead, basically retold the history of the Pacific war. Apart for a few minutes of sketchy underwater footage and stock pictures of the Yamato itself (that we've all seen before) this DVD offers nothing knew to the Yamato enthusiast!

supership the yamato was,unfortunately i cannot say the same about this dvd.it had hardly any underwater film of the wreck,which i expected,but all you see is a minisub measuring the chrysanthemum crest on the great ships bow to authenticate the wreck; and they got that wrong too,the crest was/is 1.2 meters in dia,not 2 meters! a real dissapointment.

I bought this along with the Japanese movie "Yamato", aka "Men of the Yamato". Nova uses a few scenes from the Japanese movie, but tells the story of the ship's service, sinking and discovery much better.

NOVA: Sinking the SupershipExcellent and sobering account of the making and the sinking of the YAMATO, Japan's largest battleship.What struck me most was the background story of Japan's desperate position(militarily and economically)at this juncture in the Pacific War.I recommend it highly.

This documentary is somewhat disappointing, if only because it really says nothing new about the sinking of the Yamato. The surviving crew interviews were interesting and did much to help capture the mindset and atmosphere before the final voyage (a decent tribute to the sad waste of a brave crew and a fine ship), but the "aura" that the documentary creates around the ship is somewhat misleading and overblown. It is almost as if the circumstances of the sinking were unique to the ship...sorry, but they're not. The documentary even admits that other battleships were sunk or damaged by aircraft.

What is most perplexing in that vein is that there is NO mention of the Yamato's sister ship, Musashi...perhaps because it was sunk under almost under identical circumstances (overwhelmed by US carrier aircraft) a year eariler. Mentioning that fact would have seriously undercut the "how could the Yamato have been sunk so easily" theme of this documentary.

BTW, if you want to see what happens when shells and powder collide in a capsizing battleship, check out the sinking of the HMS Barham on YouTube.

Start out with Amazon's description of the DVD; "This was the firts battle the Yamato was in". Nonsense- how about Leyte Gulf? How about the number of sorties that it led all over the Pacific?
The fact is that the Yamato was a tremendous threat to US forces, I probably sunk at least 1 "Jeep" carrier in Leyte Gulf, and was only able to run away from a confrontation with the Iowa and NJ off of the Phillipines because the US Battleships were running on one boilder in order to save fuel. What a gigantic disappointment this DVD is, plain lousy.

The Yamato, the largest battleship ever built. Its demise during WWII is a fascinating tale of tech, engineering hubris, and the samurai code.