USS YORKTOWN SINKS JAPANESE BATTLESHIP YAMATO

Largest Battleship in Naval History

By HERBERT HOUCK, JOHN CARTER, RALPH VALIQUET and CHARLES FRIES
Date Line: April 7, 1945.
Music from "Victory at Sea" by Richard Rodgers on television series on NBC

 

The Japanese battleship Yamato was the BIGGEST battleship ever built. It was a monster of well over 75,000 tons fully loaded, with 200,000-horsepower turbines giving a top speed of 31 knots and a range of 7200 miles, and hosting a crew of 2,747 officers and men. This fortress-of-the-sea was thought to be unsinkable. It bristled with three huge triple turrets of 18.1 inch guns that could fire a 1½ ton projectile over 22 miles. Their blast was so fierce that boats could not be carried on the open deck. At each salvo antiaircraft gunners in exposed positions were likely to be scorched, stripped of their clothing, and knocked unconscious. Secondary armament consisted of 6.1-inch guns plus amidships concentration of six dual-purpose 5-inch turrets and 31 closely packed tubs of mostly triple antiaircraft machine guns numbering 98 in all. Armor was the heaviest ever installed on any warship. It formed a citadel, a kind of armored box around the vessel’s vitals: the amidships section containing the 12 engine and boiler rooms, was topped by 8-inch plate designed to resist a 2500 pound armor-piercing bomb dropped from a height of over 10,000 feet. Sixteen-and-a-half-inch plate formed a ledge along the outer hull tapering down to 3.9 inches at 20 feet below the waterline. This mightiest of all battleships-accompanied by the light cruiser Yahagi and eight destroyers-was dispatched on April 6, 1945 to disrupt and destroy the American invasion forces on Japan’s home island of Okinawa. It was to be a kamikaze attack to set an example of the Imperial Navy’s devotion to the Emperor and in recognition that the quality of life there had deteriorated badly and could only get worse [The Last Great Victory, 1995]. This invincible Japanese fleet need only burst in on the moored American transports, suspending all landing operations, providing the ideal opportunity for the Japanese garrison stationed there to mount its counterattack and hurl the invaders back into the sea. Rear Admiral Kosaku Ariga, Captain of the Yamato was overheard saying to his staff, “what a glorious way to die! The last banzai! This great ship and her escorts, hurtling forward at full speed in the predawn darkness, descending like a divine thunderbolt in the midst of the enemy host, spreading panic and disorder. The Yankees losing their heads, as they did at Savo Island, firing blindly at each other in the darkness…the sea littered with drifting burning ships.”[from “A Glorious Way to Die” 1954]

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The flamboyant Jocko Clark—the highest-ranking naval officer of Native American descent in US history—was admired by his men on the USS Yorktwn but not by everyone for his "Call 'em as I see 'em" leadership style.  The accompanying CD includes excerpts of interviews with Admirals J. J. Clark, Arleigh Burke, and George Anderson and other notable naval figures.

 

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However, there was one significant obstacle underway that would forever doom Admiral Ariga’s plans-the pilots and air crewmen of American Task Group 58.4, made up of fighters, dive-bombers and torpedo bombers from the USS Yorktown, along with air-groups from other carriers. Three Yorktown pilots recall for us now the events leading to the last convulsive moments of the Yamato following their attack on the mightiest battleship of them all. Their stories unfold as the Yorktown air operations officers, Lieutenant Commander Cooper “Buck” Bright, and air group commander, Lieutenant Commander Herbert N. Houck, developed their ship’s attack schedule as the Yorktown sped north before dawn on 7 April. Houck would lead about twenty F6F Hellcat fighter bombers armed with a 500-pound general purpose bomb; 13 SB2C Helldiver dive bombers carrying two 1,000 pounders; and twenty TBM Avenger torpedo bombers. While the enemy gunners were fighting off the bombers and low-level fighter planes, the torpedo-carrying Avengers would dive close to sea level and begin their hazardous run. It was essential that they hold course long enough, about 300 feet above the water, to launch their fish at the prescribed range of about 1200 yards. At that distance, making due allowance for the Yamato’s course and speed, one or more fish, but not all, were expected to hit. The idea was to drop a spread that no maneuvering by Yamato could possibly evade. But the air ticker tape to the ready rooms surprised everyone in Torpedo Nine: “Load with torpedoes.” The pilots let out a roar of approval, and one of them chalked a picture of a “fish” on the blackboard. Admiral Mitscher wanted the fish to let in water while the bombers let in air and started fires. As dawn broke with the customary overcast, the Yorktown sent a flight of fighters to patrol Okinawa. At 0830, word of the sighting came from an Essex search plane, just off the southwest coast of Kyushu. It was the Yamato, along with the cruiser Yahagi plus eight destroyers. The ‘torpecker’ jockeys bolted from their chairs, chanting in unison, “Hubba! Hubba! Hubba!” At 1038, the Yorktown began launching her 43 planes—more than half an hour behind the other groups. [from article, “Taps for the Torpecker,” Clark G. Reynolds]. As strike leader of Flight Group #9, Herb Houck indicated, “I hovered over the Jap fleet at about 1,000 feet in order to see the entire field of operation below and coordinate the attack. “Our primary target actually was the escorting cruiser Yahagi and accompanying destroyers.

 

Incidentally, fighters firing 50-caliber machine gun bullets could tear a destroyer apart. “Tom Stetson, head of the TBM “Avenger” torpedo planes, called me by radio stating that the Yamato was listing 20 degrees, as a result of being hit by other carrier planes earlier in the day, and only a short distance from the cruiser Yahagi and requested permission to split his TBMs and go after the Yamato as well. I approved providing the torpedo depth was changed from 10 feet to 20 feet prior to the drop. The torpedo depth had been preset to 10 feet before take-off to accommodate the cruiser. “That done, the six TBMs would go in on the high side that exposed the underbelly so that the torpedo would hit below the thicker armor plate. I saw the runs and figured they got at least 5 hits. With the 20-degree listing the torpedoes exploded right into the belly of the ship. A couple minutes later the Yamato rolled over and blew up.




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