THE YAMATO
______Japan became a world power rather late in the game, due to her isolationism. When Japan did decide to enter the world community it did so with a vengeance. Part of her early military successes as a modern nation were due to her navy, built along British lines. Stinging defeats against the Chinese and, more significantly, the Russians gave Japan a prominent place in Asia.
______The Japanese Army relied upon the tenacity, viciousness and expendable nature of the common soldier. The Imperial Japanese Navy, on the other hand, had to retain at least a technical parity with its enemies and potential enemies, if not superiority. This led to the construction of the world's largest battleship, the IJN Yamato.
______The keel was laid for the Yamato in 1937, although it clearly violated the 1922 Washington Naval Treaty, which set caps for overall tonnage of warships for the signatories (U.S., Britain, France, Italy, and Japan) as well as a 35,000 ton limit for any individual warship. Work on the 62,000 ton warship was kept secret and it was meant to be the first of four such super-battleships, vessels which would overawe any other ship in the world.
______The warship had up to 16 inches of armor and its nine 18-inch guns could theoretically hit a target at almost 46,000 yards. The Yamato made the Bismarck look like a torpedo boat.
______The Yamato saw only limited action during World War II, since two new weapons made battleships very vulnerable: the airplane and the submarine. At least one American sub got a shot at it in 1943, making the Japanese more reluctant than ever to risk combat.
______In 1945, with the tide turning ever further against Japan, the Yamato was given enough fuel for a one-way trip to Okinawa, where the Japanese Army was fighting a desperate, suicidal battle against an American invasion force. The Yamato was ordered to use the massive firepower in any way it could to affect the outcome of the battle. In effect, the Yamato became the biggest Kamikazi fielded by the Japanese.
______Predictably, the Yamato was spotted by a U.S. Naval plane well before it reached Okinawa. Carrier aircraft were vectored in to hit the super-battleship and its task force. Despite antiaircraft fire from its AAA mounts and special shells fired from its main guns that threw up huge clouds of shrapnel at the enemy aircraft, the Yamato suffered 10 bomb hits and 12 torpedo hits. It was the greatest battleship ever built... during a naval war where the carrier proved to be the weapon of decision.
WHAT WAS THE CODENAME FOR THE U.S. ARMY'S INVASION OF CASTRO'S CUBA?
