WELCOME TO THE INTERNET'S YAMATO & MUSASHI BATTLESHIP PHOTO ARCHIVE! (EST. 08/2008)
MAJOR UPDATE I - 08/2019 WITH DOZENS OF NEW HIGH RES PHOTOS!
MAJOR UPDATE II - 04/2024 WITH ABOUT 35 NEW PHOTOS AND DIAGRAMS ADDED. THEY CAN BE FOUND ON THE LAST 3 PAGES OF THE GALLERY
NAVIGATION INSTRUCTIONS:
INDEX PAGE LINKS ARE LOCATED ABOVE THE INDEX PHOTOS ON LEFT. TO SEE INDIVIDUAL PHOTOS, CLICK ON EACH THUMBNAIL, THEN CLICK AGAIN ON THE ENLARGED PHOTO IN THE LOWER RIGHT-HAND CORNER OF THIS PAGE AND FOLLOW THE DIRECTIONS.
READ ROBERT LUNDGREN'S BOOK ON LEYTE GULF:
'THE WORLD WONDER'D' - BATTLE OF LEYTE GULF by Robert Lundgren
YAMATO SHIRTS, POSTERS, MUGS, CAPS NOW AVAILABLE AT THE YAMATO ZAZZLE STORE:
BATTLESHIP YAMATO ZAZZLE STORE
Archive photos are from the USA National Archives & the USN, & are in the Public Domain.
LINKS:
IJN IN COLOR WEBSITE BY IROOTOKO_JR
IJN YAMATO - TABULAR RECORD OF MOVEMENT
THE ROBERT LUNDGREN HISTORICAL RESOURCE IMPERIAL JAPANESE NAVY PAGE (COMBINED FLEET) IJN SHIP DOWNLOADABLE 'PERSONAS' FOR FIREFOX BROWSER YAMATO'S FINAL BATTLE CGI FILM YAMATO AT THE BATTLE OF LEYTE GULF CGI FILM Historian Anthony Tully, (co-author of "Shattered Sword - The Untold Story of The Battle of Midway"), Forum: 3 indispensable books for any Yamato enthusiast: Janusz Skulski-The Battleship Yamato-Anatomy of a Ship Russell Spurr-A Glorious Way to Die - The Kamikaze Mission of the Battleship Yamato Yoshida Mitsuru-Requiem for Battleship Yamato (An incredible survivor's account of the battle.) Reconstruction of Yamato as she appeared during her Final Sortie in April 1945:
Note main turret #1 in front of the opening - farther along in construction, the base of the actual turret is mounted and the openings where the 18.1" rifles (guns) will be mounted can be seen.
A FEW RANDOM THOUGHTS ON YAMATO, PART IV:
For many of the most poignant never-before-seen photos of the Yamato during her final battle, I quoted liberally from Yoshida Mitsuru's poetic memoir "Requiem for Battleship Yamato". Be forewarned that some of Yoshida's descriptions of the battle are quite graphic and disturbing.
Yoshida was a 22-year-old ensign who happened to spend most of the final battle on Yamato's bridge, surrounded by Captains and Admirals. Surviving literally dozens of brushes with death on that single day, he lived to pen one of the greatest first-person accounts of the Pacific War. His book is one of the 3 works that are a must for anyone wishing to learn more about this great ship.
The following 3 books on the Yamato can be found on Amazon.com, ebay or elsewhere on the Internet by searching the names of the books and/or their authors:
1. Yoshida, Mitsuru, "Requiem for Battleship Yamato";
2. Russell Spurr, "A Glorious Way to Die - the Kamikaze Mission of the Battleship Yamato - April 1945"; and
3. Janusz Skulski's seminal "Anatomy of a Ship - Battleship Yamato".
Skulski spent 20 years researching the Battleship Yamato, painstakingly piecing together scraps of her plans, photos, and ultimately produced the authoritative hard-cover book of the plans and diagrams of every inch of the Battleship Yamato. In recent years further Japanese research, particularly after the discovery of Yamato's wreck some some time in the late 1980s or 1990s, has updated some of Skulski's final arrangement of the Yamato's anti-aircraft guns as well as their number and the type of shields they were housed in; however this in no way detracts from his book, which is the bible for anyone wishing to understand how the Yamato was built and how it functioned. Anyone wanting to build an accurate model of this ship should read the above 3 books, as well as consult the recent Japanese diagrams of Yamato & Musashi I have linked on the index page, before embarking on the project.