TOKYO — Seventy-six years ago, on April 7, 1945, the Imperial Japanese Navy vessel Yamato, the world’s largest battleship, was sunk by U.S. military aircraft. It had been deployed on a Surface Special Attack Force suicide mission to drive back U.S. forces that had landed on Okinawa. Of its 3,332-person crew, just 276 survived.
Why did Japan’s reckless “special attack” strategy, referring to suicide missions, go ahead amid strong internal opposition in the Imperial Japanese Navy? Facts uncovered by research and other findings in recent years have begun to unravel the mystery.
The Yamato was completed on Dec. 16, 1941. It measured 263 meters long, had a maximum width of 38.9 meters and a standard displacement of 65,000 metric tons, making…
