"When you walk inside, there are arrows telling you which direction is the front and which is the back—otherwise you can't tell. For a couple of days I didn't even know how to get back to my own quarters." That was Naoyoshi Ishida's recollection of the battleship, or as some called super-battleship, Yamato. Her 18-inch guns were wide, but just by the statistic of the gun barrels one cannot imagine the terror the recipients of the 3,000-pound shells must feel. Luckily for the Americans, there were not too many who stood on the receiving end of the monstrous shells, for that the proud ship did not enter combat until it was too late for her to make a difference, let alone being built as history's largest battleship to date in the age of aircraft. After she sank off Okinawa, the ship remained an object of extreme fascination, spawning off numerous films, novels, even an anime that set stage in the future.
To learn more about the battleship Yamato, see the links below. Shamelessly, link to my own site is listed first
WW2DB: Yamato
NOVA | Sinking the Supership | PBS
Yamato class
Japanese Navy Ships--Yamato (Battleship, 1941-1945)
Has anyone seen the recent Japanese movie on the Yamato? Is it any good?