Requiem for Battleship Yamato by Yoshida Mitsuru

Author:Yoshida Mitsuru [Mitsuru, Yoshida]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781612512082
Publisher: Naval Institute Press
Published: 2013-07-30T22:00:00+00:00

The Battle Begins

1220 hours: our air search radar picks up three blips, each apparently a large formation.

In his usual guttural voice Petty Officer Hasegawa, chief of the antiaircraft radar room, gives a running commentary on their range and bearing. “Contacts. Three large formations. Approaching.”

On the instant we send out emergency signals to every ship in the task force.

Each ship increases its speed to twenty-five knots. As one, they turn. “100 degrees exact.” (Without changing its shape, the formation turns simultaneously onto a course of 100 degrees.)

Once the P.A. passes on word of the approaching planes, the ship, quiet already, becomes quieter still.

As the radar tracks the blips, the data is transmitted to us moment by moment over the voice tube: “. . . range 30,000 meters, bearing 160 degrees . . . second raid, range 25,000 meters, bearing 85 degrees. . . .”

How many times, in target practice, have we conducted such tracking? I am possessed by the illusion that we have already experienced searches under the same conditions, with the same battle positions, even with the same mood.

What is going on before my very eyes, indisputably, is actual combat—but how can I possibly convince myself of that fact?

The blips are not an imagined enemy but an enemy poised for the kill. The location: not our training waters, but hostile waters.

Nevertheless, as I pass the reports along mechanically, I am nonchalant, proceed too much by routine.

A battle against aircraft—it is at hand!

All the lookouts focus on the bearings of the approaching raids.

At this moment a light rain shrouds the ocean like a mist; visibility is now at its worst.

The moment we spot the American planes will probably be the moment they attack.

1232 hours: the gruff voice of the second watch—“Two Grummans, port 25 degrees, elevation 8 degrees, range 4,000 meters. Moving right.”

Quickly I spot them with naked eye. The ceiling is between 1,000 and 1,500 meters.

We have spotted them, but conditions are the worst possible: they are already too close; aiming is very difficult.

“First raid: five planes . . . more than ten planes . . . more than thirty . . .”

A large squadron appears out of a gap in the clouds. Every ten or twelve planes peel off in formation and make a sweeping turn to starboard.

Dead ahead, another large flight. Already entering attack formation.

“More than one hundred enemy planes attacking!” Is it the navigation officer who calls this out?

Inevitable that both torpedoes and bombs will focus on Yamato.

The captain orders: “Commence firing.”

Twenty-four antiaircraft guns and 120 machine guns open fire at the same moment.

The main guns of the escort destroyers, too, flash in unison.

The battle begins.

Here and now we fire the first shots of this desperate, death-inviting battle.

My baptism by fire. I feel like puffing out my chest, and my legs want to dance; restraining myself, I measure the weight pressing down on my knees.

As my whole body tingles with excitement, I observe my own exhilaration; as I grit my teeth, I break into a grin.

A sailor near me is felled by shrapnel.

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