Okinawa, 1945: Sinking of the Battleship Yamato and Operation Ten-Go (Documentary)

April 1945. The Pacific War had decisively turned in favour for the United States. During the waning days of that month, the colossal Japanese battleship Yamato, a maritime behemoth, set sail for Operation Ten-Go. Laden with ammunition and troops, escorted by over half a dozen destroyers and a light cruiser, it sailed towards a suicidal thrust into the Battle of Okinawa...

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0:00 Introduction

📚 Sources:

Written by House of History

🎵 Music courtesy of Epidemic Sound

🖼 Photos, paintings and imagery: Public Domain, Wikicommons
🧾Machinima: Total War, Creative Assembly

#HouseofHistory #History

[kennethvenezia]

Okinawa was my father's last combat mission in WWII. He never talked about it. Now that he's gone, I regret not asking him about his experiences in storming beaches at Saipan, Tarawa, Peleliu, and finally Okinawa. We all live a good life because of that generation and their sacrifice. Many never came home. As far as this video, I bow my head to all the servicemen on both sides for their sacrifice. I only wish that we would evolve enough to see the futility of war. I look around at the world today and realize that perhaps I'm wishing for too much.

[glitchtastic]

Captain Tameichi Hara’s account from on board the Yahagi and after its sinking is truly amazing. And I recommend it to anyone interested in the operation.

[MagnumGreenPanther]

Lol gotta love how the blueprint background is of Space Battleship Yamato! Nice Easter Egg!

[MarcusAgrippa]

I love this series!
The visual style, and the relaxed manner of narration coupled with low background music volume is my idea of perfection, especially when you upload long form, videos as they are very relaxing and I use them to help me unwind before bedtime.
Thank you for your work!

[ThomasYoung-gokn]

Enjoyed the video. My father was the pilot of the PBM, Dog 10 that spotted the Yamato on April 7, 1945 along with Dog 8.

[free_at_last]

Wonderful work. I didn't know that the ship's crew disobeyed orders and filled their fuel tanks to allow for a possible return trip.

[thebashar]

one of the blue print backgrounds used, around 19 min, shows the Yamato as she was in the TV show Space Battleship Yamato. Very cute.

[juanpablosuarez]

2:25 I love the specifications of the space battleship 😂

[willo]

I can’t imagine what it would feel like to be there and see all this chaos going on around you. Our grandpas and great grandpas had some serious courage.

[notsosilentmajority]

Fantastic work Oscar. This was a great video and your narration is always spot on. This battle was huge for the Allies and aided in expediting the end of the war.

[bphat]

Nice video. Can we just take a second to appreciate how amazing it is to be able to lay artillery fire on targets 20+ miles away? Imagine sunning yourself on the deck and a three thousand pound AP shell comes ripping out of the clear blue sky at your ship. Yikes.

[davidhughes]

The sadest part of all this is not the might of arms and armaments but rather the sacrifice of so many brave young men.

[bkjeong]

It should be noted that while Yamato’s dismal career (albeit not quite as dismal as once assumed, but still terrible) is very often used to make the argument the Japanese failed to adapt quickly enough to the changing naval paradigm, the truth is that this was a problem that EVERYBODY had in WWII. Literally every major navy built pointless new battleships they didn’t need, and found that they couldn’t use them as capital ships, forcing them to either not use them or use them as very large, very expensive destroyers in supporting roles (which is still strategically a massive disaster and a huge waste-battleships cost so much that the only real justification for them at the strategic level was to use them as capital ships against enemy capital ships).

There were many things the IJN got wrong that other navies didn’t (their garbage anti-submarine doctrine for example). Wasting money on pointless new battleships in the carrier era isn’t one of them because everyone else also got this one wrong.

[luizh.mormille]

Great video. Very didactic! It was the first time I could clearly understand the dynamics of a battle like this. Thank you so much.

[RandallGordon-zw]

I really like the visuals and timeline animation of the ship positions and movements- allows the viewer to conceptualize what happened much better. Well done!
Also, for those who recognized it: the Space Battleship Yamato blueprints were utterly perfect! Excellent humor!

[seanconroy]

Thought you could slip the Space Battleship Yamato by us! Love that little Easter Egg! Excellent video!

[vitordavid]

Last summer I visited the yamato Museum close to Hiroshima it ls impressive and a monument to human futility

[vicbittertoo]

very brave blokes, toughest generation ever, grew up in the great depression then thrust straight into the absolute hell of WW2,
total respect !!

[robbabcock_]

Thanks for a beautifully animated and meticulously researched video! This channel is truly a marvel!⚔🔥👏

[redheads]

4:00 that's the space battleship yamato LOL