At left: Yamato's fatal explosion on
April 7, 1945. When the smoke and debris cleared the mightily battleship
was gone!
By Russell Spurr
Used Hardback (book
club) with dust jacket
Below: Japanese battleship, Yamato.
NOTE: This image does not appear in the book.
318 pages, 37 B/W
photographs, 4 maps and diagrams.
Used $19.95
The Yamato was the biggest
and most powerful battleship ever built. Assembled in intense secrecy at a
specially prepared dock to hide her construction, the massive 72,000-ton
Japanese warship was commissioned in December 1941, just over a week after the start
of the Pacific war. Yamato housed nine, 18-inch guns in three giant
turrets. She could fire 3,200 pound armor piercing shells, out-gunning even
America's best; the Iowa-class battleships. Yamato's armor protection
was also unsurpassed. With a crew of 2,700 men and just over 862 feet long,
the battlewagon quickly became the pride of the Imperial Japanese Navy—and a
top priority target for the U.S. Navy. She was
torpedoed by the American submarine USS Skate (SS-305) in December
1943 but failed to sink. At the Battle of Leyte Gulf in October 1944,
Yamato unleashed her big guns in an engagement with U.S. escort carriers
and destroyers off the island of Samar. As the Pacific war pushed on to
conclusion, the Japanese sent Yamato on a one-way kamikaze mission in
April 1945. Yamato was to hurl herself at the invading Allied vessels
at Okinawa and destroy as many ships as possible. Russell Spurr tells the
true story of the mightiest battleship to ever go to sea, from Yamato's
launching to the disastrous sinking at the hands of the Allies in 1945.
1981
Hardback edition (Book Club) with dust jacket. 318 pages, 37 B/W photos, 4
maps, two diagrams of Yamato, appendix and an index.
Good Cond. --- $19.95
