People who know me are aware that I am rather fond of anime and manga. Last season I enjoyed watching an anime series called Kantai Collection based off a browser game of the same name.
http://www.crunchyroll.com/kancolle
Essentially the series features an enemy called the Abyssal Fleet which has taken over the seas. Fighting them are girls who wear weaponized outfits and possess the spirit of historical naval vessels known as kanmusu.
The story is about the girls living together at a naval base, where they spend their everyday lives as they train for battle. One of the characters is the Battleship Yamato. For those who don't know the ship, it was one of the most powerful naval vessel ever floated.
In the story, she is their trump card and runs a forward base in Truk Lagoon. However, like issues with the ship historically, due to her need for large quantities supplies, she has limited experience at sea.
What is funny, the ship's living conditions were so legendary (the crew had real beds and air conditioning) that they gave her the nicknamed "Hotel Yamato". So when the character yelled out 'I'm not a Hotel' I had to laugh.
I read today that seventy years ago, with the US getting ready to invade Japan, Yamato and nine escorts set sail to attack the Allied forces assembled on and around Okinawa. In theory, the great lady would then be beached to act as an unsinkable gun emplacement and continue to fight until destroyed. Unfortunately for the Yamato, the allies intercepted the radio transmissions.
On April 7, 1945 around 12:30, 280 bomber and torpedo bomber aircraft arrived over the Japanese force. Yamato was hit by at least eleven torpedoes and six bombs. Around 2:30, she exploded in a mushroom cloud almost 4 miles high.
The ship sank quickly, taking some 3,055 of her 3,332 crew, including fleet commander Vice-Admiral Seiichi Itō to the bottom of the sea.
Its funny how some things get to you. When I read she went down with her admiral, I actually cried. If you ever read any of the stories, or watched the anime, its very fitting.
Of course, the loss of 3000 was a drop in the bucket for such a terrible war that claimed around 80 million lives. So just a prayer, to all those that lost their lives in those troubling times.
To the brave young men who sailed on the proud lady named the Yamato that fateful day, may they find peace under those blue waters.
Elsbeth
It is well that war is so terrible, otherwise we should grow too fond of it.
Comments
very nicely written
Very nicely written.
Yamato wreck
A collection of divers actually located and filmed the wreckage of the Yamato.
http://www.livescience.com/50031-sunken-japanese-battleship-...
says the wreck that was sunk in the battle you are talking about was her sister ship, the Musashi, and gives a different location for the Yamato
Stupidity is a capital offense. A summary not indictable.
I'm not a huge anime fan...
But years ago I saw some crazy cartoon where they fixed up the Yamoto and turned it into a spaceship. She's probably doing battle right now with those space spitfires from Dr. Who.
What borders on pure insanity?
Canada and Mexico.
.
the anime spoka of above
Space Battleship Yamato
Star Blazers
I must respectfully disagree
Given the revelations of what the Japanese atrocities (vivisection according to the Daily Mail) they visited on some US airmen who bailed out over Japan, I think they died pretty easily actually. And being of Chinese descent it is not so easy to forgive (if Japan ever truly apologizes) the atrocities they visited on the Chinese folks under their thumb.
It is just a fact of war and there were 3000 less fanatics to oppose a potential US invasion.
that a bad example
(take this with a grain of salt, as I'm not implying that you personally feel this way)
but I dont see why the Chinese still talk about the Japanese invasion like it had happened to them... i imagine there's probablly a handful of them left alive to this day that were there and experienced the atrocities. And why should the Japanese appologize? It's not like the Chinese didn't try to do the same to them first anyway...(and not just once)
American's suffered just as much from the Japanese during WWII, you dont see us running around spouting anti-Japanese bigotry...Hell just about the opposite, most American's love the Japanese. Why? because they are not the people that fought in that war nearly 100 years ago!!
It's like black people who talk about slavery as if they had just been free'd yesterday.... where there's not a person living who was enslaved (not counting modern day sex slaves trafficked to the US and other parts of the world) and yet there are tons of young black Americans walking around with a chip on their shoulder citing their slavery as a reason to continue their racism against white's who hasn't done a damn thing to them.
Do the Koreans feel that way
Do the Koreans feel that way about all the slave workers that the Japanese kept during WW-II?
I'm just asking because I haven't a CLUE. All I know is that some people (Americans, mostly) still whine about the deaths caused by the Nagasaki and Hiroshima blasts, and often refer to the 'innocent Korean slave labour' that died during the blasts. (Because apparently they're MUCH more innocent than the children that died, or the millions more that might have died if Japan had kept fighting for even another 6 months) I've also heard about the sexual slave/comfort workers Japan used from Korea and China during that time period.
Thing is, none of the reports can really say how people really feel about it, or if most people are simply, "it happened so long ago, I don't even think about it."
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
We whine about it?
Didn't even know there were Korean's there... I've never heard anyone whine about it.
Learn something new every day...
*whines* Oh! those poor 'innocent' Koreans!
I guess that answers my
I guess that answers my question :)
(probably the healthiest way to deal with it)
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Warm place in Hell
Yes, the Japanese armies committed all sorts of atrocities on their neighbors. horrible nightmarish things. And if they do apologize, don't hold your breath, it will have to come from the Imperial Throne to be of any real value.
I hope there is a warm place in Hell for those who committed such vile deeds no matter whose side their fought.
The allies weren't boyscouts either, although one shouldn't be surprised to find that the Russians 'raped' their way across Europe. Read about Gabriele Köpp who was repeatedly raped by Russian soldiers in 1945, when she was just 15.
Some people will say 'couldn't happen to nicer people' but I just cant, it makes me sick. The experiences of these young girls and even some much younger and the terror when a squad of Russian soldiers broke into their homes.
And for the poor seventeen year old farm boys who were drafted, or joined up because all of his friends were doing the same thing. The same boys who ended up stationed in the bowls of the Yamato to have their lives cut short when millions of gallons of water flooded into the ship, I'm sorry I just cant hate them.
War is a horrible thing.
Is fearr Gaeilge briste, ná Béarla clíste.
Broken Irish is better than clever English.