Hinokami Park s Prayer for Peace
Thank you for visiting Hinokami Park and for offering your prayers for peace.A statue of a praying goddess has been erected in remembrance of the many crew of the Second Fleet who went to Okinawa for a special mission and lost their lives 70 years ago.
Every year on April 7th, a memorial service is held. Former crew members, relatives, and general attendees from all over the country are invited to the park.
The former crew and the relatives of those who died have built stone lanterns on both sides of the path leading to the lookout point. Six lanterns were built this year and there are now 62 lanterns in all.
The Sea Battle
70 years ago, it was believed that U.S. forces would invade Okinawa. In order to protect the island, the Imperial Japanese Navy devised a strategy. It was a suicide mission that required the Yamato to beach herself on Okinawa's shoreline and to, consequently, become an unsinkable fortress.
The Yamato and ten other battleships belonging to the Second Fleet departed for their mission from Tokuyama in Yamaguchi prefecture on the evening of April 6th, 1945. The fleet passed the coast of Makurazaki from the Osumi Strait at 6:00 a.m. and headed south toward Okinawa. At 12:32 p.m., 386 U.S. Navy warplanes first attacked the fleet at about 160km west-southwest of Makurazaki. At 14:23 p.m. after two hours of intense fighting, the Yamato overturned due to the damage sustained from ten torpedoes and eight bombs.
Under the observatory,
there is a photograph panel on the right hand side
There are eight battleships in the photograph.
When the Yamato (pictured in the center of the eight ships) overturned, the magazine a room used for keeping military arms and ammunition fell into disarray. About 1,000 cannonshells fell and the ship's ammunitions caused a very large explosion.
The United States Armed Forces reported that the smoke went up to a height of 6,000 meters,recorded as being visible from makurazaki city. A color photo of the chrysanthemum crest was taken by a submarine investigation of the sunken ship in 1985.
The only battleships with a chrysanthemum crest on their bow like this are the battleship Yahagi and the Yamato. Judging from the size of the crest, it is understood that it belonged to the battleship, Yamato.
With its demise, the Yamato broke into three parts. The boat's wreckage can be found 200 kilometers west-southwest of Makurazaki at a depth of 340 meters.
Casualties on the Japanese side amounted to 3,721, just over half of the 7,236 people who fought that day. Six ships including the Yamato were sunk. On the American side, ten airplanes went down and 14 casualties were recorded.
View from the front of the memorial monument
Yamato, which played a leading role in this mission, was equipped with cannons of a 46 centimeter in diameter-the largest of all the cannons used in Japanese battle ships. The weight of one cannonshell was 1.46 tons with a length of about 2 meters, and a maximum flying distance of 42 km. The Battleship was quite modern and held such amenities as an elevator and air-conditioning. Its crew often referred to it as the "Yamato Hotel.
Three multiple-barreled turrets dominated the decks of Yamato, each weighing 2,934 tons and consuming enough electricity to power 50,000 modern-day cities for one year. To control these massive weapons, Yamato's fire control room had a very primitive computer installed. This machine's function was to spot the shells' trajectories as they left the barrel, calculate their point of impact and issue Sophisticated machines like this were vulnerable to heat, humidity and dust, so it was air-conditioned to protect the machine from these problems. The air-conditioning was,unfortunately, not for the crew's benefit.
The building expenses for the battleship were equivalent to that of the construction of the 1970 Shinkansen (Tokyo -- Shin-Osaka).
The Imperial Japanese Navy used their financial power to endow Yamato with the most advanced technology ever made. However, the naval world changed drastically with the advent of airplanes and aircraft arriers. And the Japanese Imperial Navy could not catch up with this new trend. So Yamato didn’t make a remarkable showing in that sense.
Yamato's commanders briefed the crew on the nature of the mission - "tokkou", meaning "special attack" - and older crew members were required to leave, as well as the sick and injured.
However the advancements in technology and knowledge gained from the construction of the Yamato were of great benefit to the post-war ship-building industry in Japan.
In addition, the commander let 73 cadets who had joined the crew in March leave the ship with the tention of“letting skilled men live to protect the country.”The commander felt that“dying for the sake of the country”was not the only way to maintain honor. But on the other hand, they didn’t allow civilians who specialized in hair-cutting, cooking and washing to leave the ship.
The U.S. ended this battle in an overwhelming victory after a fierce two-hour battle. The Japanese crew, on the other hand, did their best trying to fulfill their duties and died. We praise the honor of the crew with this monument and offer our prayers so that their souls may rest in peace.
Thank you for visiting this historic site. We pray you have a safe trip home and hope to see you again soon.
References
・National Institure for Defense Studies(NIDS)
・"Tokkou" Force's Complete History
・"Kamikaze" Document
・"Suikoukai" (Naval Officer's Club)
・Author: Tadatake Kitagawa
・English translation: masaaki nakamura