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''A Glorious Way to Die: The Kamikaze Mission of the Battleship Yamato, April 1945'' is a 1981 military history book by Russell Spurr about the suicide mission of the against the American Pacific Fleet during the Battle of Okinawa near the end of World War II. ''Yamato'' was the largest battleship in the world, and Japan sacrificed her in a final, desperate attempt to halt the Allied advance on the Japanese archipelago. The book was published in 1981 in the United States by Newmarket Press,〔 and in the United Kingdom by Sidgwick & Jackson.〔 Spurr, a British journalist and editor of the Hong Kong-based ''Far Eastern Economic Review'', interviewed Japanese and Americans involved with ''Yamato''s last mission, and drew on Japanese naval documents and records to write the book. He tells the story from both the Japanese and American points of view. ''A Glorious Way to Die'' was generally well received by critics and historians. American author and journalist Charles Kaiser wrote in ''The New York Times'' that the book's strength is "its ability to re-create the fear the Japanese engendered with their desperation tactics", which resulted in American perception that they were all prepared to fight to the death.〔 A reviewer in the Canadian journal ''Pacific Affairs'' commended Spurr's "well-balanced treatment of historical evidence and his workmanship in reconstructing the tragic event", and said that the book "deserves wide reading".〔 ==Background== During World War II Russell Spurr was a lieutenant in the Royal Indian Navy fighting the Japanese in Burma.〔 After the war, in February 1946, Spurr was part of the Commonwealth occupation force stationed in the Japanese naval base of Kure in southern Japan. There he noticed a huge drydock standing empty, and after querying what it had been used for, he learnt that it was where ''Yamato'' had been built. Spurr had been isolated in Burma for several years and had never heard of ''Yamato'', but he became interested in her story and started collecting information about the battleship. After returning to England, Spurr worked as a journalist. In 1952 ''The London Daily Express'' sent him to Japan as its China and Far East correspondent, but he found that he had little time to resume his pursuit of information on the fate of ''Yamato''. In the mid-1970s Spurr returned to the Far East again, this time as a writer for the ''Far Eastern Economic Review''.〔〔 He began conducting interviews about ''Yamato'' with former Japanese naval commanders and survivors of the battleship's last mission. He also gained access to Japanese naval documents and records seized by the United States, plus US interrogation transcripts. For the American side of the story, he interviewed US naval commanders and personnel involved in the sinking of ''Yamato''. Satisfied with what he had, Spurr began writing the book in the late 1970s, over 30 years after he first found out about the battleship.〔 In his introduction to the book, Spurr said that he made no attempt to "gloss over the facts, unpalatable though they may be to either side." He added, "The result, I trust, presents more than the story of a ship or a sortie, but offers some insight into the agonizing dilemma of a misguided, courageous people who persisted in continuing a hopeless war." 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「A Glorious Way to Die」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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