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was the last major Japanese naval operation in the Pacific Theater of World War II. Other renderings of this operation's title in English military history literature include Operation Heaven One (or Ten-ichi-gō). In April 1945, the Japanese battleship (the largest battleship in the world)—along with nine other Japanese warships—embarked from Japan on a deliberate suicide attack upon Allied forces engaged in the Battle of Okinawa. The Japanese force was attacked, stopped, and almost destroyed by United States carrier-borne aircraft before reaching Okinawa. ''Yamato'' and five other Japanese warships were sunk. The battle demonstrated U.S. air supremacy in the Pacific theater by this stage in the war and the vulnerability of surface ships without air cover to aerial attack. The battle also exhibited Japan's willingness to sacrifice entire ships, even the pride of its fleet, in desperate ''kamikaze'' attacks aimed at slowing the Allied advance on the Japanese home islands. This extremism reportedly contributed to the US decision to employ nuclear weapons against the Japanese. ==Background== By early 1945, following the Solomon Islands campaign, the Battle of the Philippine Sea and the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the once formidable Imperial Japanese Navy's Combined Fleet was reduced to just a handful of operational warships and a few remaining aircraft and aircrew. Most of the remaining Japanese warships in the Combined Fleet were stationed at ports in Japan, with most of the large ships at Kure, Hiroshima.〔Hara, ''Japanese Destroyer Captain'', 274.〕 As a final step before the planned invasion of the Japanese home islands, Allied forces invaded Okinawa on 1 April 1945. In March, in briefing Emperor Hirohito on Japan's response to the expected Okinawan invasion, Japanese military leaders explained that the Japanese Imperial Army was planning extensive air attacks, including the use of ''kamikaze''. The emperor then reportedly asked, "But what about the Navy? What are they doing to assist in defending Okinawa? Have we no more ships?" Now feeling pressured by the emperor to also mount some kind of attack, Japan's Navy commanders conceived a ''kamikaze''-type mission for their remaining operational large ships, which included the battleship ''Yamato''.〔Feifer, ''The Battle of Okinawa'', 7.〕 The resulting plan—drafted under the direction of the Commander in Chief of the Combined Fleet, Admiral Toyoda Soemu〔Minear, ''Requiem'', xiii.〕—called for ''Yamato'' and her escorts to attack the U.S. fleet supporting the U.S. troops landing on the west of the island. ''Yamato'' and her escorts were to fight their way to Okinawa and then beach themselves between Higashi and Yomitan and fight as shore batteries until they were destroyed. Once destroyed, the ship's surviving crewmembers were supposed to abandon the ships and fight U.S. forces on land. Very little, if any, air cover could be provided for the ships, which would render them almost helpless to concentrated attacks from US carrier-based aircraft.〔 In preparation for executing the plan, the assigned ships left Kure for Tokuyama, Yamaguchi, off Mitajiri, Japan, on 29 March.〔Yoshida, ''Requiem'', 6–7.〕 However, despite obeying orders to prepare for the mission, Vice-Admiral Seiichi Itō—commander of the ''Ten-Go'' force—still refused to actually order his ships to carry it out, believing the plan to be futile and wasteful.〔Yoshida, ''Requiem'', 62.〕 Other commanders of the Imperial Japanese Navy also had very negative feelings about the operation, believing that it was a waste of human life and fuel. Captain Atsushi Ōi—who commanded escort fleets—was critical as fuel and resources were diverted from his operation. As he was told that the aim of this operation was "the tradition and the glory of Navy," he shouted:〔Atsushi Ōi, ''Kaijō Goeisen''.〕 This war is of our nation and why should the honor of our "surface fleet" be more respected? Who cares about their glory? Damn fools! Vice Admiral Ryūnosuke Kusaka flew from Tokyo on 5 April to Tokuyama in a final attempt to convince the assembled commanders of the Combined Fleet—including Admiral Itō—to accept the plan. Upon first hearing of the proposed operation (it had been kept secret from most of them), the Combined Fleet commanders and captains unanimously joined Admiral Itō in rejecting it for the same reasons that he had expressed. Admiral Kusaka then explained that the Navy's attack would help divert U.S. aircraft away from the Army's planned kamikaze attacks on the U.S. fleet at Okinawa. He also explained that Japan's national leadership, including the emperor, were expecting the Navy to make their best effort to support the defense of Okinawa. Upon hearing this, the Combined Fleet commanders relented and accepted the proposed plan. The ship's crews were briefed on the nature of the mission and given the opportunity to stay behind if desired — none did. However, approximately 80 crew members who were new, sick, or infirm, were ordered off the ships.〔Hara, ''Japanese Destroyer Captain'', 277.〕 The ships' crews now engaged in some last-minute intense drills to prepare for the mission, mostly practicing damage-control procedures.〔Yoshida, ''Requiem'', 15.〕 At midnight, the ships were fueled. Reportedly, in secret defiance of orders to provide the ships with only just enough fuel to reach Okinawa, the Tokuyama personnel actually gave ''Yamato'' and the other ships almost all of the remaining fuel in the port, although this probably still was not enough to allow the force to return to Japan from Okinawa.〔Spurr, ''A Glorious Way to Die'', 162–165.〕 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「Operation Ten-Go」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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