On this day in 1945, USN Helldivers and Avengers from USS Hornet and USS Bennington converted the baddest battleship of them all to the baddest pile of very expensive scrap iron on the floor of the Pacific.
We, of course, waited 'til their battleships were under way and shooting back. Plus, we declared war first.
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We, of course, waited 'til their battleships were under way and shooting back. Plus, we declared war first.
Yes, that did increase the difficulty factor a tad.
Setting up the world for a day when post-apocaptic anime characters could raise the ship again as the Argo (in US cartoons-- it retained its original christening of Yamato in the Japanese release) in the cheesey-yet-compelling serial StarBlazers. Which, in 2nd grade, I watched every day after school, at the house of the old lady who took care of me.
Pleas just know that I do know how to spell "apocalyptic". Frickin' typos.
--M
Sister ship Musashi went belly up about a day and a half earlier. The whole thing was the biggest fleet engagement of the war. About half a dozen separate battles all together, including the only battleship vs battleship engagement of the Pacific war. For various reasons, they did not win any of them. They had the opportunity to do some real damage to the Philippine invasion forces, if they hadn't quit in the middle. Their main force, including the Yamato, got chased off by a desperate attack by a handful of destroyers and destroyer escorts. They were trying to slow down the approx 30 knot enemy from catching the much slower baby flattops of the invasion support fleet. Armed with five(DD),or two(DE), 5" single gun turrets, and 10, or 3, torpedo tubes(non-reloadable), they battled battleships and cruisers for about TWO HOURS! And, the first action was by a single destroyer!(MOH to the captain) They were dodging 6" to 18" shells the entire time. These tin cans damaged every ship but the Yamato, and sank at least one cruiser. One of the two gun escorts fired over 600 5" rounds in an hour, and part of that with only one functional gun, before going down. The "little ones" were so effective, that the Japanese radioed home that they had been engaged by a cruiser division.
As one of them was sinking, a Japanese ship passed close by with their crew mustered on deck and their captain saluting from the bridge.
2200 ton(DD) ships slugging it out with opponents weighing up to 70,000+ tons. BIG brass ones there!
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