Requiem for Battleship Yamato

by Mitsuru Yoshida, Richard H. Minear (translator)

Requiem for Battleship Yamato is Yoshida Mitsuru's story of his own experience as a junior naval officer aboard the fabled Japanese battleship as it set out on a last, desperate sortie in April 1945. Yoshida was on the bridge during Yamato's fatal encounter with American airplanes, and his eloquent, moving account of that battle makes a singular contribution to the literature of the Pacific war.

The book has long been considered a classic in both Japan and the United States. As with most great battle stories, its ultimate concern is less bombs and bullets than human nature, less death than life. This sensitive translation by Richard Minear is totally faithful to Yoshida's original prose, its language vigorous and idiomatic yet poetic in nature. An informative introduction puts the work in historical and political context and discusses Yoshida's postwar search for the meaning of peace.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, World War II, Japan, War, Memoir, Nautical

152 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1999

Reviews

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

It might be Mishima porn (ruddy cheeks, flashing grins, dashing uniforms and all served up with buckets of blood) ... but this really happened, kids. Those poor bastards. It is phenomenally bizarre that the Japanese military found itself in such a position; with almost everyone falling over almost everyone else to see who could kill themselves soonest. C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre.

"'Halt!' I roared. When he retraced his steps and ran up to me, I saw he was a young signalman. Fearing punishment, shoulders trembling, he studied my face intently.
'You must have seen me before you made that turn.'
'I did, sir.'
'Then why didn't you salute?' He stared at me and bit his lip.
'You knew you had acted in poor form, yet you turned away. You undoubtedly felt bad about it afterwards. Right?'
'Yes, sir.' He looked back at me dubiously.
'Saluting takes only a slight effort; it's the simplest of all acts. But if you don't do it, it leaves a bad taste. How foolish!'
'Yes, sir.'
'From now on, even if it's only your superior's back that you see, try saluting simply because it's the thing to do. It doesn't take a whole lot of effort. And you'll always feel good about it.'
'Aye, aye, sir.' Creases appeared in one cheek, and his face twisted into a smile.
'If you've got that, now let's see a real salute.'
He repeated a determined salute several times and ran off with a little skip.
'Halt!' I turned around: Lieutenant Usubuchi. Even as that thought registered, his fist landed a blow on my left cheek. Caught off guard, I reeled.
'Are there really officers who act that way – observing an infraction and yet not striking the guilty party?'"

Hamakaze "sinks in a matter of only twenty or thirty seconds. She leaves behind only a sheet of white foam."

"I notice a chunk of flesh smashed onto a panel of the broken bulkhead, a red barrel of flesh about as big around as two arms can reach.
It must be a torso from which all extremities – arms, legs, head – have been ripped off.
Noticing four hunks scattered nearby, I pick them up and set them in front of me.
...
As I lift them, they are still hot from burning; when I run my hand over them, they feel like the bark of a rough tree.
...
It is not grief and resentment. It is not fear. It is total disbelief. As I touch these hunks of flesh, for a moment I am completely lost in thought."

"Bullets ping at my back; their blasts fan my waist."

"The disparaging comment (from Lieutenant Usubuchi) - 'The world's three great follies, prize examples of uselessness, are the Great Wall of China, the pyramids, and Yamato' – evokes abusive words, shouted through the ship – 'The only way to save the navy is to execute all officers of the rank of lieutenant commander up!'"

"It is decided that the best course is to flood the engine and boiler rooms ... The abandon ship buzzer sounded to both those rooms: is it too late, too? In the instant the water rushes in, the black gang on duty are dashed to pieces, turned into drops of spray."

"Radar messenger Leading Seaman Kishimoto, seventeen years old: his lips are quivering. Terror-stricken at the chunks of flesh? the gore all around him?
What is more, the reports he himself transmits brim with the ferocity of the battle and the misfortunes of his shipmates.
I look him straight in the eye and give him one blow on the cheek. His boyish face reddens; the quivering ceases. A sweet fellow."

"Even though we have cleared away the lumps of flesh that were scattered all over, the bloodstains remain, like birthmarks.
Already more than half those on the bridge are dead; it is nice to have much more room to move around in,"

"The torpedoes hit aft. Floating in the air for a moment, the stern is mantled in pillars of flame, pillars of water."

"The Chief of Staff: 'Beautifully done, isn't it! ... At the beginning of the war we flung a challenge to the world: how to attack capital ships with carrier planes. Now we get a brilliant answer thrust upon us.'"

"From our starboard bow Kasumi steams blindly at us, flying signal flags: 'Have lost steering control.' Torpedoes must have gotten its rudder.
Kasumi lists drunkenly.
How can we avoid a collision?
Exasperated by our own paralysis, we struggle and finally manage to dodge Kasumi.
For the first time since the battle began, laughter is heard on the bridge. Are we laughing at ourselves?"

"Phone calls from the steering compartment for the main rudder become more frequent. The officer in charge ... reports that the flooding has progressed to the compartment next to him.
Meanwhile, he calmly recites the position of the rudder moment by moment.
Suddenly he shouts twice, his voice understandably constricted: 'Flooding imminent! Flooding imminent!'
Then, a moment's sounds of destruction, and communications break off completely.
On Yamato's main tower the signal flag goes up: 'Rudder damaged'."

"Writhing in agony on the surface of the water, this unsinkable giant ship is now an ideal target for bombs, nothing more."

"The captain: 'How about the portrait of His Majesty?'
From the man in charge ... comes a hastily written reponse delivered by messenger: That he has the imperial portrait in his quarters and has locked the door from the inside. There is no surer way than this, to protect it with his life."

"I see the navigation officer and the assistant navigation officer face each other and bind themselves together.
Knees rubbing and shoulders touching, they attempt to bind each other's legs and hips to the binnacle.
It would be a matter for shame if by any chance they should float to the surface."

"The bridge is already just a dark chamber lying on its side."


Interesting:
There was a nisei serving on Yamato! From California, he'd been at Keio University when the war started and was now intercepting Allied communications. Meanwhile, his brothers were fighting for the Allies in Europe.

From the introduction:
"katakana is used today primarily in telegrams and in transcribing words of foreign origin; before 1945 it was used more broadly, offical government reports being one such use. Yoshida uses katakana throughout, thus emphasizing the sense of immediacy, of reading a military dispatch."

"For naval terminology in English I have followed primarily Samuel Eliot Morison, most notably in speaking of 'Yamato,' not 'the Yamato.'”
When I was little it was always "the Titanic", but then that film came out and everything changed.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Most everyone who knows anything about the Pacific War has heard of the Battleship Yamato - Japan's mighty flagship, one of the biggest warships ever built. Unfortunately, it was built too late, to fight the previous war. World War II was a war of air power in which carriers would make battleships obsolete. The Yamato barely saw action before its final voyage, where it was sent to defend the Japanese homeland and was sunk within sight of port by American torpedo planes.



Requiem for Battleship Yamato is in the same genre as several similar memoirs I've read by German and Japanese WWII officers. Mitsuru Yoshida was a junior officer aboard the Yamato, and one of the few survivors, so his story is interesting for historical reasons, but he's no great storyteller, nor is his individual story that interesting, so his account is simply a dry narrative about serving aboard the Yamato, then setting out on what everyone knew was its last voyage.

Unlike some other officers, like Tameichi Hara or Hans von Luck, Yoshida doesn't spend any time trying to justify himself or explain that he was really against the war all along - he was just a junior officer serving as he was told. There is one sad episode in his narrative in which he describes a Nissei crewman aboard the Yoshida who had family still back in California, and who died when the Yamato went down. Yoshida mentions writing to his mother in America after the war, and receiving a reply from her in which she was proud of her son's service, and his honorable death, despite the fact that he was fighting against her adopted country. This must have been the sort of divided mentality many Japanese-Americans, or Japanese with American relatives, felt, and indeed, Admiral Yamamoto and other high-ranking officers, who had lived and studied and traveled in the U.S., clearly had misgivings both moral and strategic about the entire premise of the war.

Yoshida's memoir, however, is mostly just an account of the battle itself, and in its sparse prose and his very Japanese reflections on life and death and beauty, he humanizes an enemy that was deeply dehumanized to us during the war. (I cannot, however, make an observation like that without noting that in fairness, the Japanese were guilty of even more atrocious dehumanization of their foes.) He went into the ocean when the Yamato went down, and was rescued afterwards, and spent time in the hospital coughing up oil, and lived until 1979. Apparently his book was made into a movie in Japan in 1953... I'll have to track it down someday.

[Matt Ely · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book about the absurdity of facing death.

The author recounts in sparse, poetic detail the sequence of events that led to him narrowly escaping a sinking battleship. It is wildly rooted in the present tense, though written in retrospect, you are stuck with the narrator as he recounts the whipping, vivid thoughts of someone balancing his duty and his hopelessness. The brief digressions to tell the stories of his fellow sailors are beautiful in themselves, and taken as a whole clearly support the theme of chance, of the arbitrary unfairness of one living or dying.

I never faced death on this scale. But still, in my time in the military, my closest encounters with arbitrary violence felt the way this book feels. I was resigned to losing a life I'd barely lived, and the author seems to try to scream through to his past self at the insanity of his comfort. I, too, want to yell at a past self who said he was ready to die when he had no idea (has no idea) what that means.

The translation is clipped, brusque and hypnotic. It is upsetting and difficult to put down. The author is not merely saying a requiem for a boat; it's a song sung for the impossible situation of the thousands of men who died that day. This book is less one that you understand intellectually and more a book that finds a resonant echo with the part of your heart and the bits of your past that you tend to ignore.

To put it at its simplest, this book did everything it could hope to do. And then it did some more.

I don't know how or whether to recommend it. But if you read the description and think that it might be singing a song you know, pick it up and sing along.

[Nicholas Grummon · Rating 3 out of 5]

To lose and be brought to one’s senses: that is the supreme path.
Death in a special attack is far easier [than on the home front]. No one put in my position would have acted any differently.
- The super bowl was so boring this year, I read this entire book while watching. The narrative humanizes the Japanese perspective on WWII with its graphic depiction of the doomed Battleship Yamato, a ship sent as a decoy to draw American fire during the siege of Okinawa with no plan of return.

[Gianna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. A lot. The sparse prose and horrifying imagery makes it easy to fly through and difficult to process.

[Reza Amiri Praramadhan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Battleship Yamato was indeed, a marvel, one of the greatest battleships if not of all ships in history. Staggeringly monstrous, Yamato was designed to defeat any battleship in duels. However, Yamato also came to symbolize the end of battleship supremacy, for it came out at the time when aircraft carriers and its assorted cargoes of torpedo and dive bombers ruled the naval engagements, making Yamato a glorified junk by the time it was put into a serious kind of operation.

In this splendid, but rather poetic memoir, we followed the experiences of Ensign Yoshida, who was posted as one of the bridge officers aboard Yamato as it underwent its final sortie, to provide naval supports for Japanese land forces then fighting in Okinawa, and then to beach itself and serve as a land battery, a rather inglorious end for that magnificent ship. Even in reaching that goal, The Imperial Naval Task force failed utterly, for not long after sailing out to the sea, they were swarmed by torpedo and dive bombers, dropping numerous explosives, which the most numbers were targeted at the Yamato, until it finally sunk after receiving tens of bombs and torpedoes, taking around 3.000 lives of brave sailors with it.

Throughout the book, Ensign Yoshida explains the gloomy and hopelessness within Yamato, where everyone who sailed in it went out with expectation that they will not come back alive. And went down into the sea they go. What I really like from this book that Yoshida focused on the bravery of the men, from the Admiral in charge of the task force, down to a sailor boy, without overly romanticizing it, which probably make this book a rather nauseating experience. He also did not criticize how the war efforts were done by the navy, which made this book censored by the authorities long enough.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Harrowing and moving, the trials of a sincere and loyal soldier on a pointless and suicidal mission are brought to life. It's so easy, in discussions of international conflict and battle, to forget that at the end of the day it's people. All the way down. "Requiem" accomplishes for death in sea battle what "Barefoot Gen" did for the atomic bomb, "Grave of the Fireflies" for incendiary bombings and post-war starvation and "Under the Flag of the Rising Sun" for death on tropical islands. War brings more than just death, and "heroic death" is hardly as clean as government propaganda and Hollywood movies want you to believe. The chaos, confusion, desperation and cruelty are interspersed by moments of transcendence but not redeemed by them. The first half of the book is picturesque, if a bit slow, but the second half is fast-moving and intense.

The introduction discusses the author's commitment to pacifism and the effects of Occupation censorship on the initial publication, as well as the book's distinctive Japanese writing style. The translation appears by all measures to be quite competent.

Another takeaway, when bombs dismember rooms full of people on a battleship, somebody has to go through and dig through the pieces to assess the extent of the damage.

[C. · Rating 3 out of 5]

"By the time I was perhaps 30 pages into the book, I told myself how terribly depressing the book was. The word death, or ideas associated with it, must have appeared on every page. Time after time, the author Mitsuru Yoshida repetitively asked himself about the useless nature of his current mission, then encouraged himself to die honorably in the defense of his home country. It probably took until the halfway point in this 152-page book before I realized that I was being offered an incredible insight into the psyche of a Japanese junior officer. It was an insight into the concept of self-sacrifice for the greater good and the mentality of absolute dedication to a profession."

http://ww2db.com/read.php?read_id=37

Read more of my review with the link above!

[Bob Combs · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extraordinary

Could not put it down. Well written, well translated. Intimate view of the Japanese a Imperial Navy's final battle, and the 3000 men who perished aboard the Battleship Yamato, through the eyes of an ensign stationed in the command center.

[Nooilforpacifists · Rating 5 out of 5]

The introduction (in my edition) was awful; the book incredible. The reviewer who describes it a "Mishima porn" has it right, but it's five star Mishima porn. As long as you skip the intro.

[Viola Watts · Rating 5 out of 5]

I started reading on a train in Japan, and finished on a train in Oregon, USA, which made for a fitting parallel. I haven’t read many memoirs from WW2, but Yoshida’s account stands out because of his writing - honest and direct about his mission and the events he witnessed, and then with sudden detail when describing the lives and demeanors of fellow officers and military superiors. It is these bursts of detail that shed light on the unique dynamics of the Japanese military in the 20th century - something I’ve never really thought about until reading this memoir, and is entirely fascinating given the cultural history and complexity of Japan. Throughout the book, Yoshida becomes more and more casual towards his own death. I was struck by his relation to death, and how he claims that because he was part of a special mission that was doomed from the start, he refutes the idea that he has ever had a near-death experience. At only twenty-one he should have died tens of times in the Japanese army, becoming older than I may ever feel, yet he believes this??

The futility of war are impossible to conceive of for most people in the western world, which is why all of us should try to read such a book as this one.

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I have gained the road to an easy death. Death is easy."

"You not blessed with death, you who are still forced to live. How will you endure all the days after tomorrow?"

"The hardships of those days are beyond my comprehension."

The emotional memoir of an officer sent on a failed kamikaze mission and his meditations on death. Yamato was one of the last great battleships of the 20th century. It was obsolete the moment it was complete in 1937 thanks to the advent of aircraft carriers. Towards the end of WW2, Yamato and ten destroyers were sent on a suicide mission to Okinawa to distract American planes from a separate kamikaze attack. It was a failure that wasted the lives of the sailors and pilots.

"What are you doing? You young ones, swim!"

[Macka · Rating 2 out of 5]

This feels like it could be written about any ship lost during the war and not specifically Yamato. Although some areas are specific I would've liked to have heard more about Yamato's history and operations, but I guess that would be another book entirely (it does touch on operational procedures).

Written in an interesting way for a first hand account, more like concise but adequately detailed dot points.

I don't regret reading it, the amount of punishment both dealt out to and endured by the Yamato is shocking and impressive.

[Richard Muller · Rating 5 out of 5]

A rare account of the final days of the Japanese super-battleship Yamato, dispatched by the Imperial Naval High Command on a one-way “special attack” sortie against the US landing on Okinawa in April 1945. The author, a junior radar officer, had a unique vantage point on the bridge of the ship during its final battle. He was one of fewer than 300 survivors of the 3000-man crew, and set down his recollections within months of the events. This is an excellent translation and includes commentary to provide context.

[Glen Chapman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This a very honestly written account of the last voyage of battleship Yamato through the eyes of one of the crew (author of the book)

There are no false heroics, tales of adventure and excitement. It is simply the story of the last day of some three thousand men. The book covers the full spectrum of emotion and loyalty. There are some crew members who's only desire is to die for the Emperor and country, others that see the true folly of the attack planned.

[Stephen Mercer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stunning insight into a known suicidal mission, and into the psyche of approaching a near surefire death. Some parts get repetitive and the cultural combined with time barriers are hard to leap mentally to connect

[Dallas Hunt · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love how honest and thought-provoking this book is. Requiem for Battleship Yamato is concise and compelling. I recommend it to anyone interested in understanding more about the reality of war and the value of life.

[DJ Bowen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Short easy read of the personal account of Young Officer onboard the IJN Battleship Yamato. Written largely in the form of diary entries and often times like a poem the author express his thoughts and the actions faced onboard the final sailing of the Yamato.

[Lilly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another class book. It’s more like a 3.5 but I just couldn’t justify giving it 4 stars because it was very upsetting. It was fascinating to get a look into what the Japanese felt like during Okinawa however.

[Paul J. Brogger · Rating 5 out of 5]

Powerful First-Hand Account of Yamato's Final Sortie

A moving account of the author's experience as an officer assigned to the last mission of battleship Yamato. I couldn't put it down.

[Danny Stevens · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent first hand account of Japanese view of Battle of Okinawa. The mere fact that this was published and the story of being censored is amazing.

[Clark Bracken · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very poetic and a very different set of outlooks on the sitution of Yamato's suicide run than I would have expected. This actually changed my opinion on life and death.

[Chiara Franchini · Rating 5 out of 5]

Toccante e struggente, la lettura di questo libro scorre ininterrotta fino alla fine. Una delle storie più crude che io abbia mai letto.

[Saman Perera · Rating 4 out of 5]

Harrowing story of true warriors!

[Jesse Callaghan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outstanding work. Beautiful yet confronting. I can't believe this sat unread on my shelf for ten years.

[Gary · Rating 5 out of 5]

If for nothing else, and there was a lot more to recommend, I recommend this book so that you can read about Lt. Usubuchi. Very hard to put down.

[James Crawford · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very interesting book by a man who was actually on the Yamato when it was attacked and sunk by U.S. planes. His writing style is very good and gives a person a very good idea of just how horrible it was at the time of the attack.


The book also has an introductory section explaining about the kamikaze attacks, and some photos.


At the very beginning, the sailors had no idea where the Yamato was going to go. There was a Nisei serving on the ship, having been drafted while attend college in Japan. He was used to translate American radio intercepts.


Admiral Ito strongly objected to what was planned for the Yamato and the ships that accompanied her. He objected to the fact that there was going to be no air cover for the ships. (By this time, Japan should have realized that air cover was of extreme importance, and ships out on their own were relatively easy pickings.)


He also pointed out that the Japanese force had ten ships; the opposing American force had sixty. He also wanted a night attack (which the Japanese were relatively good at), and not a day attack.

The author also makes a reference to how Japanese officers would routinely hit those under their command if they did something that the officers didn't like. He also writes about the spirit of the crew.


The Yamato and the other ships were to draw off American forces from Okinawa, and to allow the kamikaze air attacks that were taking place to have a better chance of success. The ships had only enough fuel for a one-way trip to Okinawa, the Yamato assigned to destroy enemy ships, beach herself, and use her big guns while she could, then offloading the sailors so they could fight with the Japanese ground forces.


They knew that they would be subject to air attack, and they also realized the danger from American submarines.


His description of the attack is very clear, very realistic.

[Maggie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book, even though the reality of it is quite shocking and I usually don't read that kind of genre.
In my the only problem with this text is the translation itself, I haven't found a japanese version yet and I'm aware that the original writing style is quite difficult, but something just felt off about it.

[Pei-jean Lu · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Yamato (as well as sister ship Musashi) was the largest battleship ever built. Boasting nine 18-inch guns and displacing at over 60,000 tons she was the crown jewel of the Imperial Japanese Navy’s Fleet serving as the flagship for Admiral Yamamoto during the Battle of Midway. Her sinking during Operation Ten-Go (Ten ichi-go) in defence of Okinawa in 1945 would signal the final death knell for the Japanese Imperial Navy in WWII and signalled the end of battleships as being the leading ships of a naval battlegroup (if Pearl Harbor, Coral Sea and Midway didn’t already prove that).
Requiem for Battleship Yamato was written by a young ensign who would survive her sinking and perhaps one of the few eyewitness accounts of her demise from the perspective of the Japanese. The use of Requiem as the translation is quite an appropriate one, because it does invoke the reader to reflect on what is written reminding me some way of All Quiet on the Western Front and it’s sequel.

[Dr. George H. Elder · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is written in a poetic style that may not be everyone's cup of tea, but I was not at all put off by the tact. Of course, the story is based on the rather pointless sacrifice of the mighty Yamato. The onboard action details portrayed are compelling, and as terrible as anything one can imagine during the war. The death of many men is presented in brutal detail, but the theme of duty above all else is strong throughout. One marvels at men being able to function while so much ordnance is headed their way. For anyone interested in what a look at what death is like when a ship is being pummeled by air power, this is an ideal account. For those interested in technical details, this is not quite the book you are looking for. It is a humanistic endevour, and one of great literary power. I recomend this book without any reservations whatsoever!