Battle of Cape Fang: The last major naval battle fought by the Japanese Navy at the end of World War II

April 7, 1945

The Battle of Cape Fang was the last major naval battle fought by the Japanese Navy at the end of World War II. A total of nine Battleships and Frigates served as water special attack forces to fight the U.S. Navy's carrier-based aircraft.

In the end, a total of 6 battleships, including the Yamato, were sunk.

background

By the spring of 1945, at the end of the Pacific War, the Japanese Combined Fleet had lost most of its capital ships. From the arrogance and the ship below, the remaining ships could not move due to lack of fuel, and they were stranded at the Kure Military Port in Hiroshima. Because of the plan to give priority to the production of special attack weapons Sea Dragon (Japanese: Sea Dragon (submarine)) and Zhenyang, the repair of large warships was postponed. In response to this plan, Vice Admiral Ito put forward the policy of giving priority to the repair of warships, thus opposing the vice admiral Inoue Naimi. Finally, at Ito's request, the battleships Yamato and Haruna were repaired at the Kure Factory and Nagato at Yokosuka.

At the end of March, the American and British fleets gathered on the main island of Okinawa, and the Combined Forces began to plan the offensive of the Okinawa Islands in the final stages of the landing in Japan. In order to prevent the Allies from landing on the Japanese mainland, the Japanese launched the Okinawa Defensive Battle Of Ten-1 Operation, and as part of the Kikusui Special Offensive Operation, the fleet centered on Yamato should attack the Okinawa Sea.

On 17 March, the Japanese Combined Fleet ordered the First Guerrilla Force, including the battleship Yamato, to prepare for the attack to complement the aviation attack, and named the operation Operation Tenichi.

The battle plan was filed by The Commander of the Combined Fleet, Vice Admiral Toyoda, the Yamato and his fleet burst into the main island of Okinawa, the fixed battery became a coastal artillery shell for shelling, and the crew was converted to the Marine Corps (Japanese: Marine) to fight the Allies after the ammunition ran out, which was a plan that did not consider the survival of the members at all. Originally, the Yamato and Nagato were planned, but due to location (Nagato was moored in Yokosuka at the time) and fuel problems, only the Yamato was eventually available. It was originally scheduled to carry only one-way fuel, but the Navy's supply department scraped up the remaining oil at the bottom of the tank (which usually did not count towards storage) and finally scraped together enough fuel for round-trip transportation.

On 29 March, the Yamato sailed from Wu to the waters off Tokuyama for a standby flight. The Japanese knew that since the U.S. military had gained air supremacy, the special attack operation of the water forces without the protection of aircraft was bound to fail, and the commander of the 2nd Fleet, Lieutenant General Ito, opposed the operation until the end. On April 5, Lieutenant General Ryunosuke Kusaka (Japanese: Nonosuke Kusaka), chief of staff of the Combined Fleet, flew in a seaplane, supposedly in the hope that "(Yamato) will become the vanguard of the 100 million general special attack (

Please be the leader of the Billion Special Attacks," the words persuaded Lieutenant General Ito.

On 1 April, the Allies began to land on Okinawa. The Japanese decided to launch Battle Kikusui on April 6, with the Marines in Okinawa advocating a protracted war, while the base camps in the interior preferred

In the general attack, which included air and sea special attacks, the views of the two sides diverged. Under the premise of determining that the US military had the superiority, the Second Mine Warfare Corps Command formulated a combat policy, so that all the weapons and ammunition personnel who could land were landed as land defense forces, and the rest was distributed to the water batteries.

On 3 April, the Second Mine Warfare Command reported the policy to the Combined Fleet Command, but it was not adopted by Lieutenant General Ito. The Second Fleet, including the battleship Yamato, was eventually established as a special attack operation on the water under the command of Commander Toyota Vice Takeshi. After learning of this plan, The Commander of the Military Command, Jizaburo Ozawa, persuaded the combined fleet to discuss it again on the grounds that "it is a good thing to actively fight, but now it can no longer be regarded as a battle", but in the end it was unsuccessful.

fight

sortie

At 16:00 on 6 April, the 1st guerrilla force under the battleship Yamato attacked in the waters off Tokuyama. Two U.S. submarines, including the Crocodile, spotted the Japanese fleet heading south in the Bungo Waterway and alerted the U.S. fleet.

At dawn on April 7, the Japanese fleet sailed through the Osumi Peninsula towards Okinawa. The Center of the Japanese Fleet consisted of Yabetsu and Yamato, and at 1,500 meters around it was advanced by eight destroyers in a wheeled formation and advanced in 20 knots. The destroyer then disengaged asagiri due to engine failure. American reconnaissance planes began tracking the Japanese fleet. At 10:00, the Japanese fleet was found to be advancing westward, and at 11:30 it was changed to a straight march toward Okinawa.

Although the U.S. military holds air and sea supremacy in the coastal waters of Japan. But in fact, Lieutenant General Ugaki, commander of Japan's 5th Air Fleet (Kakuya Base), single-handedly ordered about 20 zero-fire aircraft to serve as escorts until about 10 a.m. on April 7.

Wave 1 attack

Sensing that the Yamato attacked, Admiral Raymond Ames Spruance, commander of the US 5th Fleet in charge of attacking Okinawa, originally intended to conduct a decisive battle of battleships, but because the japanese fleet's subsequent whereabouts were unknown, it was finally decided that Vice Admiral Mitchell's 58th Mobile Force would carry out an air attack.

Around 10:00 a.m., eight airborne carriers east of Okinawa sent out several waves of attack teams totaling about 400 aircraft. The attack team consists of F6F fighters, F4U fighters, SB2C critical strike aircraft, and TBF attack aircraft. Other support ships were prepared to stop the Japanese fleet from advancing if the air attack failed.

It took about 2 hours for the U.S. attack team to fly from Okinawa to the Japanese fleet outside the air attack range to assemble and organize.

The first wave of attack teams began attacking at 12:30. The Japanese fleet began to evade operations and air combat at a speed of 25 knots. Yamato has about 150 anti-aircraft firearms. The American lightning strikes concentrated on attacking Yamato's starboard side. At 12:46, Yachi's engine part was hit by a torpedo and could not sail.

Yachi was then hit by at least 6 torpedoes and 12 bombs. Isokaze, who wanted to rescue Yachi, was also attacked and was unable to sail after being severely damaged. Yachi sank at 14:05. During the first wave of attack, Yamato was hit by 2 bombs and 1 torpedo, causing a decrease in speed and a fire broke out in the stern. Ryogetsu was severely damaged and left the team, and Hamakaze sank. And the engine failure of the frost

Yamato had been sunk before it was attacked by air raids.

Wave 2, Wave 3 attacks

Between 13:20 and 14:15, the 2nd and 3rd waves of attack teams struck. The attack focused on the Yamato, which was hit by at least 8 torpedoes and 15 bombs. The damage caused by the bomb led to a decrease in the ability to shoot at the air, and the torpedo hit the starboard side in a concentrated manner. At 13:33, water was poured into the engine room and boiler room on the starboard side to maintain balance, and many crew members were impregnated without knowing it. The loss of the starboard turbine and the heavy immersion of the water reduced the speed to 10 knots, and the low-speed advancing Yamato became an excellent target for torpedo attack aircraft, focusing on the rudder and stern.

At 2:02 p.m., Lieutenant General Ito ordered the ship to be abandoned. At 14:05, Yamato began to capsize. Lieutenant General Ito and captain Yukisa Yukisaasa refused to leave the ship. At 14:20, Yamato began to sink. At 14:23, the Yamato ammunition depot exploded.

Exploding clouds can also be seen 200 kilometers away in Kagoshima.

（3022N12804E）

30367°N

128067°E)

End

At 16:39, the commander of the 1st Guerrilla Force issued an order to rescue the crew and return to Sasebo. In this naval battle, the Japanese flank Yamato, light cruiser Yachi, the destroyer Hamanaze were sunk, and Kasumi and Isokaze were unable to sail and sank themselves. Asagiri sinks during the separation operation (all are killed in battle). Ryogetsu returned to Sasebo after losing the bow. The destroyers with minor damage, Winter Moon, Snow Wind, and First Frost, rescued 280 Yamato survivors, 555 Yabetsu survivors, and more than 800 Isokaze, Hamanaze, and Kasumi survivors, carrying survivors back to Sasebo. Some 3,700 people were killed.

Ten U.S. aircraft were shot down by anti-aircraft fire, killing a total of 12. There are testimonies that U.S. fighter jets attacked Japanese survivors at sea with machine guns, but there are also testimonies that U.S. aircraft did not attack during the destroyers' rescue of survivors.

During the naval battle, the Japanese Army launched an attack on the U.S. fleet at Okinawa. On April 7, about 115 aircraft attacked U.S. ships, most of them special attack aircraft.

The Japanese lost about 100 aircraft in the attack.

effect

The attack of the battleship Yamato was the last major operation of the Japanese Navy. The defeat of the battle is equivalent to announcing the end of the combined fleet, and it is also the end of the era of large ships and guns. The remaining ships were almost never involved in combat again.

Liangyue only made some emergency repairs. Although Winter Moon was repaired, it was damaged by a mine struck Munji on August 20, 1945. Snow Wind barely sustained until the end of the war.

First Frost sank on July 30, 1945, in the late Maizuru Coast. It was the 129th and last Japanese destroyer to sink in the Pacific. The Snow Wind became the only warship of the Japanese Navy to survive until thirty years after the war, and was later handed over to the Chinese Navy in 1947 as one of the destroyers of the Yangzi of the National Army, the "Danyang".