Sinking the Supership
Produced by Keiko Hagihara Bang
Written and directed by David Axelrod
WGBH Boston Video, 2005, 56 min., DVD
Yamato, the largest battleship ever built,
represented Japan's military might even though the ship had a negligible effect
on the course of the Pacific War. This excellent documentary explores Yamato's
history from its top-secret design to its final suicide mission and sinking by
American dive bombers and torpedo planes. This program, originally shown on PBS
in October 2005, also follows the 1999 exploration of Yamato's
remains on the sea floor 1,200 feet below the surface. However, the film
misleads viewers by never mentioning that the exploration took place six years
earlier. When the narrator describes the underwater exploration, he states,
"60 years ago these waters were the site of many sinkings," but in
actuality it was 54 years prior to the expedition. The documentary narrator also
deceives viewers by making it seem like the film's underwater exploration found
for the first time the two-meter wide chrysanthemum imperial seal at the front
of the giant battleship, but in actuality this had been discovered in a 1985
underwater expedition that had found and surveyed the Yamato wreck at the
bottom of the sea [1]. Despite these lapses and a few
other shortcomings, this documentary's balanced
tone between Japanese and American sides, interesting remarks by Yamato
survivors and other veterans, helpful computer graphics, and focused script
make this an outstanding work about the most famous of Japan's wartime suicide
attacks.
Sinking the Supership features fascinating and extended comments
from two crewmembers who survived Yamato's sinking and another
crewmember who served aboard the battleship earlier in the war. The two
survivors, Naoyoshi Ishida and Kazuhiro Fukumoto, emotionally describe how they escaped the whirlpool caused by the battleship's
sinking. Two other Pacific War veterans also provide interesting details regarding Yamato.
Sakutaro Nishihata, who worked on the design, explains the battleship's characteristics and the
extreme secrecy involved
with its design and construction. Ed Sieber, a former Navy pilot of one of the 400
American planes that attacked the battleship Yamato, tells how he dropped a bomb and strafed
the deck.
The battleship Yamato's planned attack on the
American fleet off Okinawa is often referred to as a kamikaze mission and was designated by the Japanese Navy as a special attack (tokko in
Japanese), since no one aboard the battleship expected to survive against
overwhelming numbers of American warships and planes. Only 260 of Yamato's
crew of 3,000 survived the ship's sinking when rescued from the water by escort
destroyers that had survived the American attacks. The documentary gives brief background on aerial kamikaze attacks,
which put pressure on Navy leaders to commit Yamato to make an attack
even though the crew certainly would not survive. The film explains that the
Japanese military had a strong tradition of
being willing to die for honor and to give everything until the very end even
when losing.
Although the giant battleship was a well-known symbol of
Japan's military strength, it quickly turned into a white elephant spending
most of its time during the war just sitting at port in mainland Japan. The
ship's impressive capabilities included main guns that could shoot 18-inch
shells to targets 25 miles away. However, warplanes launched from enemy aircraft
carriers made huge battleships obsolete by the beginning of the Pacific War.
Therefore, during the war Navy leaders were reluctant to commit Yamato
to battle.
A few changes would have made this documentary even
better. First, the film lacks maps, such as the
path of Yamato's final mission from Kure Harbor to the place where it
sank in the East China Sea. Next, the narrator at times seems to overstate the controversy and
mystery surrounding the Yamato's sinking in order to promote the
importance of the "discovery" of the giant battleship's remains on the sea floor
by the underwater expedition shown in the film. There is no mention of the 1985
underwater expedition that first discovered and surveyed the battleship on the
seabed.
Finally, the film lacks details regarding the suicide mission led by Yamato toward Okinawa, such
as the fact that the light cruiser Yahagi and eight destroyers escorted Yamato.
A well-designed website makes available much valuable
supplementary material such as complete transcripts of interviews with the
two Yamato survivors. Keiko Hagihara Bang, producer of this documentary,
explains in an article her motivations for making this film. The site also has
interactive drawings with explanations of the entire ship and 12 key parts
such as its bulbous bow, tower bridge, and anti-aircraft guns. A teacher's
guide provides student questions and suggested answers.
This history of the battleship Yamato ranks high among documentaries about Japan's special (suicide) attacks. The interviews with Yamato
veterans provide a unique and invaluable perspective to understand the battleship's
significance and the final suicide mission. Visit Sinking
the Supership website for more information.
Note
1. Taiheiyou sensou kenkyuu kai 2009, 244.
Source Cited
Taiheiyou sensou kenkyuu kai (Pacific War Research Society).
2009. Senkan Yamato no 100 nazo (100 mysteries of Battleship
Yamato). Tokyo: Sekai Bunka Publishing.
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