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"This giant body is left to total disintegration; its parts, lacking connection with each other, head separately on the path to destruction…

A chunk of human flesh, thin but the size of a man, hangs down from high atop an arm of the range finder and sways unceasingly.

Where did it come from? That's ten meters above the deck...Because of the excessive list, the shells of middle size and above cannot be moved. The carts carrying the shells would tip over; it is still more dangerous to carry them by hand.

The anti aircraft guns and the secondary guns are completely silent. Only the machine guns remain for the last desperate battle…

Countless bullets have poured in on the bridge. The attrition among the men is severe. A bomb falls at us from straight ahead, grows in almost no time - a black dot, a pebble, a spindle. Just as I hold my breath thinking it will land right on top of us, it whizzes past, barely missing our heads, and falls away."

Yoshida Mitsuru, "Requiem for Battleship Yamato"

Yamato is under attack during the third and final wave - note the geysers in the water near the aft of the ship, probably caused by US Navy planes' .50 cal machine gun fire. Look closely above Yamato - you can see 4 dots that are probably US Navy planes.

Photographed from a USS Yorktown (CV-10) plane.