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"We muster at quarters. All hands line up on deck in fatigues.

In the night, dark under blackout, the breathing of 3,000 men grows still.

The captain states the aim of the Ten'ichigo plan - to counter the American landing on Okinawa - and the mission of this vessel - to be the mainstay of the task force making the sortie; he voices his earnest hope that the men will all rise to the occasion and live up to the expectations of the entire navy.

The executive officer: 'The time has come. Kamikaze Yamato, be truly a divine wind!'"

Yoshida Mitsuru, "Requiem for Battleship Yamato"

Such empty exhortations aside, all of the 7000 sailors of this task force knew that they were being given a one-way ticket to their deaths.

Awaiting the Yamato and her 9 escort vessels near Okinawa were no fewer than 60 American warships, which included 12 aircraft carriers and 6 battleships.

Worst of all, with nearly all of the Japanese aircraft slated to take part in simultaneous Kamikaze missions against the American fleet, the Yamato's task force received no air cover. In any event such cover would have quickly been shot out of the sky by the by then far more skilled US Navy pilots flying superior fighter aircraft.

As Yoshida notes in his memoir, not one of them ever thought they would ever set foot on Japanese soil again.