While being tossed about in the whirlpool, my whole body absorbs the extraordinary concussion of the shock wave from the first explosion; I am thrust back, around, and up, crashing into a thick wall overhead.

This wall: the corpses of comrades who surfaced quickly and are now being baptized in the fiery rain.

Did they shield us with their bodies from the arrows of fire?..

Then, about twenty seconds later, the second explosion. Perhaps part of the aft magazine? This blast finally hurls my body up to the surface…

Had the second explosion come even five seconds later, my lungs would have burst. It would have been all over with me."

Yoshida Mitsuru, "Requiem for Battleship Yamato"

Note the three surviving destroyers circling the ship.

After 3 harrowing hours in the oil-covered water, Yoshida and 268 others are rescued by the destroyers Fuyutsuki and Hatsushimo.

The dead from Yamato alone number over 3,000 - making this the largest loss of life ever on a single warship.

446 men of the crew of Yahagi perish, along with another 500 or so on the 8 destroyers, only 3 of which make it back to port in Kure.

Against this score of 7 ships sunk and 4,000 men killed, the US Navy lost just 10 planes and 12 pilots.

Since the sinking of the Yamato, no nation has built another battleship.

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