Construction of Battleship Yamato

After the Washington and London naval treaties lapsed at the end of 1936, the Japanese Navy, judging that it could not match the United States in numbers, decided to build super-battleships that would outclass any opponent individually. The design, known as A-140, was included in the Third Naval Armaments Supplement Programme of 1937. Fukuda Keiji of the Navy Technical Department led the design with Hiraga Yuzuru as adviser, while Nishijima Ryoji directed production management at Kure.

Yamato, the first ship, was laid down in the building dock of Kure Naval Arsenal on 4 November 1937, launched on 8 August 1940 and commissioned on 16 December 1941, eight days after the outbreak of the Pacific War. According to Japanese Wikipedia she displaced 64,000 tons standard, was 263 metres long and 38.9 metres in beam, and carried nine 46 cm (18.1-inch) 45-calibre guns in three triple turrets, making her the largest and most heavily armed battleship ever constructed; her full-load displacement was about 72,000 tons. The Navy Technical Department's estimate of March 1936 put the cost at about 137.8 million yen.

She was built under extreme secrecy. Kure's dock was deepened and enlarged beforehand to take the hull; large screens woven from hemp-palm (sisal) fibre were hung around the dock, board fences were put up wherever the yard could be overlooked, and workers were told only the minimum about parts other than their own. The main guns were officially styled 'Type 94 40 cm guns' to conceal their true calibre. Only about 100 dignitaries and some 1,000 workers attended the launch. Yamato became flagship of the Combined Fleet in February 1942; her sister Musashi was built at the Mitsubishi shipyard in Nagasaki.

The Yamato Museum (Kure Maritime Museum), opened in Kure on 23 April 2005, displays a one-tenth scale model of the ship and material on her construction and drew more than 1.61 million visitors in its first year; it was closed for renovation from 17 February 2025 to 31 March 2026. The site of the dock where Yamato was built can be viewed from the Rekishi-no-Mieru-Oka (Hill with a View of History). The block-construction and production-control methods developed for the ship are often credited with contributing to Japan's postwar shipbuilding industry.