Battleship Yamato's Okinawa Sortie (Battle of Bonomisaki / Operation Ten-Go)

As part of the Kikusui air offensive against the US fleet off Okinawa, the Combined Fleet ordered the Second Fleet under Vice Adm. Ito Seiichi to make a surface attack on the invasion force. The force consisted of the battleship Yamato, the light cruiser Yahagi and eight destroyers. After fuelling from the Tokuyama naval fuel depot, it left the anchorage off Tokuyama on the afternoon of 6 April 1945 and passed through the Bungo Strait that evening.

The ships were sighted by US submarines and aircraft, and from around midday on 7 April they were attacked in successive waves by several hundred aircraft of Task Force 58. With almost no air cover, Yamato was struck by numerous bombs and torpedoes; she capsized and exploded at 14:23, about 200 kilometres south-west of Cape Bono in Kagoshima Prefecture.

Yahagi and four destroyers (Asashimo, Hamakaze, Isokaze and Kasumi) were also lost. The four remaining destroyers (Fuyutsuki, Suzutsuki, Yukikaze and Hatsushimo) returned to Sasebo. Japanese deaths are generally put at between about 3,700 and 4,000 or more, of whom roughly 2,700 to 3,000 were aboard Yamato; figures differ by source. US losses were about ten aircraft and a dozen airmen.

The sortie was the last major operation of the Japanese surface fleet. Its purpose and the decision-making behind it have been much debated. The crew are commemorated at the former Kure naval cemetery, and the ship is the central subject of the Yamato Museum in Kure.