The Yamato was built in Japan in a time when the battleships ruled the seas.

One of the first victories for Japan as an international naval power was fought with the battleship at the vanguard. This victory then served to solidify further the role of the big gun as the decisive tool in the realm of naval warfare of the time.

At the time of the Yamato and its sister ship the Musashi was being built (and later the Shinano that was in a sad irony later converted to an aircraft carrier), a great veil of secrecy was cast across the projects to prevent any foreign adversary from gaining knowledge of the scale or capability of their new capital ships. A secrecy to hold tight because of their departure from the Washington Naval Treaty with the UK, France, Italy and the US that restricted the building of such warships to prevent a further naval arms race that began during the First World War.

The expansionist movements in Japan during the 1930s had moved the country towards an ultranationalist militancy that affected the government and county toward a pacific expansion of the Japanese Empire. Though touted as a need for more natural resources, I think several of those in power also felt the need for power through war and their self-identity as being superior. It was seen that a confrontation with the US were therefore an inevitable consequence. The treaty therefore would simply hold them back from building the fleet they needed in order make this future empire a reality.

In time the Japanese Imperial Navy would build several aircraft carriers, but they always believed and strategized that the backbone of their fleet and power would be the big guns of their battleship. Its in that belief that they were sure would be the deciding and intimidating factor in any and all future adversaries.

In spite of their size and firepower (18.1 inch main guns compared to most 16 inch guns) the two ships never really saw the combat they were designed or intended for. So steep in myth, legend and quite simply, wars of the past; the Imperial fleet was afraid of allowing the ships to ever truly engage. Coupled with the human fact that many within the fleet felt that to not allow themselves to engage in such a way that resulted in the loss of life and resources that would simply just be a waste. Additionally some even blindly wanted to save them for what they thought would later come as a decisive final battle.

Eventually the inevitable happened, was on October 24, 1944 the Musashi was lost after "Operation Sho-1". Sunk entirely by American aircraft, it took 17 bombs and 19 torpedoes to put her under, a considerable amount even by todays standards. I cant help but see it as a tribute really, to the designers and builders of the ship.

Soon the Yamato suffered a similar fate. October of 1945 the some 327 American ships began the invasion of Okinawa. The island was the last step to the Japanese main land, and the final staging ground to end the war. The Yamato was ordered to fight its way through to the island while being escorted by a force of eight destroyers, and beach itself while using its main guns to shell the invaders and unloading its crew to reinforce the army already fighting on the island.

Before they departed Admiral Seiichi It like many, opposed the wasteful Kamikaze nature of the TenGo mission, but of course he relented some say when he was told that the Emperor expected the naval response. Though he made his dissatisfaction evident to the leaders and staff of the small task force, he still did what was he thought and felt by them to be the right and honorable actionhis duty. Lets keep in mind though, people define their honor by whatever it is that makes them feel honorable.

Its in this is where I think the glorious part of the story lies. On April 28, 1944 In spite of truly overwhelming odds and certain death, the crew believed in the might and myth of the Yamato and the possibility that they might be successful. Engaging the American aircraft with the quintessential human emotion of hopethe belief that if you only try, that if you fight with all that you are, and not stopmaybe, just maybe you might break through to the other side. The ships gun crews fought off the attackers for hours. Now in the case of the Yamato we know the inevitable truth, like her sister ship, she was eventually overwhelmed by the impact of 10 torpedoes and 7 bombs that capsized her. But just before she left the surface, its believed that it was main ammunition magazine ignited. The explosion ripped the ship in half with such force that it was said to have been felt nearly 200 hundred miles away, and an enormous cloud that filled the sky. It spoke as the final cry of the Japanese Imperial Navy.

So then, many will know that those in the Japanese military and government, the ones that drove them to war, were never really the ones fighting the war. They believed that what was in the past was also in the present and it deluded them from their own reality. They suffered from their hubris and were never empathetic to those that had to the work, fighting and dying. And yet despite all this they fought anyway! Why? Honor, duty, religion? To understand it on an ethereal level one has to understand the Japanese social psyche.

The warning that the Yamato brings us is danger of a leader who doesnt know and understand what is going on with those that they lead. While also being self-deluded from the realities of the world in which they make these decisions.

But just like Yin and Yang and the belief in universal balance, there is also that same beautiful balance in the story. Those that in spite of the overwhelming odds, had the faith in themselvesand that without trying, nothing would get done. Some will understandably debate this because youre not being given a choice. Its in our nature to stay alive; therefore not wanting to give up your life foolishly may seem a forgone conclusion. If it wasnt, then people probably wouldnt do it. Others supports this idea because they think that having free will comes with the responsibility of choice. And so the debate goes on and on.

What you dont see in the debate is the fact that in real life there are people that choose not to give up. Sometimes they leave with their life and sometimes they dont. So free will must not simply be an illusion because there are some that in-spite of what is thought to be the rational choice, still dont choose to exercise itbut then again their decision to give their life may be a rational choice to them when they consider their options, experience or knowledge.

Does this fly in the face of philosophical believe that no one would choose the path of resisting? I think so, because I cant simply help but look at the evidence that even when confronted by the threat of overwhelming force, people still choose to resist. If not, we never would have had the American Revolution, or the 300 Spartans that defiantly resisted Persians and in time permitted the Greeks to defeat the worldly empire of its time. Another shining example of free will, despite the odds when the better course of action for survival would have been to simply do nothing would then be the final mission of the Japanese Imperial battleship, Yamato. The single battleship and its escorts took the final stores of fuel and flung itself against the unstoppable might of the American Naval Armada as it invaded Okinawa. A modern example would be the Fukushima Fifty. Those remaining workers that chose to remain at the crippled nuclear plant. Their efforts are considered heroic because they chose to endeavor in the face of certain death, simply because thats what they were there to dotheir job; and that they didnt expect anyone else to do it. They were and the rest of the world saw them as that last line of defense from total nuclear fallout that we were certain would ravage not just their island nation, but world. I think that some of historys greatest moments show that when faced with certain death and overwhelming odds, that the one thing that makes us human is that one small hoperational choice be damned.

In the end I think the story of the Yamato can bring two lesson. One, knowing and understanding the behavior that led to the wasteful death of the Yamato and nearly 2,100 of its crew members. Two, the magnificent human spirit, that in spite of their fatal ending, decided and made the choice, because no else would.