Musashi took over as the Combined Fleet flagship in early 1943, and Yamato spent the rest of the year moving between the major Japanese naval bases of Truk and Kure in response to American threats.

The only time Yamato fired her main guns at enemy surface targets was in October 1944, when she was sent to engage American forces invading the Philippines during the Battle of Leyte Gulf.

During 1944, the balance of naval power in the Pacific decisively turned against Japan, and by early 1945 its fleet was much depleted and badly hobbled by critical fuel shortages in the home islands.

In a desperate attempt to slow the Allied advance, Yamato was dispatched on a one-way mission to Okinawa in April 1945, with orders to beach herself and fight until destroyed, thus protecting the island.

[3] After withdrawing from the Washington Naval Treaty, which limited the size and power of capital ships, the Imperial Japanese Navy began their design of the new Yamato class of heavy battleships.

Their planners recognized Japan would be unable to compete with the output of U.S. naval shipyards should war break out, so the 70,000-ton[4] vessels of the Yamato class were designed to be capable of engaging multiple enemy battleships at the same time.

[5][6] The keel of Yamato, the lead ship of the class,[7] was laid down at the Kure Naval Arsenal, Hiroshima, on 4 November 1937 in a dockyard that had to be adapted to accommodate her enormous hull.

[13] Yamato's main battery consisted of nine 45-caliber 46-centimetre (18.1 in) Type 94 guns—the largest ever fitted to a warship,[15] although the shells were not as heavy as those fired by the British 18-inch naval guns of World War I.

[13][19] A veteran of Japan's crushing victory over Russia at the Battle of Tsushima in the Russo-Japanese War, the Pearl Harbor victor was planning a decisive engagement with the United States Navy at Midway Island.

[13] Yamamoto exercised overall command from Yamato's bridge,[21] but his battle plan had widely dispersed his forces to lure the Americans into a trap, and the battleship group was too far away to take part in the engagement.

[13] On 5 June, Yamamoto ordered the remaining ships to return to Japan, so Yamato withdrew with the main battleship force to Hashirajima, before making her way back to Kure.

[13][23] She spent nine days in dry dock for inspection and general repairs,[22] and after sailing to Japan's western Inland Sea she was again dry-docked in late July for significant refitting and upgrades.

On 16 August, Yamato began her return to Truk, where she joined a large task force formed in response to American raids on the Tarawa and Makin atolls.

[24] On 25 December, while ferrying troops and equipment—which were wanted as reinforcements for the garrisons at Kavieng and the Admiralty Islands—from Yokosuka to Truk, Yamato and her task group were intercepted by the American submarine Skate about 180 miles (290 km) out at sea.

It had been proposed that 5,000 long tons (5,100 t) of steel be used to bolster the ship's defense against flooding from torpedo hits outside the armored citadel, but this was rejected out of hand because the additional weight would have increased Yamato's displacement and draft too much.

[22] In early June 1944, Yamato and Musashi were again requisitioned as troop transports, this time to reinforce the garrison and naval defenses of the island of Biak as part of Operation Kon.

[22] While en route to Leyte, the force was attacked in the Palawan Passage on 23 October by the submarines USS Darter and Dace, which sank two Takao-class heavy cruisers including Kurita's flagship, Atago, and damaged a third.

[22] The following day the Battle of the Sibuyan Sea hurt the Center Force badly with the loss of one more heavy cruiser, eliminating a substantial part of the fleet's anti-aircraft defence.

During the hours of darkness, Kurita's force navigated the San Bernardino Strait, and shortly after dawn attacked an American formation that had remained in the area to provide close support for the invading troops.

Immediately on her 3rd salvo from 34,500 yards, a single 18.1-inch (46 cm) shell exploded mere feet underneath the keel of the escort carrier USS White Plains, knocking out a boiler and electrical power for three minutes.

Once the torpedoes ran out of fuel she turned around and raced back to the battle, making contact with Taffy 3 again at around 8:10, immediately training her guns on the escort carrier USS Gambier Bay.

[38][39] Meanwhile, the heavy cruiser Chikuma landed hits to Gambier Bay's flight deck that started a large fire visible in several photographs of the ship under attack.

[22] On 21 November, while transiting the East China Sea in a withdrawal to Kure Naval Base,[45] Yamato's battle group was attacked by the submarine USS Sealion.

These orders were countermanded in favor of strikes from Admiral Marc Mitscher's aircraft carriers, but as a contingency the battleships together with 7 cruisers and 21 destroyers were sent to interdict the Japanese force before it could reach the vulnerable transports and landing craft.

The Surface Special Attack Force increased speed to 24 knots (28 mph; 44 km/h), and following standard Japanese anti-aircraft defensive measures, the destroyers began circling Yamato.

[59][failed verification] Yamato sank rapidly, losing an estimated 3,055 of her 3,332 crew, including fleet commander Vice Admiral Seiichi Itō and Captain Aruga both of whom chose to go down with the ship.

[63] A second expedition returned to the site two years later, and the team's photographic and video records were later confirmed by one of the battleship's designers, Shigeru Makino, to show the Yamato's last resting place.

[63] On 16 July 2015, a group of Japanese Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers began meetings to study the feasibility of raising the ship from the ocean floor and recovering the remains of crewmembers entombed in the wreckage.

It tells the story of a nuclear-powered super submarine whose crew mutinies and renames the vessel Yamato, in allusion to the World War II battleship and the ideals she symbolises.

Although intended to educate on the maritime history of post Meiji era Japan,[75] the museum gives special attention to its namesake; the battleship is a common theme among several of its exhibits, which includes a section dedicated to Matsumoto's animated series.