The battle also exhibited Japan's willingness to make extreme sacrifices in kamikaze attacks aimed at delaying the Allied advance upon the Japanese home islands.

[2][3] The designation of Yamato as a beached fortification against Allied aerial and naval bombardment of Okinawa would have become detrimental towards the invading armies,[4][5] in that, alike to Operation Downfall, the anticipated losses would have substantially increased for maritime combatants at large,[6] likewise with surrounding infantry support.

Feeling pressured by the emperor to mount some kind of attack, Japanese Navy commanders conceived a kamikaze-type mission for their remaining operational large ships, which included the battleship Yamato.

[12] In preparation for executing the plan, on 29 March the assigned ships left Kure for Tokuyama, off the port of Mitajiri on the southern coast of Honshu.

[16] Vice Admiral Ryūnosuke Kusaka flew from Tokyo to Tokuyama on 5 April in a final attempt to convince Itō and the assembled commanders of the Combined Fleet to accept the plan.

[16] Upon hearing of the proposed operation—which had been kept secret from most of them—the Combined Fleet commanders and captains unanimously joined Itō in rejecting it for the same reasons that he had expressed.

He also explained that Japan's national leadership, including the emperor, were expecting the Navy to make their best effort to support the defense of Okinawa.

Admiral Raymond Spruance, commander of the United States Fifth Fleet, ordered his forces to prepare to attack the Japanese at 00:30 on 6 April, before Yamato and her escorts sailed.

[22] At 16:00 on 6 April, Yamato (with Admiral Itō on board), the light cruiser Yahagi, and eight destroyers (Asashimo, Hamakaze, Isokaze, Suzutsuki, Hatsushimo, Yukikaze, Fuyutsuki, and Kasumi)[23] departed Tokuyama to begin the mission.

Although they were unable to attack because of the ships' speed, they did spend several hours shadowing the Japanese sortie and sending updates on its course to the U.S. fleet.

At dawn on 7 April, the Japanese force passed the Ōsumi Peninsula into the open ocean heading south from Kyūshū toward Okinawa.

At 10:00, the force turned west to make it look like they were withdrawing, but at 11:30, after being detected by two American PBM Mariner flying boats, the Yamato fired a salvo with her 460 mm (18.1 in) bow guns using special "beehive shells" (三式焼霰弾, san-shiki shōsan dan) but could not prevent the two planes from shadowing.

[18] Upon receiving contact reports early on 7 April, Spruance ordered Task Force 54, which consisted mostly of modernized Standard-type battleships under the command of Rear Admiral Morton Deyo (which were engaged in shore bombardment), to intercept and destroy the Japanese sortie.

[26][27] As a senior naval aviation officer, "Mitscher had spent a career fighting the battleship admirals who had steered the navy’s thinking for most of the current century.

[30] As a contingency, Spruance ordered Deyo to assemble a force of six fast battleships, seven cruisers and 21 destroyers to prepare for a surface engagement with Yamato should the airstrikes prove unsuccessful.

These aircraft—after a two-hour flight from Okinawa—arrived over the Yamato battle group and circled the ship formation just out of anti-aircraft range; the lack of Japanese fighter resistance provided ample breathing room for American crews to methodically plan and coordinate their attack runs.

The ships stopped zigzagging and increased speed to 24 kn (28 mph; 44 km/h), began taking evasive maneuvers, and opened fire with their anti-aircraft guns.

[35] The U.S. pilots deduced that the use of San Shiki and colored gunfire meant that Yamato's gunners relied on visual aiming and range, rather than being radar directed, and as a result "were missing with great consistency" despite the storm of fire that they put up.

[28] The Hellcat and Corsair fighters "were supposed to go first, to strafe, to rocket, to drop light ordnance, distracting the enemy gunners while the Helldivers plunged almost straight down with their heavy [armor piercing] bombs".

This was because the Avenger torpedo bombers "needed all the distraction and diversion they could get when they made their dangerous low altitude runs straight at the enemy ships.

[41] At 13:33, in a desperate attempt to keep the ship from capsizing, Yamato's damage control team counter-flooded both starboard engine and boiler rooms.

At 14:23, she suddenly blew up with an explosion so large that it was reportedly heard and seen 200 km (110 nmi; 120 mi) away in Kagoshima and sent up a mushroom-shaped cloud almost 20,000 ft (6,100 m) into the air.

[54] A total of 10 U.S. aircraft were shot down by anti-aircraft fire from the Japanese ships; some aircrews were rescued by seaplane or submarine.

[57] During the battle, as promised, the Japanese Army conducted an air attack on the U.S. naval fleet at Okinawa, but they failed to sink any ships.

Japan surrendered on 15 August 1945 after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the USSR launching an invasion of northern China and Korea.

The academic Robert Farley has written that popular depictions of the battleship portray her destruction as a "heroic, but also pointless and futile, sacrifice".