-The Yamato's fate was sealed during Operation Ten-Go, a suicide mission in which the ship was sunk by American carrier-based aircraft on April 7, 1945, marking the end of the battleship era. The ...

What You Need to Know: The Yamato-class battleships were the heaviest and most powerfully armed battleships ever constructed, designed by Imperial Japan before World War II to assert naval dominance.

KURE, Hiroshima Prefecture--A massive lathe used to precision shape the main gun barrels of Japan’s mighty World War II battleship Yamato is now on public display at the Kure Maritime Museum here.