Yamato, Japanese Battleship

The lead ship of the Imperial Japanese Navy’s Yamato class, the heaviest and most powerful battleships ever built, displacing about 72,800 tons at full load and armed with nine 18.1-inch (46 cm) guns, the largest naval artillery ever mounted. Completed in December 1941, she served as a fleet flagship and saw little decisive surface action. On 7 April 1945, during Operation Ten-Go, a one-way sortie toward Okinawa with no air cover, US carrier aircraft sank her with multiple torpedo and bomb hits; about 3,000 of her roughly 3,300 crew died.