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Just listened to destroyer captain by captain Hara and beaching wasn't mentioned.
Fighting the USN was and any survivors were to fight on at Okinawa.
So they were sharpening bayonets on Yahagi.
Since getting to Okinawa was rated between zero and nil then it may have been moot.
So it may or may not but beaching was not a primary goal but the troops were expecting to fight on land. So they thought the ships would beach to action this goal. And the beaching idea comes from them and not the senior officers.
The goal of Ten-Go was the destruction of Yamato. She was the flagship and the darling and turning away at Samar was considered cowardice in army circles. So the idea that Yamato would survive the war swinging at anchor was considered dishonourable. So she had to die in a blaze of glory to prove the IJN fought to the last bullet. The Hotel Yamato jibes did hurt and what better way to disprove this by getting all the crew killed.
Vice Admiral Ito initially objected to the mission, viewing it as futile and wasteful. According to the plan, Yamato, light cruiser Yahagi, and eight destroyers would form a "Surface Special Attack Force" (the term "special attack" was understood to mean suicide) and sortie on 6 April 1945. This would be carried out in conjunction with a mass aerial kamikaze attack by over 350 airplanes (Kikusui No. 1). The force would transit to Okinawa on 7 April (with only a few hours of minimal air cover), to arrive in daylight hours in the U.S. transport area off southwestern Okinawa on 8 April. The ships were to sink as many troop transports as possible, then beach themselves and continue firing as long as they had ammunition. At that point, the crews would go ashore to fight and die to the last man along with their army comrades.
Hara doesn't mention beaching so it may or may not. I am open to suggestions.
This maybe because USN was pretty much god tier at this point. So survivability was zero and expected trouble as soon as underway.
Hara said there was no air cover at all planned but a flight of aircraft from a training squadron did fly overhead but more as a salute than air cover.
Hara said Yahagi had 20 days food provisions and he deliberately cut this to 5 so food wasn't to go waste. With limited fuel it was certainly a one way if even that. He was under no illusion of what was going on.
Also Yahagi and Yamato launched their float planes so as not to lose them. This was not completed as the aircraft appeared and it was decided not to give the Hellcats an easy kill.
Oddly once the attacks began, surviving destroyers who were picking up survivors from other vessels didn't continue the mission but returned back to port. This wasn't in the plan so I would have expected them to get to Okinawa but maybe common sense overtook their samurai spirit
And radar directed 16" naval rifles with better radar. And experienced radar operators. The radar suite probably wasn't as active when Yamato was on hotel duty.Three Iowa's would put paid to Yamato, three SoDak's same, maybe a little longer. All six? Too many 16" guns no matter what Yamato was designed for.
Methinks you bestow upon Yamato far greater confidence than she deserves.2 issues are USN was unaware of the true nature of Yamato. So maybe big Nagato then maybe but Yamato was a magnitude bigger and it's 18 inch shells were more than capable.
And loss of life on the USN side could have been horrendous. Yamato was going down but the question would have been which American battleship was joining her. Could have made even bigger death toll than Arizona. Plus of course Yahagi and the 7 Destroyers would have played a hand too.
My big battle Jutland self would have loved to see it. But Musashi was proven to be vulnerable against air attack and even if you shoot down a boat load of airplanes the loss of life is lesser. So it was certainly the smarter play.