Raise The Yamato!

[Mulboyne]

[floatr][/floatr]The Asahi reports (Japanese) that the city of Kure, in Hiroshima, and a number of private contractors are considering a plan to salvage the battleship Yamato which is currently lying at the bottom of the East China Sea, marked by the red cross on the adjoining map. The red line shows the battleship's final journey which began from Kure. It was heading for Okinawa with the intention of beaching and using its firepower to combat the US invasion. However, it was intercepted and sunk and the main part of the ship's hull is about 350m down. Two diving teams, in 1985 and 1999, recovered some items from the wreck but this is the first time that anyone has considered a full-scale salvage exercise. Kure officials believe that the battleship is a symbol of the city and if it proved feasible to salvage it and put it on display then it might revitalize the local area. Kure is already host to the Yamato Museum which has a one-tenth scale model of the ship - over 26 meters in length - on display.

[Sentakki Fried Chicken]

I've never understood the Japanese fascination with the Yamato. Apart from the tragic loss of so many mostly young lives, there was little noble about it. The ship, despite being the biggest battleship in history, was obselete before it was even completed and never even made it to the war zone. I can understand the nobility of other futile wartime exploits, like the suicide squads of which the kamikaze are the most famous, but the mystique of the Yamato baffles me. To me, everything to do with the ship seems to have been a monumental blunder.
Perhaps Takechanpoo, or even anybody else who knows, could enlighten me on why the Yamato has been able to so powerfully capture Japanese hearts, even today, 65 years after it sank.

[Doctor Stop]

Raising the Yamato would require a boatload of fluffers.

[Kuang_Grade]

if they pull it up now, how will we ever get to Iscandar to get the Cosmo-DNA when the Gamilons attack?

[Behan]

Raising the Yamato would require a boatload of fluffers.

LOL. That was a good one.

[dimwit]

Let's see...

1) It is sitting under several thousand feet of water.
2) It was a large number of not too small holes in it
3) It has been sitting under water for over 60 years and that ain't gonna do pretty things to the structural strength of the ship.
4) If it is ever raised it will look like a big former Eastern Bloc freighter.

Why not just build a full size replica to replace the pint sized one they have in the Kure Museum if they really love the thing so much?

[Kuang_Grade]

And don't forget those main guns platforms aren't exactly evenly weighted items...maybe they got lucky and they ripped themselves out of the ship on the way down

[Kanchou]

Some nerd is going want to turn it into a spaceship.

[Mulboyne]

Here's the Asahi's English version:

Despite jaw-dropping costs and immense technical difficulties, business leaders here plan to salvage parts from the sunken World War II imperial battleship Yamato. Officials said the project would help revitalize this area of western Japan. A five-member preparatory panel announced the plan Thursday. In the words of one official, "We hope to have the real thing on exhibit" so as to revitalize this once-thriving naval port that developed as a shipbuilding center. The official called the Yamato a "symbol of Kure." The panel is headed by Seiichiro Okuhara, chairman of the Kure Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Kazushige Todaka, chief of the Kure Maritime Museum, more commonly known as the Yamato Museum because it has a replica of the battleship on display, is among the members. The city of Kure is joining the project as an observer. The panel said an executive committee will be formed in April to start the drive to raise funds, which it estimates will run into billions of yen.

...Panel members said they hope to at least raise the 2,780-ton main guns and the front portion of the hull, which they say bear distinctive Yamato characteristics. Okuhara said salvaging parts from the historic ship is partly aimed at praying for the repose of the dead and to show young and future generations the misery of war and the importance of peace. "The technology used to build the Yamato still plays a big role in the manufacturing industry here," Okuhara said. In surveys in 1985 and 1999, a bugle, eating utensils and other artifacts were salvaged, but no ship parts.

[Greji]

I've never understood the Japanese fascination with the Yamato.

You have to remember at the time the Yamato was built, it was still the era of the battleship. It was not until WWII got under way that the carriers and carrier battle groups became the mainstay of naval power.

The Yamato was the largest dreadnaught ever built and Japanese naval strategy was based on the so-called decisive battle where they draw the adversary's battleships into a culminating battle and destroy them. This was aided and abetted by Admiral Togo's destruction of the Russian fleet when he "crossed the T" on them at Tsushima.

As a result, the Yamato was held back from all battles and until it was sunk off Okinawa, had only fired its guns once during the war.

Not withstanding the significance of its name, Yamato represents a myriad of other things dear to Japan. A time when the Japanese Naval was arguably the most powerful in the world and Yamato was its flagship. It represented the glory of Imperial Japan and along with its sister ship the Musahi, were the largest battleship hulls ever laid.