Thanks for sharing your thoughts and story about the Musashi. According to author Frank O. Braynard in his book The Story of Ships, Japan began the war with nine battleships and lost eleven during the conflict. An excellent book on Musashi is called Battleship Musashi by Akira Yoshimura. In that book the author describes the fate of the more than a thousand surviving crew members. Many were isolated, because the Imperial Navy Command didn’t want to acknowledge the loss of this important vessel, and they did not have any contact with their relatives. Many were sent to fight as infantry on islands, and lost their lives defending against US invasion forces. Even though over a thousand men survived the sinking of their ship, few survived the war. Another Japanese battleship that sank with a huge magazine explosion was IJN Mutsu, another very powerful vessel. Her powder magazine exploded while she was moored at the Hashirajima fleet station. The investigation into her loss was focused primarily on sabotage by one of her crewmen, but as powder propellants for naval guns are quite unstable, the loss may have been due to improper storage of the powder. A number of battleships have been destroyed by accidental internal explosions, including the Italian Leonardo da Vinci and the Japanese pre-dreadnought Mikasa. The Italian ship was a total loss, but Mikasa was restored and is on display as a memorial for the 1904 Japanese victory over the Russian fleet at the Battle of Tsushima. Another battleship that was lost was the dreadnought France, which sank in the early 1920s after hitting an uncharted rock in Quiberon Bay. Thankfully, most of her crew were rescued. Thanks again for this fine presentation. I really enjoy your channel, having a lifelong passion for ships and the sea. I remember seeing somewhere that during the history of sailing more than a million ships have been lost. So I don’t think you should have to worry about running out of material!

Thanks for not playing goofy music while telling us the story. Your voice is clear to understand. Thanks TD Atlanta

Hi Ms. Elinor, your presentation is excellent - Please, put aside the so-called "experts" and "arm-chair admirals/sailors/linguists/..." who just love to make comment(s), critique(s), etc... Your video is well done, respectful of this tragedy (war is a tragedy) and does provide for respect of the combatants/victims of this horrible confrontation. Let us not forget that the leaders/heads-of-state that declare and/or start wars are not the soldiers/sailors/airmen-women that will have to fight them or the civilians that will suffer/endure them. Your description is clear and articulate; you have researched your subject thoroughly. Thank you for sharing your studies with the YT community and hopefully, a younger generation can learn from the mistakes of our past. Peace be with you, Ciao, L (Veteran Naval Officer).

I took your advice. I sat back and enjoyed.

Magnificently done. You just gained another subscriber. As a historian that specializes in East Asian History and an avid enthusiast of the Imperial Japanese Navy it warms my heart to see History channels arising on KZfaq. (One note: Leyte is pronounced Lay Tay)

YOU DID A VERY, VERY GOOD JOB !!-I FOUND OUT THINGS, I NEVER KNEW BEFORE !--PLEASE KEEP IT UP !!--LEARN AS YOU GO !

Very good job. Some notes: "forecastle" is pronounced roughly "foc'sal." The submerged explosion may have been due to over-worked surviving engines as the ship was purportedly trying to reach land in order to beach itself. U.S. Navy planners learned to subsequently attack IJN Yamato on one side with torpedoes while other planes also concentrated on bombing and strafing AA guns and crews on that same side. I believe Yamato went down more quickly as a result. Again, good job!

Thank you for your honesty and effort. I enjoyed you video. My mother was a Hiroshima survivor who met my father in Yokosuka Japan in 1955 and they married. My dad was on the USS St. Paul as an engineman on the then flag ship of the 7th fleet. He also served a very short stint on the Iowa Class Battle Ship when she went to Vietnam. I was born at the Yokosuka naval hospital in 1960 and grew up around navy talk. Musashi and Yamato we amazing vessels for their time… but it would be safe to say the day of the “battleship” was obsolete by the time the Pacific Theater started. Keep up your good work.

I find it interesting how both Yamato and Musashi sank in very similar ways, both detonating below the surface, both being split in two, and both having the stern upside down and bow upright.

So Yamamoto Isoriku was actually a fan of America. He got his Master's Degree at Harvard. He lost two fingers during the Russo-Japanese War in 1905. But he went to Harvard in the 1920s and actually LOVED America.

Very nicely done! Great information and great narration.

That was absolutely riveting . Loved every second.

Excellent video. You squeezed a lot of important info into that 28 minutes!

Thanks for the info. I hope your channel prospers. Keep up the good work.

Love this video! And thank you for not having loud background music!

Great narrative!

Actually her AAA armament wasn’t nearly overkill because, although numerous and providing voluminous fire…. the guns themselves (along with their respective rounds) left much to be desired. That said, this was a pretty comprehensive look at this ship and no easy feat I am sure. Thanks!

Your final comments about the respect due the sailors on Musashi are in my opinion correct. My father served in the Seabees during WWll (76th CB) in Hawaii, Guam, and later with the USA occupation forces in Sasebo (98th CB). My father lost an older brother KIA in Weilerswist, Germany on March 3, 1945 (78th Infantry Division-US Army… RIP Uncle Jack). Years ago I asked my father if he harbored any resentment towards the people of Germany and what he said is pretty much a reflection of what you said in this video. My father said that the common soldier was following orders and he did not fault them, in his opinion wars are created and started by politicians. He thought that if 2 countries got into a serious disagreement then the politicians should stay out of it and let some of the regular folks sit down together around a kitchen table over coffee and work out a solution. Even today this appears to be true, it is the politicians and leaders that have blood on their hands.

I enjoyed your video over a coffee this Sunday morning 26 Nov 2023, they were magnificent ships and a credit to their builders. Thanks again and now off to Chester UK

Good job. Maybe do one on the mystery of why Fuso didn't roll over until she was alone and nobody saw it.

Nicely presented presentation I enjoyed it. The Intrepid you use in your picture at 22:03 is the right ship but the wrong year. She did not have an angled flight deck until her refit in 1957. This was something I had to look up since I was not sure when they started using angled flight decks. The first angled flight deck was also an Essex class carrier the USS Antietam (cv36) which was modified in 1952. Parroting what others have said thank you for not having background music and delivering your information in a very clear voice. There was some great information here thank you.

Mishasi was one tough lady! Lots of details not given by other vloggers or event documentaries on TV. As well as a nice touch of the human side of these two warriors. Loving the episodes!

About Yamato battleship to much videos are available but about her sister's Musashi no. This is i one of want. Excellent, complete and helpful. 👏👏👏👏👍👍👍❤❤❤ from Iran

Excellent presentation. Your hard work in research and collaboration of putting together this video is impressive, thank you

This is my favourite class of battleship, and with her sister, Musashi being discovered in 2015 by the research team funded by Microsoft co-founder, Paul G. Allen, and hope their half sister ship, Shinano will be discovered soon. There are a few interesting things about Yamato, such as the German naval attaché Paul Wenneker visited her, and Japanese Admiral Naoki Nomura visited Tirpitz, and of course, Yamato was named Hotel Yamato by her crew, and Musashi, known as The Palace amoung her officers. Some of Musashi's blueprints went missing, and the Japanese went to the extreme by hiring a clairvoyant to help find the missing documents. Their where two aditional ships built specifically for the Yamato class, Kashino helped ferry her main guns. Musashi took longer to build since she was specifically built as a flagship. I own the 2005 film about Yamato, Otoko Tachi No Yamato, as well as the more recent The Great War Of Archimedes, however, there is a film made about Yamato made as early as 1953. Great video, take care, and all the best.

I have a model of the musashi when I was small.very accurate.thanks.

Imagine a ship down 13 feet by the bow and still making 20 knots. Unreal... Great video E... Very interesting...

The pic of the Lexington is of CV2, sunk at Coral Sea in May 1942. The Lexington at Leyte Gulf was the Essex class CV16.

Nicely done, I really love the Fletchers. Magnificent little war boats, and very, very trim.

Appreciate the doco and the lack of loud music. Subscribed. Thank you.

There was a third Yamato class hull which was finished as an aircraft carrier and also sunk during the Pacific war.

Very fine job, young lady.

The IJN knew how to build them. Both Musashi and Yamato absorbed a tremendous amount of punishment. There aren't many ships that could withstand that type of assault.

Nice presentation very informative and well produced. Keep up the good work it’s always good to see quality Content👍

Excellent episode Elinor !!

Great video. Leyte Gulf is pronounced "Lay-tee Gulf". Thank you for an informative video!

Now go for IJN Shinano. The 3rd of the class but converted to an aircraft carrier. Pretty interesting too...

Good Episode! now I have to listen to Musashi!

Very informative and interesting. The absence of annoying background music is a bonus. Thanks.

The Sinking of Shinano, the largest aircraft carrier of her time

Musashi holds the "record" for having absorbed more punishment than any battleship in history. She didn't go gently

Well done! Your speech is a little fast for me but I was able to capture everything. Thank you

Discouraging. For years i have been looking for a ship i could restore and use to shell a few coastal cities. And, now here is another one that will need tons of repair. Be cheaper to build a replica. I’ve got to remember to order the steel.

So DP guns are meant to shot both surface an air targets. The USN's famous 5-in/38-cal guns did exactly that. With various kinds of fuses timed by radar, electronic, or contact fuses.

Thank you for not using those robot voices

well done guys as you did your homework well

the americans got huge toll of losing aswell ,,because musashi gave its best shot during its collosal battle in the sea when u think of it? not just arsenal but its defence that defended both air and sea..so we cant argue with this..

Class

3:30 those huge antennas could only see 49ft ahead? Did you mean 49km? 😅

I thought you did a great job of presenting the videos of the 2 sister ships, in spite of your warning that you did not do this kind of sinking. You also did a commendable job getting through the Japanese names and other Japanese words. This made it funny to hear some other words like Leyte (it is 2 syllables) and Grumman a little bit off. You brought out details not commonly mentioned which shows you did some great research before recording the video.

The "Unsinkable Musashi" took more bomb and torpedo hits than the "Unsinkable Yamato" did If it floats it can sink end of story

Very well done... Suggest that you check two pronunciations: 1, Yokosuka is very often mispronounced by Americans. Phoenetically the Japanese pronounce it as Yokuska 2. Leyte (as in Leyte Gulf) is pronounced in rwo syllables Ley - tey

Your photo of the Intrepid showed F-4 Phantoms on the deck.

She wouldn't have been able to hear anything with her hydrophone worthwhile unless she shut odd all machinery and ventilation systems. She also had her escorts surrounding her creating quite a racket.

As far as I know, Yamato class consisted of 3 ship. They are Battle ship of 64,000 tonnes with 9x16” gun. They are Yamato, Musashi dan Shinano. Shinano sunk after torpedo attack by US submarine.

I read somewhere that the 18in guns on musashi and yamato were not very accurate? Anyone know of information on that?

20:58 wrong lexington. That's the original one that sank at coral sea. The lexington at leyte was an essex-class

Good video! I've said this on another video, but it applies here too. It's ironic that the very same nation which proved to the world that the battleship was no longer king of the seas and could be dominated from the air built the two largest battleships ever to set sail only to see them both sunk by airpower. Also, can you imagine being one of those poor saps who had their ship sunk, got rescued, and then got transferred to the "unsinkable" Musashi only to get their asses bombed off and thrown back into the water for a second time? Talk about bad luck! Just one minor correction, the Curtis Helldiver's designation is SB2C not 2B2C. An easy way to remember it is by its nickname "Son of a Bitch, 2nd Class".

Without a hull number or name she is very identifiable. There's only two ships that thick or armed. It's Yamato that blew into a million bits. INJ Musashi did not detonate.

Who was Yamato's "brother" ship?

My understanding is that Japan never fully utilized those 2 massive battleships. Wonder how things would have been if Japan had.

What is a long ton?

Musashi didn't weigh much more than an Abrams tank.

The Lexington you pictured was sunk long before in the Battle of the Coral Sea on the 8th May 1942. Good vid otherwise

Drop the disclaimer

Quite note, it's LEY-teh, not "Late"

In the Musashi expedition footage from the Paul Allen dives from 2015 a new detail was discovered beneath one of the Type 96 25 mm armored mounts on the superstructure. What appears to be a anti air warfare platform or observation platform. ( I jotted the timestamp from the released footage down somewhere if anyone wants to see for themselves) (130:18). As far as I can tell this detail wasn't known before then. It's amazing that we are still rediscovering things about these ships 80 years later. Respect for all who served and especially the fallen sailors on both sides in the war. May the fallen rest in peace.

Did I just hear a trigger warning? In a video about war?

Over 2 feet

Leyte Lay Tea

Leyte is pronounced "lay-tee" or "lay-tay." Forecastle, a naval term, is properly pronounced "fo'c'sle."

Yokosuka is pronounced as "Yokuska."

Honeycombed

Grum men

Is a disclaimer really needed? Im certain anyone choosing to watch these videos is not so fragile of constitution that they cant handle the graphic realities of the business end of naval battles

Pretty good, but try to pronounce "Yokosuka" a bit better, says this US destroyer veteran. (TIP: The "u" after "s" is silent, such as in "sukiyaki".) Domo arigato gozaimasu! (The "u" isn't pronounced here, either.)

Fact : The World at War series on WWII could not even be shown on network television in this era , in it of itself , proof , We as a nation are being attacked from evil within , there is your trigger warning , cute voice though .

Sass-eh-boh; that's how it's prnounced.

Please stop with the stupid trigger warnings! Who are those for, anyway? People who are intersted in war but don't think it's violent? Come on; treat people like adults.

Lay-tee. Have you never heard it pronounced?

Stupid trigger warning, wise up!

Good video. Just want to offer a tiny bit of help. The Leyte is not pronounced "late", as you say throughout the video. The word is pronounced "lay-tay". I know, I lived in Leyte for 4 years. Cheers!

Your picture of the Lexington was not the Lexington at Leyte Gulf. That Lexington was sunk in the battle of the Coral Sea

Her crew called her, The Place.

It’s not late gulf, it’s Lay-taa 17:55 gulf…. Leyte Gulf 😮 just saying 😊