Moreover, she was anchored in water that was too shallow for torpedoes. Her secondary battery was also removed and dispersed to be used in an anti-landing role at Yokosuka. Most of her anti-aircraft weapons were removed and placed on high hills around the ship. (There is a meticulously accurate full-scale replica of Nagato in the opening scene of the 1970 Pearl Harbor movie Tora! Tora! Tora! The super-battleship Yamato was commissioned on 16 December 1941 and Yamamoto shifted his flag to her in February 1942.) By the spring of 1945, Nagato had been relegated to a floating coastal defense battery to defend against landings in Sagami Wan and Tokyo Bay. Nagato was the flagship of the commander-in-chief of the Japanese Combined Fleet, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, at the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Although some argued that attacking the ships was unnecessary as the Japanese navy was a spent force, Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz wanted them destroyed, and Admiral William Halsey carried out his orders.įollowing strikes by Task Force 38 carrier aircraft in the Tokyo area on 10 July, photo-reconnaissance analysis revealed Japanese battleship Nagato deep in a cove at Yokosuka. Japanese ships contributed to the anti-aircraft defenses of several major bases, several of which, especially the main naval base at Kure, were already heavily defended by shore-based anti-aircraft weapons, making air attacks on the bases a formidable prospect. By July 1945, what was left of the Imperial Japanese Navy was immobilized in Japanese ports due to lack of fuel and critical maintenance.
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