Operation Ten-Go

Operation Ten-Go 天號作戰 or 天号作戦
Part of the Battle of Okinawa, Pacific Theater, World War II
Yamato under attack. A large fire burns aft of her superstructure and she is low in the water from torpedo damage.
Date 7 April 1945 Location Pacific Ocean, between Kyūshū, Japan and Ryūkyū Islands Result American victory Destruction of the Japanese flagship.
Belligerents
United States	Empire of Japan
Commanders and leaders
Marc Mitscher Joseph J. Clark Frederick C. Sherman	Seiichi Itō † Keizō Komura Kosaku Aruga †
Units involved
Task Force 58	2nd Fleet, Combined Fleet
Strength
11 aircraft carriers 6 battleships 11 cruisers 30+ destroyers 386 carrier based aircraft	1 battleship 1 light cruiser 8 destroyers 115 aircraft, mostly kamikaze
Casualties and losses
Attack on Yamato task force: 12 aircrew dead 10 aircraft destroyed In kamikaze attacks: 85 killed & missing 122 wounded 1 carrier moderately damaged 1 battleship moderately damaged 1 destroyer heavily damaged	Yamato task force: 3,700–4,250 dead 1 battleship sunk 1 light cruiser sunk 4 destroyers sunk 1 destroyer heavily damaged Kamikaze: 100 aircraft destroyed, 100+ dead

Attack on Yamato task force: 12 aircrew dead
10 aircraft destroyed

Yamato task force: 3,700–4,250 dead
1 battleship sunk
1 light cruiser sunk
4 destroyers sunk
1 destroyer heavily damaged

Operation Ten-Go (天號作戰 (Kyūjitai) or (Shinjitai), Ten-gō Sakusen^?) was a Japanese naval operation plan in 1945, consisting of four likely scenarios. Its first scenario, Operation Heaven One (or Ten-ichi-gō天一号) became the last major Japanese naval operation in the Pacific Theater of World War II. The resulting engagement is also known as the Battle of the East China Sea.

In April 1945, the Japanese battleship Yamato (the heaviest battleship in the world), along with nine other Japanese warships, embarked from Japan on a deliberate suicide attack upon Allied forces engaged in the Battle of Okinawa. The Japanese force was attacked, stopped, and almost destroyed by United States carrier-borne aircraft before reaching Okinawa. Yamato and five other Japanese warships were sunk.

The battle demonstrated U.S. air supremacy in the Pacific theater by this stage in the war and the vulnerability of surface ships without air cover to aerial attack. The battle also exhibited Japan's willingness to sacrifice entire ships, even the pride of its fleet, in desperate kamikaze attacks aimed at slowing the Allied advance on the Japanese home islands. This extremism reportedly contributed to the US decision to employ nuclear weapons against the Japanese.

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