Mitsuru Yoshida was a Japanese author and naval officer. He was born in Tokyo

Tokyo

, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...

. He was the senior surviving officer on the battleship

Battleship

A battleship is a large armored warship with a main battery consisting of heavy caliber guns. Battleships were larger, better armed and armored than cruisers and destroyers. As the largest armed ships in a fleet, battleships were used to attain command of the sea and represented the apex of a...

 Yamato

Japanese battleship Yamato

, named after the ancient Japanese Yamato Province, was the lead ship of the Yamato class of battleships that served with the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War II. She and her sister ship, Musashi, were the heaviest and most powerfully armed battleships ever constructed, displacing...

 when it was sunk on 7 April 1945 during Operation Ten-Go

Operation Ten-Go

was the last major Japanese naval operation in the Pacific Theater of World War II. Other renderings of this operation's title in English include Operation Heaven One and Ten-ichi-gō....

, an attempt to support the defenders of Okinawa.

His best known work is Senkan Yamato-no Saigo (戦艦大和ノ最期, The Last Days of Battleship Yamato), based on his personal experiences as a junior officer on Yamatos final voyage. It was made into a movie Senkan Yamato ("Battleship Yamato" Shin-Toho. Dir.: Yutaka Abe

Yutaka Abe

was a Japanese film director and actor. He went to America to study theater and began acting in Hollywood, appearing in such films as The Cheat with Sessue Hayakawa. He was often billed as "Jack Abbe" or "Jack Yutake Abbe." He returned to Japan in 1925, finding work at the Nikkatsu studio, and soon...

) in 1953. Another movie Otoko-tachi no Yamato

Otoko-tachi no Yamato

is a 2005 Japanese war film. It was directed by Junya Sato and is based on a book by Jun Henmi. With a framing story set in the present day, by flashbacks it tells the story of the crew of the World War II Japanese battleship Yamato, concentrating on the ship's demise during Operation...

 was released in 2005.

Selected bibliography

• Requiem
  Requiem
  A Requiem or Requiem Mass, also known as Mass for the dead or Mass of the dead , is a Mass celebrated for the repose of the soul or souls of one or more deceased persons, using a particular form of the Roman Missal...
  
  for Battleship Yamato (Senkan Yamato-no Saigo translated by Richard H. Minear) ISBN 0-295-96216-X ISBN 0-295-96216-X ISBN 1-55750-544-6

External links

• Requiem for Battleship Yamato book review