Imperial Japan's World War II Yamato-class battleships profiled in new book

Friday, 21 January 2011 08:55 Written by Fyddeye Administrator

Clinton Township, Mich. — Author Raymond A. Bawal extends his literary work into World War II with Titans of the Rising Sun, a detailed study of the creation and demise of Japan’s Yamato-class battleship. During the first half of the twentieth century, the battleship symbolized a nation’s power on the world stage, with countries such as Britain, Japan, and the United States contending for dominance of the high seas. The overwhelming victory over the Russian fleet in 1905 by the Imperial Japanese fleet at the Battle of Tsushima would influence Japanese naval strategy for the next forty years.

The desire to build a powerful naval fleet to achieve its empire building ambitions prompted Japan to embark upon a series of construction programs which resulted in the creation of battleship classes with ever increasing capabilities. After an era of construction constraints imposed by naval treaties signed during the 1920s, Japan began formulating plans during the early 1930s for the creation of the most powerful and largest battleships the world would ever witness. These mammoth ships were equipped with the biggest guns ever fitted to a warship, and were capable of destroying any adversary they would meet.

Intended to be glorious symbols of Japanese power, the Yamato class had the disadvantage of being designed at a crossroads in naval strategy in which advances in aviation technology was shifting the focus of sea power from the battleship to the aircraft carrier. This change in paradigms would have dramatic effects not only on the Yamato class, but the battleship in general as they confronted a new type of warfare in which they were at a distinct disadvantage. The story of the Yamato and those of her class illustrate the closing of one chapter in the history of warfare while at the same time the opening of another.

Titans of the Rising Sun (206 pages, 45 illustations) is available in print on Amazon and as an e-book for the Amazon Kindle.