A Glorious Way to Die A Glorious Way to Die : The Kamikaze Mission of the Battleship Yamato , April 1945 is a 1981 military history book by Russell Spurr about the suicide mission of the against the American Pacific Fleet during the Battle of Okinawa near the end of World War II . " Yamato " was the largest battleship in the world , and Japan sacrificed it in a last - ditch attempt to halt the Allied advance on the Japanese archipelago . The book was published in the United States by Newmarket Press , and in the United Kingdom by Sidgwick & Jackson . Spurr , a British journalist and editor of the Hong Kong - based " Far Eastern Economic Review " , interviewed Japanese and Americans involved with " Yamato " s last mission , and drew on Japanese naval documents and records to write the book . He tells the story from both the Japanese and American point of view . Background . During World War II Russell Spurr was a lieutenant in the Royal Indian Navy fighting the Japanese in Burma . After the war , in February 1946 , Spurr was part of the Commonwealth occupation force stationed in the Japanese naval base of Kure in southern Japan . It was there that he noticed a huge drydock standing empty , and after querying what it had been used for , he learnt that it was where the " Yamato " had been built . Spurr had been isolated in Burma for several years and had never heard of the " Yamato " , but he became interested in her story and started collecting information about the battleship . After returning to England , Spurr worked as a journalist . In 1952 " The London Daily Express " sent him to Japan as its China and Far East correspondent , but he found that he had little time to resume his pursuit of information on the fate of the " Yamato " . In the mid - 1970s Spurr returned to the Far East again , this time as a writer for the " Far Eastern Economic Review " . He began conducting interviews about " Yamato " with former Japanese naval commanders and survivors of the battleship ' s last mission . He also gained access to Japanese naval documents and records seized by the United States , plus US interrogation transcripts . For the American side of the story , he interviewed US naval commanders and personnel involved in the sinking of " Yamato " . Satisfied with what he had , Spurr began writing the book in the late 1970s , over 30 years after he first found out about " Yamato " . In his introduction to the book , Spurr said that he made no attempt to " gloss over the facts , unpalatable though they may be to either side . " He added , " The result , I trust , presents more than the story of a ship or a sortie , but offers some insight into the agonizing dilemma of a misguided , courageous people who persisted in continuing a hopeless war . " Synopsis . In " A Glorious Way to Die " , Russell Spurr recounts the final mission of the . He describes the events that led to the decision by the Japanese at Combined Fleet headquarters to send " Yamato " , the pride of the Imperial Japanese Navy , on a suicide mission to help defend Okinawa Island against the advancing Allied forces . Spurr tells the story of " Yamato " s last mission in a " dramatic narrative " from both the Japanese and the American point of view . Construction of the " Yamato " began in secrecy at the Kure naval base in 1937 . She was completed soon after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 , but had already been rendered obsolete by the Japanese themselves after their successful carrier - based attacks at Pearl Harbor and elsewhere . " Yamato " , the largest battleship in the world , with nine 18 . 1 - inch guns with a range of over 22 miles , became a " 70 , 000 - ton white elephant the Japanese did not quite know what to do with " . In March 1945 , after the Americans had invaded Okinawa and all but eliminated the Japanese Navy , a final Kamikaze mission called Operation Ten - Go ( Operation Heaven One ) was conceived to repulse the American advances . The plan was to send " Yamato " with eight support destroyers and a cruiser to Okinawa . " Yamato " would only be given enough fuel to reach Okinawa , and would have no air - cover as all available airplanes would be used for a series of Kamikaze attacks on US aircraft carrier s . At Okinawa " Yamato " and her support craft would beach themselves and assist the island defenders . Without air - cover there was little chance of " Yamato " reaching her destination , but the Japanese high command were " perfectly prepared to sacrifice the remnants of [ their ] fleet to avoid the stigma of surrender " . The Americans intercepted the Japanese fleet on April 7 , 1945 , 200 miles from Okinawa . Using 280 bomber s and torpedo planes in three waves of attacks from nine aircraft carriers , the Americans sank " Yamato " and five of her support ships within three hours . After " Yamato " went down the Americans machine - gunned survivors in the water . Spurr explains the reason for their hatred of the Japanese : After the US planes left the area , the remaining Japanese support ships picked up what survivors they could from the water and returned to Kure . Of " Yamato " s total crew of 3359 , only 269 survived . The Americans lost 12 men in their attack on the Japanese fleet . Reception . Roger Jaynes writing in the " Milwaukee Journal Sentinel " described " A Glorious Way to Die " as " a dramatic absorbing account of the " Yamato " s last mission " . His only complaint was that the book takes too long to " get into " , and that the first 90 pages , most of which deal with background information , should have been heavily condensed . But once " " Yamato " finally leaves port " , Jaynes said the book is " a chilling account of how more than 3 , 000 Japanese sailors obediently sailed to their deaths , knowing they had no air cover and that the American planes were waiting " . Richard F . Shepard in a review of the book in " The New York Times " called it a " compelling story " . He said that Spurr tells this " naval saga " , which had degenerated into a " racial conflict " , from the point of view of the people involved , " people who had little time for moralizing or preachments , anything but getting on with the killing " . American author and journalist Charles Kaiser , also writing in " The New York Times " , said that the book ' s strength is " its ability to re - create the fear the Japanese engendered with their desperation tactics " and the resulting American perception that they were all prepared to fight to the death . Kaiser added that younger readers may have a better understanding from this book of what led to US President Truman ' s decision to use the atomic bomb against Japan , " even if they [ . . . ] question the morality of that decision " .