Qualla: Yamato Museum

Yamato Museum: Introduction

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Evelyn-rose, CC0. In the lobby of the Kure Maritime Museum sits a 26-meter-long model of the battleship Yamato, built at precisely one-tenth the scale of the original. The model occupies the same harbor where the real Yamato was constructed in secrecy during the late 1930s -- the largest and most heavily armed battleship ever built, sunk south of Kyushu in April 1945 during a one-way mission with barely enough fuel for the outbound voyage. The museum, which everyone calls the Yamato Museum, opened in 2005 in Kure, Hiroshima Prefecture, a city whose identity was shaped by the warship it built and the navy it served.

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Image: Evelyn-rose | CC0

Yamato Museum: The Ship That Defined a City

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit そらみみ, CC BY-SA 4.0. Kure was Japan's premier naval shipbuilding port, home to the Kure Naval Arsenal and the Kure Naval District. The Yamato was completed here in December 1941, her construction so secret that the drydock was concealed behind massive curtains of rope and sisal. Her nine 46-centimete...

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Image: そらみみ | CC BY-SA 4.0

Yamato Museum: Weapons and Farewell Letters

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Z3144228, CC BY-SA 4.0. Beyond the flagship model, the museum's large exhibition hall preserves artifacts that bring the war's human cost into sharp focus. A Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighter, a Kairyu-class midget submarine, and a Kaiten human torpedo sit alongside one another. The Kaiten was a modified torp...

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Image: Z3144228 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Yamato Museum: The Wreck Below

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit そらみみ, CC BY-SA 4.0. In May 2015, a digital survey of the sunken Yamato captured footage showing identifiable sections of the wreck for the first time: the chrysanthemum crest on the bow, a five-meter-diameter propeller, a detached main gun turret. The museum shows this nine-minute video in its theat...

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Image: そらみみ | CC BY-SA 4.0

Yamato Museum: Living Memory

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Z3144228, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Yamato has taken on a cultural life far beyond military history. The anime series Space Battleship Yamato reimagined the sunken warship as a spacecraft, and the franchise's parent company C2 Praparat is an official museum partner, funding restoration projects including the gr...

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Image: Z3144228 | CC BY-SA 4.0