Mitsuru Yoshida (吉田満 ''Yoshida Mitsuru'', January 6, 1923 – September 17, 1979) was a Japanese author and

naval A navy, naval force, military maritime fleet, war navy, or maritime force is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral, or ocean-borne combat operatio ...

officer. He was born in

Tokyo Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...

. He was a survivor of the

battleship A battleship is a large, heavily naval armour, armored warship with a main battery consisting of large naval gun, guns, designed to serve as a capital ship. From their advent in the late 1880s, battleships were among the largest and most form ...

''Yamato'' when it was sunk on 7 April 1945 during

Operation Ten-Go , literally Operation Chrysanthemum Water 1, best known as , literally Operation Heaven, was the last major Empire of Japan, Japanese naval operation in the Pacific War, Pacific Theater of World War II. In April 1945, the , the largest battleshi ...

, an attempt to support the defenders of

Okinawa most commonly refers to: * Okinawa Prefecture, Japan's southernmost prefecture * Okinawa Island, the largest island of Okinawa Prefecture * Okinawa Islands, an island group including Okinawa itself * Okinawa (city), the second largest city in th ...

. His best-known work is ''Senkan Yamato-no Saigo'' ('' Requiem for 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 was a Japanese film director and actor. He went to America along with a younger brother to visit an uncle living in Los Angeles. There he enrolled in an acting school, and upon hearing that Thomas H. Ince was looking for Japanese extras to work ...

) in 1953. Another movie, ''

Yamato was originally the area around today's Sakurai, Nara, Sakurai City in Nara Prefecture of Japan, which became Yamato Province and by extension a Names of Japan, name for the whole of Japan. Yamato is also the dynastic name of the ruling Imperial ...

'', was released in 2005.

Selected bibliography

*''Requiem for Battleship Yamato'' (''Senkan Yamato-no Saigo'' translated by Richard H. Minear)

References

Japanese writers 1923 births 1979 deaths Imperial Japanese Navy officers Imperial Japanese Navy personnel of World War II {{Japan-writer-stub