“I was thinking of the Japanese crew,” he said in a 2011 interview. Watching from above, Crosby had no feeling of elation. It was a strange foretaste of the atomic mushroom clouds that would envelope Hiroshima and Nagasaki a few months later. 1 magazine exploded, sending up a huge coil of smoke and flame that could be seen for over 100 miles. The ship began to list heavily to port, the movement becoming a pronounced roll.Īs Ted Crosby watched, Yamato’s giant, 18-inch guns hit the water, their enormous weight probably helping the battleship capsize. Three bombs hit Yamato amidships, followed by several torpedoes. Crosby, shortly after being commissioned in May 1943.īy this time Yamato was a floating, flaming wreck, her antiaircraft crews decimated by Hellcat strafing runs, her upper works torn into twisted pieces of metal by 1,000-pound bomb hits. As an observer, he had a ringside seat to the last major sortie of the Imperial Japanese Navy. He was piloting a photo plane, there to document the unfolding drama.
It was a few minutes after 2 o’clock on the afternoon of April 7, 1945, and aircraft from the Task Group 58.4 carriers Yorktown (CV-10), Intrepid (CV-11), and Langley (CVL-27) were moving in for the kill.Ĭrosby had seen his share of action and would soon become a fighter ace, but today his mission was more pacific.
The Yamato, then the world’s largest battleship and the pride of Japan, was entering its death throes. Lieutenant (j.g.) John “Ted” Crosby banked his Grumman F6F-5 Hellcat around, observing the life-and-death drama that was unfolding below him.
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