A Glorious Way to Die
 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 Yamatos 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 carriers. 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 bombers 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 Yamatos total crew of 3359, only 269 survived. The Americans lost 12 men in their attack on the Japanese fleet.