In World War 2, the Japanese thought that weapon would be a new battleship, bigger and greater than anything that had been seen before. They called it, the crown jewel of the Japanese navy, the Yamato.

Right from the get-go, you could tell that the Yamato was a pretty big deal. Just the name “Yamato” invokes a lot of imagery in the Japanese psyche.

As Koichi wrote about, Yamato is a name that’s tied to lots of different things that are dear to the Japanese; not only does it refer to an early ethnic group, but also a language, and a time period in Japanese history.

But aside from the name, the ship itself was an impressive feat. It towered over 100 feet, was as long as the Eiffel Tower is tall, and could hold a crew of over 2,000.

Its firepower was a force to be reckoned with. The Yamato carried the largest guns ever mounted on a war ship and could, in theory, blow any opposition to shreds.

But as important as it was, the Yamato never saw much action; it briefly served as the Japanese navy’s flaghip, but because it was such an obvious target, it spend a lot of time in Japanese ports avoiding Allied bombers.

The only time it ever saw substantial usage was in its last, desperate mission.

Operation Ten-Go

Towards the end of WW2, Japanese forces were dwindling and the US military was steadily advancing from the south. Faced with a desperate situation, the Japanese decided to make one last stand, deemed “Operation Ten-Go.”

The plan was to gather the small remains of the Japanese navy and blaze a trail with the Yamato to Okinawa, then beach the ship and use it as a stationary gun mount. With its thick hide and massive firepower, it seemed like a pretty good idea.

Unfortunately for the Japanese, warfare had evolved. The Yamato was built between WW1 and WW2, during which the introduction of the airplane changed how navies fought.

Before, sea battles were basically giant battleships lobbing shell after shell at each other, and whoever had the better range and stronger guns won.

But airplanes were mobile, fast, and effective, and could take down a ship easier than a ship could shoot down an airplane. Fighters, bombers, and aircraft carriers were the new face of naval warfare.

The Yamato was big, clumsy, and slow, making it an obvious and easy target for airplanes to bomb and shoot down.

In short, Operation Ten-Go was over before it even began. A swarm of American planes was able to take out the Yamato with minimal losses. The Yamato exploded and sunk before it ever got to its planned destination, taking down most of its crew with it. In terms of lives lost, it’s the biggest naval disaster in all of history.

The Yamato explodes

Ever since, the Yamato has lay at the bottom of the South China Sea. There are a few memorials in Japan for the Yamato, and a couple of expeditions have made it out to the Yamato’s wreckage.

Living On In Anime, Video Games, And Movies

In some ways, the Yamato lives on. The anime series Space Battleship Yamato (A.K.A. Star Blazers) was in part inspired by the giant WW2 battleship; and in turn, the Yamato cannon in the Starcraft video game series was named after the anime.

There have been at least three movies about the Yamato too, including 2005′s “The Men’s Yamato” (Otokotachi no Yamato).

By most metrics, the Yamato was a colossal failure. It was an expensive, outdated ship that was too little, too late. It failed to protect Japan from its eventual defeat in WW2, and brought thousands of men down with it. In a lot of ways, it was an allegory for the failure of Japan and its imperial ambitions.

But clearly, the Yamato left its mark. It’s hard to ignore such colossal project that once was the pride of a nation.

Japan has its share of rivals in the world, but how many of you know about Japan’s greatest enemy – the tiny country of Montenegro? Did you know that Japan and Montenegro were at war for 100 years, from 1905-2006? It’s true. Despite losing its army after World War 2 and getting occupied by the US, somehow this 100 year war slipped under the radar of most of the world. How did this happen? Read on to find out.

The Russo-Japanese War

If you’re a history buff or a Japan fanatic, you probably already know all about the Russo-Japanese War. If not, let me get you up to speed: The name of the game at the beginning of the 20th century was imperialism. Every world power at the time had vast empires, conquering other countries. Japan and Russia wanted to be recognized as world powers too, so they decided to expand their empires. Unfortunately, both countries wanted the same territory – Korea and part of China.

Most of the world assumed that Russia was going to win because it had more troops than Japan and more battle experience. However, as the war unfolded Japan won more and more battles. The defining moment of the war was the long and arduous battle over Port Arthur, a strategic Russian port in northeastern China. Initially, the Japanese attempted to block the port entirely with sunken ships, but the situation escalated to a full out siege when the Russians easily overcame the Japanese blockade. After a 6-month Japanese siege of Port Arthur, a Russian general unexpectedly surrendered. In a year, Japan had won. A treaty was signed, Japan was named the victor and received territory from the losers.

Japan’s victory was a huge deal. It was a huge victory for a non-European country at a time when Europe ruled the world. Japan’s victory in the Russo-Japanese war meant that it had made it as a world power, and that the goals of the Meiji Restoration to modernize and westernize had finally been realized.

The Russian people were pretty upset that the motherland had been defeated by such a small country and later experienced a revolution at home. The Tsar (king) of Russia was overthrown, and a new government was set up, making countries and alliances and other things nice and confusing.

Montenegro

Even if you already knew all that and are a Japanese history know-it-all who can name every Japanese emperor, I bet you didn’t know this: one country involved in the war technically stayed at war with Japan for 100 years – Montenegro.

The sweet two-headed bird flag of current-day Montenegro

Montenegro is a tiny Eastern European country that hangs out next to Serbia and Albania, a little east of Italy. Now back in the day, at the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War, Montenegro allied with Russia because Russia had helped out Montenegro with a war a few years earlier. This alliance was really more for moral support than actual military support, as Montenegro is thousands of miles away from Japan, and because of its size, couldn’t really provide that many troops in the first place.

The not-so massive country of Montenegro on a map

The Russo-Japanese war came and went, and Japan won. Somehow though, the proper paperwork didn’t get filled out and when Japan and Russia signed a peace treaty, everybody forgot about poor Montenegro. To make things worse, Montenegro basically turned into five or six different countries in the next hundred years, turning into a kingdom, being absorbed into Yugoslavia, and finally gaining its independence. During all that time, paperwork got shuffled around and more important things were on people’s minds – little things like the World Wars, the Cold War, and Montenegro’s fight for independence.

Peace at Last

It wasn’t till 2006 that Montenegro gained it independence, and Japan normalized relations with the country. An ambassador was sent from Japan, and a formal peace treaty was signed. Now, Japan and Montenegro are best buds. The war of over 100 years is finally over, and there are a whole 11 Japanese people living in Montenegro. Japan even has a fairly substantial trade relationship with Montenegro – Japan exports over a million yen (less than $10,000) worth of goods to Montenegro every year, and there are even Japanese companies there. Japan also helps out the newly-independent Montenegro through aid – giving over 500 million yen to the country (around $5 million).

The great century-long war is probably not even a footnote in most history books, but I think it’s a pretty interesting little tidbit of knowledge. You can impress your friends with your awesome historical knowledge and like, show it off at parties, right? (Or at least write a Tofugu post about it.)

P.S.: Extra credit if you can name all the Japanese emperors from Jimmu to Akihito (no looking at Wikipedia you big nerd!).

P.P.S. If you’re not one of the 11 Japanese people living in Montenegro right now, you should Like Tofugu on Facebook

When it comes to World War 2, there were a lot of funny things going on with Japanese Americans. Land and property were stolen from Japanese Americans, they were put into internment camps (though, not the 157,000 Japanese Americans in Hawaii, including my great great grandmother, who was sending aluminum to Japan to make bombs before the America-Japan conflict started), and now, apparently, there were dogs being trained to sniff out Japanese people. Ironically, they were being trained on Cat Island, a crappy little island just south of Mississippi (and a part of Mississippi too).

Dogs And World War Two

When the US entered the War, it started taking dog donations from civilians. Dogs were used to be sentries, to detect and sniff out mines, and so much more. There was, however, a much more secret dog training mission taking place on Cat Island, where William Prestre (Swiss Refuguee) said he could train dogs to target people of Japanese ancestry based off their smell. According to Prestre, he could train 30,000 dogs that would be released on the beaches of Japanese islands and Zerg rush their inhabitants. Greyhounds would streak across beaches to take out machine gunners (since they’re so speedy), then slower but more terrifying dogs (like Great Danes and Wolfhounds) would wipe the floor with everyone else. Obviously, none of this happened. Thank goodness for the dogs, anyways.

Getting To Cat Island

Cat Island is a little island off of Mississippi that had similar weather and temperature to the Pacific Islands. Apparently, it was also really sulfury, barren, full of alligators and mosquitoes, and a big pain all around. Around 25 people of Japanese ancestry (who were in the U.S. Army) were notified that they would be going on a super secret mission, so secret they couldn’t even tell their friends they were going on it. One of these people, Ray Nosaka, says:

So that morning, they said, “Don’t say anything to your own buddies and don’t goodbye, don’t say anything.” Seven o’clock, we rode the big truck and took us to Wheeler Field [Fort Williams]. And all of us went on a plane.They didn’t tell us where we’re going to go, what we’re going to do.

They got on their plane, stopped off in Tennessee (where they couldn’t get off the plane, because the higher ups didn’t want anyone to see them), then flew to Mississippi where they boarded some coast guard ships which took them to another island near Cat Island called “Ship Island” (seriously, someone should have been commissioned to come up with better island names). At Ship Island, they waited for a while, fished, and didn’t do much. Then, after two weeks, their Major came and told them they would be “training dogs” on  Cat Island. I suppose that’s where the fun starts.

Every day, they’d go by boat from Ship Island to Cat Island, help train the dogs for four hours, then go back home to Ship Island. Besides being attacked by dogs all the time, that’s a pretty sweet gig. Hang out on a tropical island, work 4 hours a day, and drink tons of beer because the water tasted terrible.

We only worked half a day. Half a day, you go back to Ship Island. You go fishing, play guitar and sing a song, things like that, drinking beer. Half a day you work, half a day you’re off. So the hours are very good. That’s why all of us was catching fish. So many fish over there. And now ducks come, shoot the ducks like that. So the life after the four hours we worked is very good.

In fact, at one time we ran out of beer because we cannot drink the water. That thing is so – like rotten eggs. The thing is sulfur, so we cannot drink the water, so we drink up the beer. And, you know, the beer. The thing gone in one week. All gone because we cannot drink the water, we just drink that beer.

So, that begs the question. What were all the secret things they did while they were on the clock, over in Cat Island?

How They (Tried) To Train Dogs To Hunt The Japanese

There were a couple of steps involved in order to try and train dogs to take down Japanese people. The first step was training them to go up to the right people, the second was to learn how to attack, and the third was to play hide and seek.

In the first step, the Japanese Americans would stand there, and the dogs would go up to them. When the dogs went up to them, they’d give the dog some meat and fire a pistol into the air. They did this over and over for four months. I’m guessing the dogs just got good at finding people who had meat on them… yum.

The second step wasn’t as pleasant, unfortunately for the dogs (and the humans involved, too).

And they told us they put a guard over here and we stay like this. And then when the sergeant tell him, “Kill ‘em,” the dog come right up and bite us here, see.  And then finally, the dog got a little more friendly with us. They tied the dog on the fence and they gave me like a whip to hit the dog. I go like this.

Oh, I feel so bad. That’s why I hit like this. I get scolding, tell, “Hit it hard, some more hit” until the thing bleed. That’s why the dog gets mad with you. And they tell ‘em, “Kill him.” I’m like this and, whoa, he bite me all over the place. So I hit the dog until he bled, see. Then he tell me, “Okay, walk ten yards back, turn around and go this way.” The dog was so mad at me because I hit him. Ho, he bite me, bite me like this. And then the sergeant comes, takes him away. And that’s the attack dog.

Lastly, they played hide and seek. They’d go someplace, wait for the dog to come find them, then wait for the dog to go away, then go hide somewhere else. They did all this while batting mosquitoes and avoiding alligators. At least it was only a four hour work day, I guess.

What Happened?

I think you know – the dogs couldn’t tell the difference between Japanese people and other people, and since they were mostly donated dogs from loving families, they’d often just lose interest and become friendly. Our Swiss dog training friend Prestre was fired in Feburary 1943 after a couple of dog shows for the big boys, and the island was converted over to a more traditional dog training island (i.e. no more sniffing out the blood of Japanese people). This went on for a while, but then was eventually closed down in July, 1944 after training approximately 400 dogs.

If you want to read more about Cat Island’s crazy dog training programs, you can read Ray Nosaka’s (one of the 25 Japanese Americans on Cat Island) interview, with the Cat Island parts here and here.

P.S. If you like dogs, you should follow Tofugu on Twitter, Here.

P.P.S. If you like cats, you should subscribe to the Tofugu Newsletter, Here.

Dog trainers of Cat Island

Ship Island is where they’d stay in between trips to Cat Island

Image of Cat Island

Want to read about a more pleasant “Cat Island?” Here’s an island in Japan, populated by cats.

In high school, all of us younguns had to do a Senior Report, of sorts. Now, whenever I do essays / reports / etc, and I have the opportunity to write about whatever I want (bad idea, teachers), I like to choose a topic that almost nobody else has studied, so the professor can’t check my facts. I’m not saying that I go around making stuff up, but I feel a little better when I’m not writing on something within the teacher’s field of expertise. It, how should I say, often results in a higher, how should I call it, grade.

Of course, as you can tell by the title, I decided to study Japanese internment. More specifically, how it affected Hawaii.

If you don’t know already, Hawaii’s population includes tons of Japanese. I’m not just talking tourists in khaki shorts with cameras around their necks. Back during the war, Hawaii’s population was 1/3 Japanese. That’s huge. 157,000 Japanese made their home on the islands. In contrast, the United States mainland only had around 126,000 Japanese. 100,000 of those 126,000 were put in internment camps. That’s a lot of people being put away for no reason.

Now, as you probably learned in history class (if you’re an American, at least), “All Japanese were put in internment camps.” That is, at least, what we are led to believe. The history books tend to gloss over Hawaii, though. What happened to people over there?

Well, not that much.

Of the 157,000 Japanese living in Hawaii, only under 2000 of them were put in internment camps. These were people of supposed power, who could “possibly pose a threat to America.” The ironic thing is, though, Japanese-Americans on the mainland posed a much smaller risk compared to their Hawaii counterparts. Over half of the Japanese-Americans on the mainland were born in America and had American citizenship, yet they were the ones to get interned. They were forced to sell their land on the cheap (Japanese owned a lot of California grape growing land, all of which they lost. Sad, yeah?), and lost pretty much everything (My family’s sword was taken. Bastards!).

In Hawaii, however, almost everyone got off scott free. I’m not saying that anyone should have been interned – I think it was a terrible thing – but they should have at least been consistent about it. Really, the Japanese in Hawaii had much closer ties to Japan than those in the mainland. Still, in the end, it was all economy-based. If you suddenly lose 1/3 of your population, then the economy will implode on itself. According to my grandpa, a lot of Japanese ran banks and worked on farms at the time, so suddenly cutting them out of the economic equation would have been disastrous.

That is why Japanese didn’t get interned in Hawaii, even though more Japanese lived in Hawaii than any other part of the US.

Jokes on America, though. I hear stories about my Great Grandma during the war. She would walk around the streets of Nu’uanu, picking up cigarette packaging and pulling out the aluminum linings, then send it back to Japan so they could make weapons and bombs. On top of that, she went around to all her neighbors and friends (who apparently were pro Japanese, as well) and got them to put stitches into hachimaki, which were sent to Japan for kamikaze bombers to wear for good luck. Great job, America! Way to intern the right people.

Though, I would be sad if my Great Grandma was interned, she was just a sweet old lady picking up trash for those dirty cigarette smoking sailors. How nice!