Thanks to SIGINT Japanese Battleship was Sunk

On April 7, 1945 the Yamato, a Japanese battleship, sunk off Okinawa, largely due to SIGINT tipoffs. Yamato was the lead ship of the Yamato class of Imperial Japanese Navy World War II battleships.


The ship was sunk by American planes 200 miles north of Okinawa while en route to a suicide mission in Operation Ten-Go.

The only time Yamato fired her main guns at enemy surface targets was in October 1944, when she was sent to engage American forces invading the Philippines during the Battle of Leyte Gulf. On the verge of success the Japanese force turned back, believing they were engaging an entire US carrier fleet rather than the light escort carrier group that was all that stood between the battleship and the vulnerable troop transports.