
Requiem for Battleship Yamato
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed

Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $14.95
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Graeme Malcolm
About this listen
Requiem for Battleship Yamato is Yoshida Mitsuru's story of his own experience as a junior naval officer aboard the fabled Japanese battleship as it set out on a last, desperate sortie in April 1945. Yoshida was on the bridge during Yamato's fatal encounter with American airplanes, and his eloquent, moving account of that battle makes a singular contribution to the literature of the Pacific war. The book has long been considered a classic in both Japan and the United States. As with most great battle stories, its ultimate concern is less bombs and bullets than human nature, less death than life.
©1985 University of Washington Press (P)2014 Audible Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
-
With the Old Breed
- At Peleliu and Okinawa
- By: E. B. Sledge
- Narrated by: Marc Vietor, Joe Mazzello, Tom Hanks (introduction)
- Length: 13 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The celebrated 2010 HBO miniseries The Pacific, winner of eight Emmy Awards, was based on two classic books about the War in the Pacific, Helmet for My Pillow and With The Old Breed. Audible Studios, in partnership with Playtone, the production company co-owned by Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman, and creator of the award-winning HBO series Band of Brothers, John Adams, and The Pacific, as well as the HBO movie Game Change, has created new recordings of these memoirs, narrated by the stars of the miniseries.
-
-
This is the second audio book of Sledge's work
- By Richard on 10-21-13
By: E. B. Sledge
-
Japanese Destroyer Captain
- Pearl Harbor, Guadalcanal, Midway - The Great Naval Battles Seen Through Japanese Eyes
- By: Captain Tameichi Hara
- Narrated by: Brian Nishii
- Length: 15 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This highly regarded war memoir was a best seller in both Japan and the United States during the 1960s and has long been treasured by historians for its insights into the Japanese side of the surface war in the Pacific. The author was a survivor of more than one hundred sorties against the Allies and was known throughout Japan as the Unsinkable Captain.
-
-
Rousing tale of fear overcome
- By Jean on 11-28-14
-
Bismarck
- The Final Days of Germany's Greatest Battleship
- By: Niklas Zetterling, Michael Tamelander
- Narrated by: Charles Constant
- Length: 9 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The sinking of the German battleship Bismarck - a masterpiece of engineering, well-armored with a main artillery of eight 15-inch guns - was one of the most dramatic events of World War II. She left the port of Gotenhafen for her first operation on the night of 18 May 1941, yet was almost immediately discovered by Norwegian resistance and Allied air reconnaissance. British battlecruiser Hood was quickly dispatched from Scapa Flow to intercept the Bismarck, together with new battleship Prince of Wales.
-
-
A must read for any WWII Naval Historian!
- By Rick on 10-14-13
By: Niklas Zetterling, and others
-
The Rising Sun
- The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945
- By: John Toland
- Narrated by: Tom Weiner
- Length: 41 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This Pulitzer Prize-winning history of World War II chronicles the dramatic rise and fall of the Japanese empire, from the invasion of Manchuria and China to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Told from the Japanese perspective, The Rising Sun is, in the author’s words, "a factual saga of people caught up in the flood of the most overwhelming war of mankind, told as it happened - muddled, ennobling, disgraceful, frustrating, full of paradox."
-
-
A political as well as military history
- By Mike From Mesa on 07-30-15
By: John Toland
-
Black Snow
- Curtis LeMay, the Firebombing of Tokyo, and the Road to the Atomic Bomb
- By: James M. Scott
- Narrated by: L.J. Ganser
- Length: 12 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Seven minutes past midnight on March 10, 1945, nearly 300 American B-29s thundered into the skies over Tokyo. Their payloads of incendiaries ignited a firestorm that reached up to 2,800 degrees, liquefying asphalt and vaporizing thousands; sixteen square miles of the city were flattened and more than 100,000 men, women, and children were killed. Black Snow is the story of this devastating operation, orchestrated by Major General Curtis LeMay, who famously remarked: "If we lose the war, we'll be tried as war criminals."
-
-
Scott nearly puts it all together here.
- By C. G. Telcontar on 05-28-24
By: James M. Scott
-
Neptune's Inferno
- The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal
- By: James D. Hornfischer
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 18 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors and Ship of Ghosts, James D. Hornfischer created essential and enduring narratives about America’s World War II Navy, works of unique immediacy distinguished by rich portraits of ordinary men in extremis and exclusive new information. Now he does the same for the deadliest, most pivotal naval campaign of the Pacific war: Guadalcanal. Neptune’s Inferno is at once the most epic and the most intimate account ever written of the contest for control of the seaways of the Solomon Islands.
-
-
The WWII Pacific Theater Explodes In My Lazy Chair
- By Rum Runner on 03-01-11
-
With the Old Breed
- At Peleliu and Okinawa
- By: E. B. Sledge
- Narrated by: Marc Vietor, Joe Mazzello, Tom Hanks (introduction)
- Length: 13 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The celebrated 2010 HBO miniseries The Pacific, winner of eight Emmy Awards, was based on two classic books about the War in the Pacific, Helmet for My Pillow and With The Old Breed. Audible Studios, in partnership with Playtone, the production company co-owned by Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman, and creator of the award-winning HBO series Band of Brothers, John Adams, and The Pacific, as well as the HBO movie Game Change, has created new recordings of these memoirs, narrated by the stars of the miniseries.
-
-
This is the second audio book of Sledge's work
- By Richard on 10-21-13
By: E. B. Sledge
-
Japanese Destroyer Captain
- Pearl Harbor, Guadalcanal, Midway - The Great Naval Battles Seen Through Japanese Eyes
- By: Captain Tameichi Hara
- Narrated by: Brian Nishii
- Length: 15 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This highly regarded war memoir was a best seller in both Japan and the United States during the 1960s and has long been treasured by historians for its insights into the Japanese side of the surface war in the Pacific. The author was a survivor of more than one hundred sorties against the Allies and was known throughout Japan as the Unsinkable Captain.
-
-
Rousing tale of fear overcome
- By Jean on 11-28-14
-
Bismarck
- The Final Days of Germany's Greatest Battleship
- By: Niklas Zetterling, Michael Tamelander
- Narrated by: Charles Constant
- Length: 9 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The sinking of the German battleship Bismarck - a masterpiece of engineering, well-armored with a main artillery of eight 15-inch guns - was one of the most dramatic events of World War II. She left the port of Gotenhafen for her first operation on the night of 18 May 1941, yet was almost immediately discovered by Norwegian resistance and Allied air reconnaissance. British battlecruiser Hood was quickly dispatched from Scapa Flow to intercept the Bismarck, together with new battleship Prince of Wales.
-
-
A must read for any WWII Naval Historian!
- By Rick on 10-14-13
By: Niklas Zetterling, and others
-
The Rising Sun
- The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945
- By: John Toland
- Narrated by: Tom Weiner
- Length: 41 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This Pulitzer Prize-winning history of World War II chronicles the dramatic rise and fall of the Japanese empire, from the invasion of Manchuria and China to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Told from the Japanese perspective, The Rising Sun is, in the author’s words, "a factual saga of people caught up in the flood of the most overwhelming war of mankind, told as it happened - muddled, ennobling, disgraceful, frustrating, full of paradox."
-
-
A political as well as military history
- By Mike From Mesa on 07-30-15
By: John Toland
-
Black Snow
- Curtis LeMay, the Firebombing of Tokyo, and the Road to the Atomic Bomb
- By: James M. Scott
- Narrated by: L.J. Ganser
- Length: 12 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Seven minutes past midnight on March 10, 1945, nearly 300 American B-29s thundered into the skies over Tokyo. Their payloads of incendiaries ignited a firestorm that reached up to 2,800 degrees, liquefying asphalt and vaporizing thousands; sixteen square miles of the city were flattened and more than 100,000 men, women, and children were killed. Black Snow is the story of this devastating operation, orchestrated by Major General Curtis LeMay, who famously remarked: "If we lose the war, we'll be tried as war criminals."
-
-
Scott nearly puts it all together here.
- By C. G. Telcontar on 05-28-24
By: James M. Scott
-
Neptune's Inferno
- The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal
- By: James D. Hornfischer
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 18 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors and Ship of Ghosts, James D. Hornfischer created essential and enduring narratives about America’s World War II Navy, works of unique immediacy distinguished by rich portraits of ordinary men in extremis and exclusive new information. Now he does the same for the deadliest, most pivotal naval campaign of the Pacific war: Guadalcanal. Neptune’s Inferno is at once the most epic and the most intimate account ever written of the contest for control of the seaways of the Solomon Islands.
-
-
The WWII Pacific Theater Explodes In My Lazy Chair
- By Rum Runner on 03-01-11
-
In Harm's Way
- The Sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis and the Extraordinary Story of Its Survivors
- By: Doug Stanton
- Narrated by: Mark Boyett
- Length: 8 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On July 30, 1945, the USS Indianapolis was torpedoed in the South Pacific by a Japanese submarine. An estimated 300 men were killed upon impact; close to 900 sailors were cast into the Pacific Ocean, where they remained undetected by the navy for nearly four days and nights. Battered by a savage sea, they struggled to stay alive, fighting off sharks, hypothermia, and dementia. By the time rescue arrived, all but 317 men had died. The captain's subsequent court-martial left many questions unanswered
-
-
Captivating
- By Clarence Sparks on 10-22-16
By: Doug Stanton
-
Eagle Against the Sun
- The American War With Japan
- By: Ronald H. Spector
- Narrated by: Tom Perkins
- Length: 23 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Spector reassesses US and Japanese strategy and offers some provocative interpretations. He shows that the dual advance across the Pacific by MacArthur and Nimitz was less a product of strategic calculation and more a pragmatic solution to bureaucratic, doctrinal, and public relations problems facing the Army and Navy. He also argues that Japan made its fatal error not in the Midway campaign but in abandoning its offensive strategy after that defeat and allowing itself to be drawn into a war of attrition.
-
-
OK as an overview, but too little detail
- By Mike From Mesa on 03-21-22
-
War Beneath the Sea
- Submarine Conflict During World War II
- By: Peter Padfield
- Narrated by: Chris MacDonnell
- Length: 25 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This riveting chronicle of submarine warfare is the first to cover all the major submarine campaigns of the war, describing, in detail, the operations of the British, American, Japanese, Italian, and German submarine and anti-submarine forces. Beginning with a vivid re-creation of the sinking of the passenger liner Athenia by a German U-boat in September 1939, critically acclaimed military historian Peter Padfield's compelling narrative casts an unflinching eye on the devastating consequences of maritime warfare.
-
-
Fills in the gaps of other submarine books
- By Ben on 05-19-21
By: Peter Padfield
-
Pacific Crucible: War at Sea in the Pacific, 1941-1942
- By: Ian W. Toll
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 22 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the first Sunday in December 1941, an armada of Japanese warplanes appeared suddenly over Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and devastated the U.S. Pacific Fleet. Six months later, in a sea fight north of the tiny atoll of Midway, four Japanese aircraft carriers were sent into the abyss. Pacific Crucible tells the epic tale of these first searing months of the Pacific war, when the U.S. Navy shook off the worst defeat in American military history and seized the strategic initiative.
-
-
Astonishingly good.
- By Mike From Mesa on 09-01-12
By: Ian W. Toll
-
Who Can Hold the Sea
- The U.S. Navy in the Cold War 1945-1960
- By: James D. Hornfischer
- Narrated by: Christopher Newton, Sharon Hornfischer
- Length: 17 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This landmark account of the U.S. Navy in the Cold War, Who Can Hold the Sea combines narrative history with scenes of stirring adventure on—and under—the high seas. In 1945, at the end of World War II, the victorious Navy sends its sailors home and decommissions most of its warships. But this peaceful interlude is short-lived, as Stalin, America’s former ally, makes aggressive moves in Europe and the Far East.
-
-
James D. Hornfisher's last work
- By JWHayn4563 on 05-05-22
-
The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors
- The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour
- By: James D. Hornfischer
- Narrated by: Barrett Whitener
- Length: 16 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Told from the point of view of the men who waged this steel-shattering battle, The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors captures Navy pilots attacking enemy battleships with makeshift weapons and sacrificial valor, a veteran commander improvising tactics never taught in Annapolis, and young crews from across America rising to an impossible challenge.
-
-
Outstanding
- By John on 04-17-04
-
Six Days of War
- June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East
- By: Michael B. Oren
- Narrated by: Robert Whitfield
- Length: 17 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Israel and the West, it is called the Six Day War. In the Arab world, it is known as the June War or, simply, as "the Setback". Never has a conflict so short, unforeseen, and largely unwanted by both sides so transformed the world. The Yom Kippur War, the war in Lebanon, the Camp David accords, the controversy over Jerusalem and Jewish settlements in the West Bank, the intifada, and the rise of Palestinian terror are all part of the outcome of those six days.
-
-
Great overview of Middle East troubles
- By Patrick Marstall on 07-23-06
By: Michael B. Oren
-
Clash of the Carriers
- The True Story of the Marianas Turkey Shoot of World War II
- By: Barrett Tillman, Stephen Coonts
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 11 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The incredible true story of the most spectacular aircraft-carrier battle in history - World War II's Great Marianas Turkey Shoot. Here is the true account of those great and terrible days - by those who were there, in the thick of the Battle of the Philippine Sea. Drawing upon numerous interviews with American and Japanese veterans as well as official sources, Clash of the Carriers is an unforgettable testimonial to the bravery of those who fought and those who died in a battle that will never be forgotten.
-
-
OUTSTANDING BOOK!!
- By Bill on 10-30-18
By: Barrett Tillman, and others
-
Dark Waters, Starry Skies
- The Guadalcanal-Solomons Campaign, March–October 1943
- By: Jeffrey Cox
- Narrated by: John Chancer
- Length: 31 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Thousands of miles from friendly ports, the US Navy had finally managed to complete the capture of Guadalcanal from the Japanese in early 1943. Now the Allies sought to keep the offensive momentum won at such a high cost. This is the central plotline running through this page-turning history beginning with the Japanese Operation I-Go and the American ambush of Admiral Yamamoto and continuing on to the Allied invasion of New Georgia, northwest of Guadalcanal in the middle of the Solomon Islands and the location of a major Japanese base.
-
-
great but way too much alliteration...
- By Greg on 06-16-23
By: Jeffrey Cox
-
Tin Can Titans
- The Heroic Men and Ships of World War II's Most Decorated Navy Destroyer Squadron
- By: John Wukovits
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 10 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Admiral William Halsey selected Destroyer Squadron 21 to lead his victorious ships into Tokyo Bay to accept the Japanese surrender, it was the most battle-hardened US naval squadron of the war. But it was not the squadron of ships that had accumulated such an inspiring résumé; it was the people serving aboard them. Through diaries, personal interviews with survivors, and letters written to and by the crews during the war, preeminent historian of the Pacific theater John Wukovits brings to life the human story of the squadron and its men.
-
-
Captivating
- By Jean on 09-23-17
By: John Wukovits
-
Ship of Ghosts
- The Story of the USS Houston, FDR's Legendary Lost Cruiser, and the Epic Saga of Her Survivors
- By: James D. Hornfischer
- Narrated by: Mark Cashman
- Length: 17 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Renowned as FDR's favorite warship, the cruiser USS Houston was a prize target trapped in the far Pacific after Pearl Harbor. Without hope of reinforcement, her crew faced a superior Japanese force ruthlessly committed to total conquest. But the men of the Houston fought back with dignity, ingenuity, sabotage, willpower, and the undying faith that their country would prevail.
-
-
interesting read
- By Daniel W. Eggemeier on 05-11-07
-
Six Frigates
- By: Ian W. Toll
- Narrated by: Stephen Lang
- Length: 7 hrs and 10 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Before the ink was dry on the U.S. Constitution, the establishment of a permanent military had become the most divisive issue facing the new government. Would a standing army be the thin end of dictatorship? Would a navy protect American commerce against the Mediterranean pirates, or drain the treasury and provoke hostilities with the great powers? The founders, particularly Jefferson, Madison, and Adams, debated these questions fiercely and switched sides more than once.
-
-
BE ADVISED THIS BOOK IS ABRIDGED
- By George Carpenter III on 09-11-08
By: Ian W. Toll
Japanese Naval history at its very best. Can’t go wrong listening to it.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This somehow did. It show up on my radar until my dad recommended it last month. I couldn’t have enjoyed it more.
I’d read other books from the Japanese perspective—like Japanese destroyer captain—but this was easier to read given there’s no killing of Americans.
What sets this book apart—aside from the first hand take on Japan’s glorification of death—was how miserable it is to fight America. The author describes it like poetry. For example, he describes trying to hit American planes with antiairfcraft fire as akin to “trying to catch butterflies with your hands.”
He is continually impressed with American ingenuity and precision.
Couldn’t recommend anymore
Oh, it’s super short too. It goes quick.
Should be required reading
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
interesting insight
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
l thoroughly enjoyed the book and will replay it again. I will also look for it in hardback edition to add to my collection.
Gripping and factual story
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
An intimate, poetic, and poetic recapture
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
If you could sum up Requiem for Battleship Yamato in three words, what would they be?
Tragic, honest, humaneWho was your favorite character and why?
The author in the glimpses you see of the person writing the book, not his self at the time. He's able to show how he had been wrapped up in the suicidal militaristic mindset of the soon-to-be defeated Japanese while not bogging it down into moral or psychological analysis. The book is an account of what people did, said, and felt--it does not waste time performing moral or psychological analysis--the facts are too valuable here.Which character – as performed by Graeme Malcolm – was your favorite?
I'll never forget the incredible poignancy of the senior officers going down with the ship but stopping the junior officers from doing the same. Mitsuru's crisp bureaucratic (in the sense of an excellent ship's log) prose reports only the facts, but earlier discussion of the blindness of the Japanese Navy's senior ranks leaves the reader with the thought that they were going down with more than the ship.If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?
It's something like a Japanese equivalent to With the Old Breed (and the brilliant movie, The Thin Red Line, although this, being set on a ship, has less interaction with nature and man's relationship to it). So I would work that into a tag line.Brutally Honest Account of Institutional Idiocy
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Simply amazing. One of a kind.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Breathes life back into the Yamato and crew
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Nice piece of history
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Wow, life well lived.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.