Wikipedia:Today's featured article/September 14, 2006

Operation Ten-Go was the last major Japanese naval operation in the Pacific campaign of World War II. The Japanese battleship Yamato, the largest battleship in the world, along with nine other Japanese warships, sortied from Japan on an intentional one-way mission to attack the Allied forces that were invading Okinawa. The Japanese force was attacked, stopped, and almost completely destroyed before reaching Okinawa by U.S. carrier aircraft which sank Yamato and five other Japanese warships. The battle emphasized the aerial control that the U.S. had attained in the Pacific theater as well as the vulnerability of surface ships to aerial attack. The battle also exhibited Japan's willingness to sacrifice large numbers of its people in desperate and suicidal tactics in an attempt to slow or stop the Allied advance on the Japanese homeland. (more...)