Each successful hit did more than create another hole.
It increased the same list.
Damage-control teams had to fight a growing imbalance.
Eventually the ship would reach a point where counter-flooding could no longer save her.
Yamato could maneuver better than the Americans expected
The battle was not a stationary execution.
Japanese captains fought their ships aggressively.
Yamato turned hard.
Destroyers maneuvered sharply.
Torpedo tracks passed ahead or behind.
Bombs exploded in the sea.
NHHC emphasizes that Japanese ship captains showed considerable skill in evasive maneuvering.
Yamato could still reach high speed.
During part of the first attack she was moving at approximately 27 knots.
For a ship of her enormous size, that meant considerable maneuvering power.
Pilots had to predict where she would be when their weapons arrived.
Many missed.
Photographs from the attack show towering water columns surrounding the battleship.
Those near misses could still cause damage.
Shock affected equipment.
Fragments could strike exposed positions.
Underwater explosions could strain plating.
Yet Yamato continued moving.
The first wave had not killed her immediately.
That was why there were more waves.
Yahagi's battle became hopeless even sooner
The light cruiser Yahagi was much smaller than Yamato.
She also lacked the battleship's armor.
During the opening attack, a torpedo struck Yahagi near her engine spaces.
The damage stopped her.
A maneuvering ship can at least try to evade incoming bombs and torpedoes.
A stationary cruiser beneath hundreds of carrier aircraft cannot.
Subsequent attackers found an almost fixed target.
Yahagi absorbed repeated punishment.
NHHC's detailed reconstruction says she was hit by at least 12 bombs and seven torpedoes before she capsized and sank around 2:05 p.m.
Approximately 446 crewmen died.
Captain Hara survived.
Rear Admiral Komura survived.
Hundreds of others did not.
The cruiser had left Japan as the command ship of the destroyer screen.
Less than two hours after the Americans began attacking, she was gone.
Destroyer Hamakaze disappeared during the first attacks
Hamakaze also took devastating damage.
Destroyers were fast, narrow ships.
Their speed made them difficult targets.
Their lack of heavy armor made bomb and torpedo hits extremely dangerous.
Hamakaze sank with roughly 100 men killed and 45 wounded. About 257 men were rescued.
The Japanese formation was beginning to lose its structure.
A surface task force depends on coordinated movement.
Destroyers form protective positions.
The cruiser directs portions of the screen.
Ships maneuver in relation to one another.
Once several vessels are burning, stopped, sinking, or rescuing survivors, the formation becomes less capable of acting as one force.
That happened quickly on April 7.
The Americans did not merely damage individual ships.
They broke the formation apart.
The second attack found a wounded battleship
Yamato survived the first major assault.
Her condition was already deteriorating.
Fires were burning.
Antiaircraft crews had suffered severe losses.
Flooding had begun.
The ship was listing.