Men were already in the water around Yamato.
Some had jumped before the ship rolled completely.
Others were thrown into the sea.
The magazine explosion turned the water around the wreck into another killing zone.
Shock traveled through the sea.
Debris fell.
Oil spread.
Men who had survived the bombs, torpedoes, fire, and capsize could still die in the final blast.
The scale of this last destruction helps explain why the survival numbers were so low.
NHHC's detailed analysis gives 3,055 dead among roughly 3,332 aboard, leaving only about 277 survivors by that calculation.
U.S. Naval Institute's 1995 account uses 269 survivors.
The difference reflects the uncertainty surrounding exact wartime personnel counts.
Whichever figure is used, more than nine out of every ten men aboard Yamato died.
Four destroyers also became total losses
Yamato's size dominates photographs and memory.
The destroyer crews paid heavily too.
Asashimo had already been lost with virtually everyone aboard.
Hamakaze sank during the attacks.
Isokaze suffered steering damage and other serious damage. She remained afloat but could not make the return voyage. Yukikaze eventually scuttled her with gunfire. About 20 men had been killed and another 54 wounded.
Kasumi also lost steering after bomb hits. She suffered 17 dead and 47 wounded. Fuyuzuki later sank her with torpedoes when it became clear she could not be saved.
Those two ships are sometimes omitted from quick lists of ships “sunk by American aircraft” because Japanese ships delivered the final scuttling weapons.
That distinction is technically useful.
It does not change the tactical reality.
American air attack destroyed their ability to continue.
The Japanese then finished them because towing them home under continued threat was impossible.
Four destroyers survived, but survival did not mean escape without damage
Suzutsuki suffered extraordinary damage.
Her bow was blown away.
NHHC records 57 dead and 34 wounded aboard her.
Yet the destroyer survived.
Her crew managed to return to Japan while steaming stern-first for much of the journey.
She reached Sasebo.
She was never fully repaired.
Fuyuzuki suffered lighter damage during the action but had 12 men killed and 12 wounded.
Yukikaze lost three men.
Hatsushimo survived the April battle, although she later struck a mine on July 20, 1945, becoming the final Japanese destroyer lost during the war.
The four surviving destroyers carried survivors from the wrecked ships.
Their decks became filled with exhausted, burned, injured, and oil-covered men.
For them, the operation had not ended when Yamato exploded.
They still had to reach Japan.
The Japanese force had ceased to exist as an organized combat unit
At departure, the Surface Special Attack Force had contained one battleship, one light cruiser, and eight destroyers.
After the battle:
Yamato was gone.
Yahagi was gone.
Asashimo was gone.
Hamakaze was gone.
Isokaze had to be scuttled.
Kasumi had to be scuttled.
Suzutsuki was severely damaged.
Fuyuzuki was damaged.
Yukikaze had casualties.
Hatsushimo remained operational.
The force had not merely failed to reach Okinawa.
It had been dismantled.
The surviving destroyers received orders to return to Sasebo.
There would be no second attempt.
The American carriers never came within Yamato's gun range
This detail may best explain the battle's historical meaning.
Yamato's main guns could hurl enormous armor-piercing shells for many miles.
American battleships were available.
A conventional naval battle could theoretically have placed some of the most powerful gunships ever built against each other.
Instead, Task Force 58 attacked from beyond the horizon.