Masami Hashimoto was a nineteen year-old anti-aircraft gunner when he joined the crew of the Yamato in December 1944. He was one of only 269 men who survived the sinking of the huge battleship in April 1945. Before Masami left our expedition, he was kind enough to talk about his experiences with P.H. and me, while TV Asahi's Maki Fukasaku provided the translation. This is what he had to say:

"I was sixteen years old when I joined the navy. Fifteen years old was the minimum age at the time. I was an anti-aircraft gunner, and I joined Yamato four months before the Okinawa defense mission. Before Yamato, I served on different destroyers, first at Guadalcanal, then in the Battle of Leyte in the Philippines.

"Everyone in the navy admired the ship and wanted to serve on Yamato. I loved her and was proud to be part of the crew.

"When I left Kure for this mission, I thought I was going to die. We had been told that our Navy needed to make a final stand against our enemies as they approached Japan, and we were ordered to Okinawa for this reason.

"We were told this was the most important battle against great odds, and that we may die. We were told we were given only enough fuel to reach Okinawa, and we were to fight until we won or lost.

"We understood our orders, and at the time and at that young age, we didn't question that our orders reflected the need of the nation. I was proud to be there. We as sailors felt very much as if it was Japan against the whole world.

"On Yamato, we slept in hammocks. Before the mission, we removed them, along with everything else that could burn, and we slept on the decks the night before the battle.

"Even though there were groups of men drinking sake together that evening, I chose not to drink with them. We had a small Shinto shrine on board that I visited during the night. I had small ceremonial cups of sake there alone.

"During the battle, I manned a gun in the cluster around the bridge. The main problem for us that day was the weather. The clouds were so low that it made it impossible to see the incoming aircraft until they were right on top of us. Therefore, we couldn't effectively use the main guns, as they were most valuable for long range anti-aircraft engagement. The weather was the worst problem.

"The ship was fighting well, right up until we capsized. I was outside, midway in the bridge at my gun station, when the ship rolled. I felt the ship rolling and grabbed a ladder rung to keep myself from falling. The ship continued to roll, and I was dangling by my hands in the air. I worked myself around so that I was on the opposite side, pressed up against the bridge when the bridge went into the sea. I held on for a few minutes like this, until I could feel myself going down deeper into the sea, when suddenly I was carried up by the water to the surface.

"I went into the water at 2:30 and was picked up at 5:00 by our destroyer, Yukikaze. They signaled us that they would come back for us, and they did. I was in the water for two and a half hours.

"After I got home, I was put immediately back to work. I didn't get a break or time to see my family. I began instructing new trainees immediately. Then the war was over in August, and that's when I was allowed time to go home.

"When the bomb dropped on Hiroshima at 8:15 in the morning on August 6, 1945, I was a half hour away in Yamaguchi. I did not see the flash or hear the explosion. I learned of the bombing later that day. There was news of a new chemical or special weapon having been exploded.

"The truth is that something big was needed to end this war. Some half measure that allowed the military, especially the army, to continue to delude the nation from the facts would only have prolonged the war and the tremendous killing. I don't forget that we killed many, many Americans. No, I am most sorry for the women and children who died and suffered, but it was the right decision for the interests of both nations.

"You have to understand that our army was very bad - very cruel - even uncivilized. And then there was Pearl Harbor. Our navy was not the problem. I knew Admiral Yamamoto, he was a worldly man - he didn't believe in this war, didn't want it at all. But the march to war started with our army before Pearl Harbor. In China and Manchuria, in Korea, they were always starting trouble and demanding the involvement of the navy to save or support them, which the navy did not want to do.

"The Emperor was misled by these military leaders, who used his authority as if it were their own. He and the people of Japan weren't told of the atrocities the army was committing. It should have been stopped when the army attacked and killed the English in the Philippines. But it wasn't - it just gained momentum of it own weight.

"I must say I have lived to appreciate how the Americans helped us rebuild Japan after the war. They have been good neighbors to our nation after such a war. With that said, that does not color my thoughts on the use of the atomic bomb.

"But Japan's decision at the end of the war to use kamikaze pilots, this desperation, made no sense to the rest of us in the navy. This was the youth of our nation - it was very upsetting. Even though I was young, I was seasoned. But these were pilots who could barely fly. The whole thing made no sense to us because we were killing our young pilots and destroying the planes we needed."

I asked Masami if he thought that putting Yamato in front of Allied Task Force 58 with no air cover was in some ways worse than the sacrifice of the kamikaze pilots, who at least chose the flight pattern that ended their lives and hoped to gain some effect for their people. It seemed to me, by contrast, that with Yamato's loss there was no gain. Instead, it was all loss - the loss of the last pieces of the fleet, including the strongest battleship ever built and so many brave members of her crew.

I asked him if Japan's military leaders perhaps sensed the end of the war and wanted to spare themselves the shame of having such military tools captured at the end - so they chose the most expedient way to get rid of this great battleship. If so, this was not a suicide mission; it was an act of murder by the military leadership.

Masami paused before he responded. "At the time of the war, I felt very differently," he said. "But as I have grown older, I've come to those conclusions, and I agree with your assessment."