Chapter 11 explores Operation Ten-Go, the battleship Yamato’s suicide mission to defend Okinawa from Allied invasion. Yukikaze escorted Yamato and witnessed her destruction. By this juncture, a kamikaze spirit permeated the Imperial Japanese Navy, which had become consumed by its legacies in the eyes of history, rather than strategic successes.

Chapter 9 investigates the Battle of Leyte Gulf and its aftermath by focusing on the Battle Off Samar, where Yukikaze saw action. A cultural turning point, the Imperial Japanese Navy demonstrated new suicidal tactics at Leyte, evidencing the emergence of a new culture of sacrifice in the navy. After Leyte Gulf, the Imperial Japanese Navy’s conduct became less about strategic success and more about honor in the eyes of Japan’s martial history.

This chapter explains how the Meiji Restoration embodied two profound contradictions. The new government described its actions and policies both as a “revival of ancient kingly rule” (ōsei fukko), but also as a revolution (isshin). These phrases were in nominally in opposition: fukko referred explicitly to the ancient past, while isshin declared on the contrary, that all was being made new. That contrast reveals how Meiji leaders embraced radical reform, but connected it to the renewal of ancient ways. While describing reform as ancient, the government also reconciled a celebration of Japanese uniqueness with the adoption of Western ideas and technologies. Government discourse therefore contained the dual tensions of “new vs. ancient” and “foreign vs. uniquely Japanese.” As this chapter reveals, these tensions are most evident in the iconography of Japanese banknotes, where the government sought to craft a national history that was both distinctly Japanese and analogous to Western models. The banknotes were thus simultaneously an emulation of the West and a celebration of ancient Japanese legends.