By TOMOHIKO NOTO/ Staff Writer
April 11, 2023 at 08:00 JST
Visitors flock to the Kure Maritime Museum in Kure, Hiroshima Prefecture, to see the massive lathe March 5. (Tomohiko Noto)
KURE, Hiroshima Prefecture--A massive lathe used to precision shape the main gun barrels of Japan’s mighty World War II battleship Yamato is now on public display at the Kure Maritime Museum here. Admission is free.
The lathe, which is about 16 meters long and weighs around 160 tons, is housed in a glass-walled exhibition facility facing a parking lot on the west side of the museum, also known as the Yamato Museum. A circular plate upon which the workpiece is mounted measures 3.2 meters in diameter.
Imported from Germany in 1938, the lathe was used at the Kure Naval Arsenal to curve the barrels of Yamato’s main guns, the largest in their class at the time, and other essential parts.
After the war, it was sold for industrial use to Kobe Steel Ltd. in 1953. The lathe was later taken over by Kishiro Co., a machinery parts manufacturer based in Akashi, Hyogo Prefecture. The lathe was put to industrial use at the company’s Harima factory between 1996 and 2013.
The company offered to donate the lathe to the museum, which resulted in the wartime relic being transported by sea to Kure Port last November. It marked the first time in 69 years for the lathe to return to Yamato’s birthplace.
Because the city government was beset with financial difficulties, the Yamato Museum mounted a crowdfunding campaign to pay for the transportation and installation of the lathe.
It reached its target of 100 million yen ($756,500) in just 21 hours, and eventually raised a total of about 270 million yen.
“We want visitors to get a sense of how massive the Yamato was,” museum director Kazushige Todaka told reporters during an unveiling ceremony held March 5. “We want to show visitors that advanced science technology can be used for war or peace, depending on those who use it.”
About 300 spectators waited outside the exhibition facility to see the lathe on the first day it went on public display.
The museum is undergoing its first major renovation since it opened in 2005.
The Yamato was sunk during the closing days of the Pacific War in 1945 while making a sortie to Okinawa Prefecture on a suicide mission.
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