#43: IJN Nagato: The Battleship That Survived Two Atomic Bombs
IJN Nagato was Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto's flagship when he issued the order to attack Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. She was one of only two Japanese battleships to survive the war, and then endured two nuclear detonations during the Operation Crossroads atomic tests at Bikini Atoll in July 1946 before finally sinking five days after the second blast.
When commissioned in 1920, Nagato was the most powerful battleship in the world, mounting eight 16.1-inch guns. A caliber no other navy had yet fielded. She was so central to Japanese national pride that her existence was a closely guarded state secret for years. Her 410mm guns could hurl 2,200-pound shells over 25 miles. Nagato represented the pinnacle of Japanese naval strategy in the dreadnought era and remains an iconic symbol of the Imperial Japanese Navy's ambition and ultimate defeat.
