Yoshida’s Senkan Yamato no Saigo (The End of the Battleship Yamato) now is recognized as one of the few important literary memoirs to emerge from Japan’s war. Censors at the time acknowledged its impressive qualities, but also feared that this intimate evocation of the “Japanese militaristic spirit” might promote feelings of both regret and revenge among readers. As a consequence, it was suppressed in 1946 and again in 1948, published only in abridged form in mid-1949, and not made available in full until after the occupation ended.
