Yamato Museum

The Yamato Museum in Kure is one of Japan’s most important museums for understanding the country’s naval and industrial history during the Second World War. Officially known as the Kure Maritime Museum, it focuses less on battlefield narratives and more on the technology, engineering, shipbuilding, and industrial systems that supported Imperial Japan’s navy. The museum reopened in 2026 following a major renovation and expansion project that refreshed exhibition spaces and added new displays, including artefacts recovered from the wreck of the Yamato.

The museum’s centrepiece is its enormous 1/10-scale model of the battleship Yamato, over 26 metres long and displayed in the central atrium. Other major exhibits include a Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighter, Kaiten human torpedo, Kairyū-class submarine, Type 95 torpedo, naval artillery shells, and a replica Aichi E16A Zuiun reconnaissance seaplane. Exhibition rooms trace the rise of Kure from a small coastal town into one of the Japanese navy’s most important arsenals and shipbuilding centres.

Unlike Hiroshima’s museums, which focus primarily on the atomic bombing and the human consequences of war, the Yamato Museum examines the industrial and military infrastructure that preceded Japan’s defeat. Visiting both Hiroshima and Kure provides a much broader understanding of Japan’s wartime experience and the Pacific War as a whole.

The museum sits on Kure’s waterfront near the former naval dockyards and pairs well with the nearby Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force Kure Museum, where you can enter the retired submarine Akishio. Together, they make Kure one of Japan’s most significant destinations for WWII and naval history tourism. Read more in our blog post, Yamato Museum Reopens.

Information

Name in Japanese: 大和ミュージアム
Pronunciation: ya-ma-to myuu-jee-amu
Address: 5-20 Takaramachi, Kure, Hiroshima 737-0029