I just read an account of the sinking and apparently when the
Yamato was first sighted I believe it was Admiral Spruance ordered his battleships to sail north but Admiral Mitscher ordered airstrikes that beat the battleships there.
Not quite, there were several 'all-gun' battleship actions in the Pacific during WWII, the Second Naval Battle of Guadacanal and the the Battle of Surigao Strait. In the
Second Naval Battle of Guadalcanal the
USS Washington turned the Japanese battleship
Kirishima into a wreck, this was just two days after a force of US cruisers and destroyers had critically damaged the Japanese battleship
Hiei at great loss to themselves that was later sunk by US aircraft.
In the
Battle of of Surigao Strait a force of 6 US battleships, 5 of them Pearl Harbor survivors, destroyed a force with 2 Japanese battleships with the help of PT boats and some destroyers after 'crossing the T'.
So an outmoded way of warfare of sea? Yup, but it did happen a few times and fortunately we came out on top both times. A decent record given our mixed record at surface actions during the war.