Leyte Gulf - Armada in the Pacific (Ballantines Illustrated History of World War II. Battl

Donald NaciMyre

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Ballantine's Illustrated History of Worid

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TheoulhorofLeyteGulf: Donald Macinlyre Captain Donald Macintyre retired from the Royal Navy in 1954. During World War II he was an Escort Force commander in the Battle of the Atlantic and won the DSO three times, and the DSC. He is the author of

books on naval subjects, including 'U-boat killer', and 'Wings of

several

'Jutland',

Neptune'.

Editor-in-Chief:

Borrie Pitt Barrie

Pitt,

Day

91

1

author of 'Zeebrugge',

8', '1

91 8

- The

'St.

George's

Last Act', 'The

Edge

Contributor to The Encyclopaedia Britannica on naval warfare; historical consultant to The Sunday of Battle'

and 'Revenge

at Sea'.

Times Colour Magazine; Editor of Purnell's History of the Second World War; consultant to the

producer of the

B.B.C.

film

series

The Great War.

Art director:

Peter Dunbar Peter Dunbar has been Art Director of the prestigious London weekly The Economist for eight years. Responsible for new styles in format and typography which have revolutionised London publications during recent years. Art Director of Purnell's History of the Second World War, one of the outstanding

and commercial successes post-war publishing.

editorial

in British

Military Consultant: Captain Sir Basil Liddell Hart Between tne two World Wars Captain

Sir

Basil Liddell Hart radically influenced military development as a leading advocate of air-

power,

armoured

forces,

and

amphibious

Many of the foremost commanders of were his 'disciples', including World War strategy.

II

General Guderian, the creator of the German panzer forces. Sir Basil Liddell Hart has written more than thirty books.

Leyte Gulf: armada in rhe Pacific

i

Leyte 6ulf

'

armada in the Pacific Donald Mocintyre

^ '-^

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Editor-in-Chief Barrie Pitt Art Director Peter Dunbar :

:

Military Consultant Sir Basil Liddell Hart Picture Editor Bobby Hunt :

:

Executive Editor David Mason Designer Sarah Kingham Cover: Denis Piper Research Assistant Yvonne Marsh Cartographer Richard Natkiel Special Drawings John Batchelor :

:

:

:

:

Photographs for this book were especially selected from the following Archives from left to right page 2-3 Imperial War Museum: 9 US Navy; 10 Brown Brothers; 12-13 US Navy; 12 US Navy; 16 US Navy; 17 US Navy: 19 US Navy: 18-19 US Navy; 20-21 US Navy; 22-23 US Navy; 24-25 US Navy; 26 US Navy; 27 US Navy: 28-29 US Navy; 30 US Navy; 31 US Navy: 32 US Navy; 36-37 US Navy; 40 US Navy; 40-41 US Navy; 42-43 US Navy 44 US Navy: 44-45 US Navy; 46 US Navy: 47 US Navy; 48-49 US Navy; 50-51 US Navy; 52-53 US Navy; 54-55 US Navy; 56-57 US Navy; 57 US Navy; 58 US Navy; 59 US Navy: 62 US Navy; 63 US Navy; 64 US Navy: 66 US Navy; 68-69 US Navy; 70-71 US Navy: 75 US Navy: 78-79 US Navy; 83 US Navy; 84 US Navy: 86 US Navy: 87 US Navy; 90 US Navy; 90-91 US Navy: 91 US Navy; 92 US Navy; 92-93 US Navy; 94-95 US Navy: 98-99 US Navy; 100 US Navy; 100-101 US Navy; 102-103 US Navy; 104-105 US Navy; 106 US Navy; 108-109 IWN; 110-111 US Navy: 112-113 US Navy; 114-115 US Navy: 117 US Navy: 118 Keystone Tokyo:' 119 .Keystone Tokyo: 120-121 US Navy; 122-123 Keystone Tokyo: 124 US Navy: 125 US Navy; 126-127 US Navy; 130-131 US Navy: 132-133 US Navy: 134 US Navy; 136-137 US Navy; 138 US Navy; 139 US Navy; 143 US Navy; 144 US Navy; 145 US Navy; 146-147 US Navy; 148-149 US Navy: 150-151 US Navy; 152 US Navy: 153 US Navy; 154-155 US Navy: :

156

US Navy

Copyright

©

1969 by Donald Macintyre

First printing: February 1970 Printed in the United States of America

Ballantine Books Inc. 101 Fifth Avenue, New York,

NY10003

Contents

8

Prologue

22

Opening moves

54

Sibuyan sea

72

The

78

The battle

of Surigao Strait

94

The battle

off

fateful decision

Samar

114

Kamikazes attack

126

Pursuit and slaughter

148

Epilogue

157

Appendix

160

Bibliography

Annihilation of

tlio

Introduction

liy

Imperial

Navy

Captain Sir Basil Liddell Hart

Captain Donald Maclntyre has established himself as one of the soundest historical commentators on the naval operations of the Second World War. He has a refreshing objectivity. He is thus particularly well fitted to provide an analytical account, vividly set out, of one of the most important yet tangled actions in the history of that war - the Battle of Leyte Gulf. By October 1944 the American forces' two main lines of advance across the Pacific - General MacArthur's through the South Pacific, and Admiral Nimitz's through the Central Pacific - had converged and were within direct supporting distance of one another - ready and able to tackle the reconquest of the Philippine Islands.

The Japanese plan for their defence was two-fold. On land it was entrusted to the 14th Area Army under General Yamashita, who had conquered Malaya on the outbreak of war in December 1941. More important was the naval part of the plan, and on this the Japanese High Command was now disposed to stake everything. As soon as the location of the American landings was known, the Japanese carrier forces were to lure the American fleet northward, while the American landing forces were to be pinned and 'pincered' by

Yamashita's troops.

The plan was influenced by Japan's

growing weakness in the air, but buttressed by continued faith in battleships. The admirals' pride and confidence was unduly heightened by the completion of two colossal battleships, much the biggest in the world the Yamato and Musashi. The first thrust was delivered against Leyte, one of the smaller central islands, thus splitting the defence. MacArthur's troops began to be landed there on the morning of 20th October by Admiral Kinkaid's 7th Fleet - a convoy and support fleet composed of old battleships and small escort carriers. It was backed

covered by Admiral Halsey's 3rd Fleet - which took up its station, in three groups, a little east of the Philippines. This was the main battle fleet, composed of the newer battleships and of large carriers, all fast. So in this gfeat gamble for victory the Japanese relied on an oldfashioned fleet - of seven battleships and thirteen cruisers - which came up from the Singapore area. The commander. Admiral Kurita, sent a detachment to push into Leyte Gulf from the southwest via the Surigao

and

came in with the from the northwest, through the San Bernardino Strait. He hoped to crush MacArthur's transports and their escorting warships between his two jaws. The decoy was to be provided by Strait,

main

while he

force

Admiral Ozawa's force, coming south, but the decoy did not work. On the night of the 23rd Kurita bumped into a couple of American submarines, which sank two of the Japanese cruisers and warned the American admirals of the enemy's approach. Soon Halsey's carriers launched their bombers and torpedo-bombers in waves against Kurita's fleet. The Musashi capsized and sank after the fifth attack, in the afternoon, and

the Japanese fleet turned about and steamed away to the west. On getting these reports from his air observers it appeared to Admiral Halsey that Kurita was definitely in retreat. But the fact that no aircraft carriers had been seen in either part of Kurita's fleet had led Halsey to send out reconnaissance planes on a wider search for them, and Ozawa's force was spotted on its way southward. Thereupon Halsey decided to

dash north and smash it. To make sure of annihilating Ozawa's force he took the whole of his available fleet, leaving nothing behind to guard San Bernardino Strait. But Kurita's retreat had been only a temporary expedient to get out of reach of air attack while daylight lasted, with the intention of returning under the cloak of darkness. The situation of Kinkaid's fleet was the more dangerous because he was misled in a double way. The appearance of Kurita's southern detachment, heading for Surigao Strait, had focussed Kinkaid's attention in that direction, and he concentrated

most of threat.

meet this He assumed that part of

his force there to

Halsey's battle fleet was still covering the more northerly approach through San Bernardino Strait, as it had not been made clear that Halsey had sailed away with the whole fleet. The attack by the Japanese southern detachment was defeated after a tense night battle - thanks largely to the 'night-sight' provided by the

Americans' radar, which was much superior to that of the Japanese Navy. But a few minutes after Kinkaid had signalled his congratulations on the victory, another signal came to say that a much larger Japanese force Kurita's main fleet - had come down from the northwest, through San

Bernardino Strait, and was

off" the east coast of Samar Island assailing the smaller portion of Kinkaid's fleet that had been left there to cover Mac Arthur's landing. After getting this alarming news, Kinkaid sent a signal to Halsey, at 8.30 am: 'Urgently need fast battleships Leyte Gulf at once'. At 9 am made another pressing Kinkaid appeal, and this time openly by radiotelephone, instead of in code. But

Halsey steamed on northward. Meantime a brake was put on Kurita's southward onrush by the gallant efforts of the handful of

American destroyers. Soon after 9 am Kurita broke off the chase and turned towards Leyte Gulf, where a mass of American transports and landing craft now lay open to attack. He was then less than thirty miles from the entrance. But suddenly Kurita turned back north - and this time for good. When Kurita reached San Bernardino Strait he found no

enemy

there,

and slipped away through it to the westward. Although he did not reach this bolt-hole until nearly 10 pm delayed in the process of dodging repeated air attacks - that was three hours before Halsey's leading ships arrived there in their race southward. Regarding as a whole its four separate and distinct actions, the Battle

of Leyte Gulf, as it is collectively called, was the largest naval battle of all time. A total of 282 ships were engaged as well as hundreds of planes, compared with 250 (with five seaplanes) in the 1916 Battle of Jutland. The Japanese ship losses in it were four carriers, three battleships, six heavy cruisers, three light cruisers and eight destroyers. The Americans lost only one light carrier, two escort carriers and three destroyers. The major significance of the battle lay in the sinking of Ozawa's four aircraft carriers. Without any carriers, the six remaining Japanese battleships were helpless, and they played no further part in the war. Moreover the Japanese Navy was rendered use-

Thus, while Halsey's northward dash had exposed the rest of the American forces to grave dangers, the outcome provided justification. less.

Prologue

'I

will return!' -

So General Douglas

MacArthur had sworn

to the people

the Philippines, as he stepped aboard the US Navy PT boat which took him from Bataan on 11th March 1942. Two years, seven months and nine days later he fulfilled that promise as he waded ashore from a landing craft on to a beach in San Pedro Bay at the head of the Leyte Gulf separating the islands of Leyte and Samar. It had been a long, dour struggle, marked initially by an unbroken of

series of defeats of the Allied forces

by the better armed, better prepared and numerically superior Japanese. British, Dutch and American naval forces in the South West Pacific had been wiped out even before MacArthur's departure from the PhilipIn the days that followed, while the Japanese carriers, which had massacred the battleship element of the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, swept destructively through the East Indies and on into the Indian Ocean to neutralise the scratch force gathered hastily together to form the British Eastern Fleet, Japanese

pines.

troops had swarmed over the island chain of the so called Malay Barrier

and on through New Guinea to. Rabaul in the Bismarck Archipelago. At an incredibly cheap cost the defensive perimeter of the 'Southern Resources Area' outlined in the Japanese War Plan had been secured. The Allies, it seemed, lay prostrate and helpless. But infected by what they were later ruefully to call the "Victory Disease,' the Japanese had made grandiose plans which, as events

were to show, would fatally over extend them. In the north the perimeter was to be expanded to take in the Western Aleutians; in the Midway Island from where east, Hawaii could be neutralised or the

remnants of the US Pacific Fleet brought to decisive action; in the south Samoa, Fiji. New Caledonia, and Port Moresby on the southern shore of Papua, from which Australia could be threatened.

On 20th October 1944 General Douglas MacArthur stepped ashore on Leyte with the message 'People of the Philippines, have returned. I

>Mif<

As a preliminary to the southern advance, Lae and Salamaua on the north coast of Papua had been captured. The next operation planned for the first week of May 1942 had been a two pronged advance from Rabaul by a small expedition to capture Tulagi on the Solomon Island of Florida to set up a seaplane base, and by an invasion force escorted by a cruiser squadron and the auxiliary capture Port carrier Shoho to Moresby. To cover the whole operation against interference by the Allied naval forces in the area, which they believed included only a single

had sent their Zuikaku and Shokaku. Forewarned, however, by the American ability to decode Japan-

The US

south west. A few weeks

carrier Lexington ablaze following air attack during the dawn Battle of the Coral Sea in xwhich she and the Japanese carrier Shoho

were sunk

aircraft carrier, they two newest carriers

ese naval messages, the C-in-C Pacific Fleet, Admiral Chester Nimitz had sent, in the nick of time, the carrier Lexington to join the Yorktown in the area. The Battle of the Coral Sea which ensued had ended, tactically, in favour of the Japanese, the Lexington being sunk; but strategically it had forced them to recall the expedition for Port Moresby, the cancellation of

W

which had subsequently marked the limit of Japanese conquests in the later, at the Battle of

Midway, Pearl Harbor had been partly avenged and Japanese expansion finally halted by the destruction of

jP J ;--

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the four Japanese fast carriers comprising the Striking Force, at the cost of the Yorktown. Stalemate had then settled down for a while over the Pacific during which American plans had been made and forces assembled and trained for an advance up the chain of the Solomon Islands towards Rabaul. Before the date settled for its launching, however, air reconnaissance had disclosed that the Japanese were constructing an air strip on the Solomon Island of Guadalcanal at one of the few places in the islands where this was possible. Guadalcanal had at once become the key to the whole area, its capture before the airstrip could become operational, vital. The Allied expedition had been reshaped in furious

haste and on 7th August 1942 US Marines landed at Tulagi and Guadalcanal, the airfield on the latter falling quickly into their hands. A long, bitterly contested fight by sea, land and air for possession of the fever ridden, swampy island had followed during which, by day, the adjacent waters had been dominated by US naval carrier-borne and shore-based aircraft, but after dark, by the Japanese ships and their crews of highly trained night fighters who inflicted several sharp defeats on their opponents. Not until February 1943 had the Japanese finally abandoned the struggle and evacuated the remnants of their troops from Guadalcanal. A campaign by the South Pacific Command (since October 1942 under Vice-Admiral William F Halsey) had followed to occupy the Solomon Island chain leading to Rabaul and was to be successfully concluded by the occupation of Bougainville in

November 1943, though it was several months more before the last Japanese troops were evicted. Meanwhile, MacArthur, whose Australian and American troops had reconquered Papua, had been preparing to capture Rabaul as the first step in an island to island advance to the Philippines. By the early summer of 1943, however, the balance of power in the Pacific had begun to swing at an ever increasing pace in favour of the Allies. This was largely on account, on the one hand, of the heavy Japanese losses of the not easily replaceable

carrier planes and aircrews in the campaign for the Solomons, during

which they had been deployed ashore on the other hand, of the arrival at Pearl Harbor of the first of a steady stream of new ships, including fast aircraft-carriers, to join the Pacific Fleet, at a rate far in excess of that of Japanese ship yards to reinforce

their

fleet.

The American Joint Chiefs of Staff had decided that this great access of naval strength should be employed in a drive through the Central Pacific at the heart of the Japanese defence system and to cut communications between Japan and her supplies of oil and other raw materials in the south. MacArthur had protested that the troops and ships would be better employed in his island hopping progress back to the Philippines. This would have involved a misuse of the new factor which had already revolutionised naval warfare, the fast carrier Task Force, which had to enjoy full mobility and not be tied to land operations to develop its full potential. The new ships had been incorporated in the Central Pacific Force, later to be designated 5th Fleet, under Vice-Admiral Spruance, the victor at Midway. While a massive amphibious element of this fleet assembled and trained, the carrier Task Forces had ranged far and wide delivering air strikes on Japanese island bases. In November 1943 the whole huge and growing 5th Fleet had combined to assault and capture the Gilbert Islands, the first of a series of such operations. At the end of January 1944, the Marshalls had been similarly captured. In neither of these operations had the Japanese Fleet attempted to interfere owing to the unreadiness of its carrier element for which new aircrews had to be trained following the heavy losses in the Solomons

campaign. By June however, when the 5th Fleet had made its next, forward leap to assault Saipan in the Marianas, the Japanese carriers were ready. Their air groups, however, were but pale shadows of those highly skilled veteran units which had struck at Pearl Harbor, Rabaul, Darwin, Java and Ceylon in the early 11

Above: General MacArthur, President Roosevelt and Admiral Nimitz plan the Leyte operation. Below: Architects of victory in the Pacific. On the left Admiral Spruance, victor of Medway and The Philippine Sea battles, with Admiral King (CinCUS Navy)

^

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The vital supply route for essential raw materials, particularly oil, from the East Indies and Malaya, running through Borneo, the Philippines, Formosa and the Ryukyus to Kyushu was threatened by the Central Pacific Force of Admiral Nimitz from its base at Eniwetok as well as by General Douglas MacArthur's South West Pacific Forces which, having fought their way to the western extremity of New Guinea, were ready to start up the island chain to the Philippines. If this route were to be cut the Japanese Fleet would be starved of oil if based in Japan, of ammunition and naval stores if based in the south. Faced with the collapse of the vast ambitions and over sanguine hopes with which they had led their countrymen into war, the cabinet of General Tojo had resigned. The new Premier, General Koiso, realising the inevitability of ultimate defeat, would have welcomed peace but knew not how to

»dE!!!!^f«

bring

it

about; nor, in face of the

Japanese

inability to contemplate surrender, had he dared to propose it.

The war had

days of the war. When they were sent out to challenge the 5th Fleet covering the Saipan landings therefore, met by the new Grumman Hellcat fighters which rose from the decks of the American carriers, they had been massacred. The carriers Shokaku and Taiho had been sunk by American submarines, the light carrier Hiyo by air attack and other ships damaged before the Japanese Admiral Ozawa fled with the survivors. The successful American occupation of the Marianas which followed, had breached the outer defences of the Japanese homeland for the first time and placed it within range of massive land-based air attack. Imperial Japan had found herself threatened with defeat as she had not been since seven centuries earlier she had been saved at the eleventh hour by the Kamikaze - Divine Wind -

which had scattered the

irresistible

invasion fleet of the Chinese Emperor, Kublai-Khan. The annihilation of her naval aviators in the Battle of the Philippine Sea made it impossible for her fleet to face that of its opponent until aircrew replacements

had been trained.

to go on though only a desperate defence could be offered. Where the next Allied thrust would be made the Japanese could not foretell. Three alternative plans - SHO-1, SHO-2 and SHO-3 - had been prepared by Admiral Toyoda, the naval Commander-in-Chief at his headquarters ashore in Japan, to meet with an assault on the Philippines, Formosa and Okinawa, or the homeland, res-

pectively.

The Supreme War Direction Council meeting in the presence of the Emperor in August, had decided that the first of these was the most likely and that the maximum strength should be concentrated there as soon as confirmation was received. In the meantime, the 2nd Fleet under ViceAdmiral Takeo Kurita, composed of all the battleships and most of the heavy cruisers, had been stationed at Lingga Roads near Singapore, close to their oil supplies, while the 3rd Fleet, consisting mainly of surviving aircraft-carriers under Admiral Jisaburo Ozawa, waited in home waters for their aircrew replacements to work up to operational standards and gain deck-landing practice. The Allies themselves had not been 13

agreement as to their next moves. The US naval commanders, Admirals Ernest King and Chester Nimitz had favoured an assault on Formosa, bypassing the Philippines; while MacAxthur had been determined that his promise, made when he had been forced to abandon his American and Filipino troops to the dreadful Death March and the Filipino people to

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their cruel subjection to the Japanese conquerors, would be faithfully kept. All efforts, he had insisted, must be

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concentrated on the reconquest of the Philippines. President Roosevelt himself had travelled to Hawaii in July 1944 to resolve the deadlock. After both sides had been heard, a decision favouring MacArthur had been reached. MacArthur's advance up the island chain via Morotai, Salebaboe and Mindanao to Leyte was to proceed, while Nimitz' s Central Pacific Force would capture Pelelieu in the Palaus, Yap and Ulithi, the last of which, an atoll with a huge enclosed lagoon, would provide a new advanced fleet base.

Both forces would then combine to occupy either Luzon or Formosa and Amoy on the China coast. This plan had been tabled at the 'Octagon' Conference at Quebec which opened on 11th September. It had been virtually agreed and dates for the various moves laid down when an electrifying message had come in to cause a complete change. With the conclusion of the Marianas campaign. Admiral Spruance had transferred his flag to Hawaii to plan subsequent operations, turning over to Admiral Halsey command of the Fleet which had then become the 3rd Fleet of which the carrier element, under Vice-Admiral Marc Mitscher as before, was Task Force 38. In preparation for the advance to Morotai, the Palaus and Yap, Task Force 38 had, since 28th August, been delivering a series of softening up strikes over Mindanao and the central Philippine Islands. To their surprise they had found almost negligible opposition from the Japanese air bases. At this evidence of the enemy's deterioration Halsey had signalled Pacific Theatre, showing Japan's plans for defence

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Vice-Admiral Takeo Kurita, Commander of Japanese 2nd Fleet and Centre Force which came near to annihilating the 7th Fleet Escort Carriers

a proposal that could satisfy MacArthur's ambition while getting nearer to the navy's plan for a bold advance against the centre of the

Japanese

defences.

Let MacArthur

by-pass Morotai, Salebaboe and Mindanao to land on Leyte in the central Philippines, supported by Task Force 38 and reinforced by the Central Pacific Amphibious Force, previously scheduled to assault the Palaus and Yap which could similarly be bypassed.

The proposal had been put to MacArthur who had at once agreed. The Joint Chiefs of Staff, assembled at Quebec had thereupon made their bold decision. MacArthur's 7th Amphibious Force, already on its way to Morotai, was to complete its mission, which it succeeded in doing against negligible opposition on 15th September. His next move was to be directly to the western shore of the Gulf of Leyte with a target date of 20th October. Of the Central Pacific Amphibious Force, the transports and escort carriers of the Eastern Attack Force, with the XXIV US Corps assigned to the assault on Yap, which was now to be by-passed, were to be diverted to Manus to prepare to join in the Leyte landings. The Palaus were thought too powerful a base to leave unneutralised on 16

Admiral Soemu Toyoda, C-in-C Japanese Navy at time of Battle for Leyte Gulf, responsible for the (Victory) plan

SHO

the flank, however, and the remainder of the Central Pacific Amphibious Force was to capture the veritable fortress into which the Japanese had converted the little island of Peleliu.

That the Japanese at bay were about the most dangerous soldiers in the world had been confirmed by the defenders of Peleliu who, in spite of a devastating 'softening up' by the massed aircraft of Halsey's carriers and by the 16-inch guns of his battlehad fought with stubborn ships, courage on the beaches, on the plain at the southern end of the island to deny the airfield to the attacking 1st US Marine Division, and finally from the cover of the maze of inter-connecting caves and tunnels in the limestone ridge overlooking the airfield.

Nearly

2,000

Americans

had

been

killed before the last organised resistance had fiickered out on 25th Nov-

ember and the Japanese commander, Colonel Nakagawa, committed suicide.

Ulithi Atoll, on the other hand, had been occupied without opposition on 23rd September. The magnificent logistic

organisation,

perhaps

most outstanding feature

the

of Ameri-

can conduct of the Pacific War, and the energy and expertise of the famous Seebees (Construction Battalions) had

Vice-Admiral Jisaburo Ozawa, defeated in Battle of Philippine Sea, commanded the 3rd Fleet at Leyte

which was sacrificed

in a

decoy role

then quickly converted

its

magni-

ficent anchorage into a forward base for the whole Pacific Fleet.

For Field-Marshal Terauchi, commander of the Japanese Southern Army, these moves had been a clear indication that the Philippines were the next American objective. He had asked for SHO-1 to be set in motion. This operation, in which every available naval and air unit was to be thrown, had the dual objective of thwarting the Allied invasion efl"ort and bringing about an encounter between the surface forces of the Japanese Combined Fleet and the Allied naval force supporting the landings, in the absence of Halsey's carrier fleet which was to be lured away from the scene by the profi"ered bait of the last surviving Japanese carriers. The first move was to be a massive reinforcement of planes from Japan, China, Formosa, Indo-China and Malaya for the air command in the Philippines, the naval 1st Air Fleet commanded by Vice-Admiral Teraoka (superseded by Vice-Admiral Takajno Ohnishi on 17th October 1944 ) and the 4th Air Army under

Lieutenant-General Tominaga, which would be responsible for bringing early warning of the approach of the invasion fleet and attacking it before landings had been launched. The

Vice-Admiral Shoji Nishimura who died leading the Japanese force which suffered annihilation in the Surigao Strait during the Battle of Leyte

whose pilots and planes were inferior in quality to those of the Navy and were untrained for operations out of sight of land, were to be concentrated on the anchored

latter,

much

transports and the beach heads. In the event of a fleet action developing, little reliance would be placed on their support. The two commands which had sufi"ered heavy losses at the hands of Halsey's carrier planes, had already

been reduced to less than 450 aircraft of all types; but in spite of this the Imperial Headquarters had refused to activate SHO-1 before the Allied landing place was certainly identified. The reason for this was the parlous state of Japan's supply of oil

and of tankers, particularly fast tankers from which the fleet could replenish at sea. As a consequence the fleet could operate only a strictly limited distance from its advanced fuelling bases and, if activated too soon, would be short of fuel when the real crisis arose.

Some troop reinforcements from Shanghai and the despatch of some fighter squadrons from Japan to the Philippines had been authorised, however, and the widely separated divisions of the Combined Fleet were to be ready not later than 31st October. Their movements, when SHO-1 was ordered, were to follow a complex 17

pattern, always dear to the heart of Japanese planners, but on this occasion forced on them by the unavoidable initial dispersion of the Fleet. From Lingga Roads, Kurita's 2nd Fleet, designated the 1st Striking Force, was to steam to Brunei Bay to There it would divide into refuel. Force A (referred to here as the Centre Force) - five battleships and ten heavy cruisers with a screen of light cruisers and destroyers under Kurita himself with his flag in the heavy cruiser Atago - and Force C two battleships and one cruiser with a screen of four destroyers under Vice-Admiral Shoji Nishimura. These two forces were then to take separate routes through the Philippine Islands so as to fall simultaneously on the Allied invasion forces at dawn from north and south respectively.

The two admirals upon whom was to fall the responsibility for delivering the main destructive blow in the SHO plan had followed very similar careers, making them congenial comrades and, superficially at least, making them eminently suitable for

the

straightforward

to them.

with a

task

assigned

Both were fighting seamen

minimum

of administative or

Both had received early appointments in command of destroyers whence they had progressed to command of cruisers and battleships and, on reaching flag rank, of cruiser and battleship divisions. staff"

experience.

Nishimura, who had commanded a destroyer squadron in the Battle of the Java Sea where a combined Dutch, American and British fleet had been defeated, had only recently joined the 2nd Fleet, hoisting his Yamashiro. in the battleship Kurita, after commanding a squadron of heavy cruisers in the Battle of Midway, had graduated to a battleship division and, with his flag in the Kongo, had taken part in the Guadalcanal campaign and the carrier battles of the Eastern Solomons and Santa flag

Cruz Islands. Neither man could lay claim to intellectual brilliance. Both were of the type of 'sea-dog' who asked nothing better than to lay his ship alongside an enemy and fight it out with gunfire. Neither were airmen or had ever commanded carriers; nor 18

could they altogether accept that carrier planes had made their sort of battle virtually impossible.

The

chief

between them was that, while Kurita required a belief in some difi"erence

attainable object to generate the self-immolating courage of the samurai, Nishimura accepted that a suicidal challenge could be admirable and natural of itself. When the orders for his Force were received on arrival at Brunei, he took so little interest in preparation for the task allotted to him that he did not even attend the briefing of his commanding officers, most of whom he hardly knew. As he saw it, their duty was to follow him uncritically towards whatever fate had in store.

A small force designated the 2nd Striking Force - three heavy cruisers, two light cruisers and eight destroyers - was to come south from Japan to combine with Nishimura's Force 'C before action was joined. It was commanded by a very different type of

officer.

Vice-Admiral

Kihoyide

Shima was a communications ist

special-

and had spent much of his career

on admirals' staffs, teaching at training establishments and in other shore appointments. The handling of a squadron in battle, particularly the confused m§Me of night action, was not the natural field for his talents; these were more suited to the unemotional, deliberate atmosphere of the planner's office. That Shima was senior to Nishimura and so would be entitled to take charge if their two combined, consequences.

forces

was to have

its

Finally, also from home waters, would emerge the 3rd Fleet, euphemistically called the Main Body,

.4'"'i

Above: Admiral William F Halsey, Commander of the US 3rd Fleet, with Vice-Admiral John S McCain, who commanded a Carrier Task Group. Below: HUMS Yamato. the most powerful battleship in the world, flagship of Vice-Admiral Kurita

/

comprising the last surviving fleet carrier, Zuikaku, the light carriers Zuiho, Chitose and Chiyoda and two battleships Ise and

been given

flight

Hyuga which had

decks and hangars

in place of their after turrets which had been removed, though, in fact, no aircraft had ever been operated from them. Three light cruisers and eight destroyers would form its screen. For convenience it will be referred to as the Northern Force. In command of it, and, theoretically, of all the disparate sea-going forces allocated to the SHO plan or the 1st Mobile Fleet as it was designated, was Vice -Admiral Jisaburo

J^

-

and in probackground he can perhaps be considered the Spruance of the Imperial Navy. Never an aviator and with an early career evenly divided between staff and sea duty, his flag appointments had indicated the high regard in which he was held, starting in 1937 as Chief Ozawa.

Intellectually

fessional

of Staff to the Commander-in-Chief, Combined Fleet. Command of a carrier division followed and, a year later, of a division of battleships. By Novem-

ber 1942 he had become Commanderin-Chief 3rd Fleet and at the Battle of the Philippine Sea in June 1944 he had commanded the entire Japanese

force. His tendered resignation following his calamitous defeat by Spruance

had been rejected. He had handled his fleet with admirable skill but fortune and the inferior quality of his planes and pilots had foiled all his efforts. Now, however, the surviving remnants of his defeated fleet, with the carriers ;

still

awaiting their new, untrained

and inexperienced air groups, were all that he had directly under his command. Their task would be to lure the American Carrier Task Force away, leaving Kurita's 2nd Fleet, supported by the shore-based naval air forces, a clear field to

attack on the invasion

mount

fleet.

its

In preparation for this grandiose but desperate plan SHO-1, thus briefly outlined, Kurita's fleet, equipped at last with radar, including radar control for the huge 18.1-inch guns of the battleships Yamato and Musashi, was training intensively at Lingga Roads in high hopes of snatching an eleventh hour victory in spite of the ever grow-

ing superiority of the American fleet. Such in brief were the events leading up to and the opposing plans which brought about the series of disparate but interlinked actions which, in their whole, were to constitute the biggest naval battle in history - the Battle for Leyte Gulf.

Opening moves

<«mI

The Battle for Leyte Gulf can be said to have begun on 6th October, 1944 when Halsey In his fleet flagship, the battleship New Jersey, and Mitscher with his

flying in the carrier 38 comprising nine fleet carriers (one Enterprise and eight Essex class) and eight light carriers of the Independence class, organised in four Task Groups each with its encircling screen of battleships, cruisers and destroyers from Ulithi to initiate a sweeping series of air strikes against air bases to the flag

Lexington, led

Task Force

northward from which interference with the Leyte invasion operations could be expected. First to be pounded on 10th October was Okinawa in the Ryukyus. Some 1,400 sorties wreaked destruction on shipping in the harbour and destroyed more than one hundred of Vice- Admiral Fukudome's 2nd Air Fleet which occupied the airfields of southern Kyushu, the Ryukyus and Formosa. The carriers lost twenty-one planes, but all but nine men of the aircrews shot down were rescued, six of them by the submarine Sterlet stationed off" Okinawa for the purpose. Submarines used thus as lifeguards were a regular

and essential feature of carrier air strikes, contributing notably to the morale of the naval airmen. The Japanese Commander-in-Chief, Combined Fleet, Admiral Toyoda, was

Formosa at

this time. In his Chief of Staff, RearAdmiral Kusaka, issued an alert to both the 1st and 2nd Air Fleets to stand by for either SHO-1 (Philippines) or SHO-2 (Formosa). Fukudome was at the same time ordered to attack Task Force 38; before he could take however, the target had action, vanished, steaming away southwards to rendezvous with the Service Squadron of twelve oilers to replenish before switching the attack to Aparri air base in northern Luzon. Another order issued by Kusaka was the first step towards a decision that was to be of great significance. Judging that the attack on Okinawa might well be the opening move of the expected decisive battle, he ordered

visiting

absence

his

Shipping and installations set ablaze by carrier air strikes from Task Force 38 prior to Leyte operations 25

Above: Carrier operations; Hellcat lands on USS Hornet as another Below: USS Hancock refuels under way at sea from a tanker

is

waved away

Above: USS Houston and Canberra were torpedoed off Okinawa by Japanese planes. Below: A destroyer takes off redundant crew from the Houston

aA •^J^fe

-^->il_

.-:*#jr

^9^ .^.mC

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J^

A_^^

^K,

CENTRE FORCE (Kurita)

NOSHIRO/ (Light Cruiser)

/ ATAGO (Cruiser)

(Destroyers)

/TAKAO (Cruiser)

.

/CHOKAI (Cruiser)

> MYOKO

/nagato

(Cruiser)

(Battleship)

(Destroyers)

^

/ HAGURO (Cruiser)

/

/maya (Cruiser)

/yamato

/

(Battleship)

/musashi (Battleship)

(Destroyers)

/TONE '

(Cruiser)

/ruiKiiMA v'CHIKUMA

/YAJAGI (Light Cruiser)

(Cruiser)

/haruna (Battleship)

/kumano ^ (Cruiser) /SUZUYA (Cruiser)

/KONGO (Battleship)

/ Yards

3000

Commander David McCampbell, Hellcat 'ac«' of the battle

R^

I

I

a

^%^->'::'

X

Vice-Admiral Shigeru Fukudome, of the Japanese 2nd Air Fleet during Leyte operations

commander

the still partially trained air groups belonging- to the carriers Zuikaku, Zuiho, Chitose and Chiyoda of Admiral Ozawa's command to stand by to transfer to Fukudome's air bases. During 11th October a force of sixty-one planes from two of Mitscher's Task Groups carried out the raid on Aparri. Though no fighter opposition

was

met,

the

attackers

achieved

finding only fifteen grounded planes to destroy and the operation was later judged a mistake, giving Fukudome a day's grace to organise his defences in Formosa where TF 38 returned on 12th October to begin an intensive attack which was to continue for three days. It opened with a fighter sweep and tremendous aerial battles developed over the numerous air bases of the island. The Zero fighters which had not so long ago reigned supreme in the Pacific skies were no match for the Grumman Hellcats and were shot down in large numbers. Fukudome, little,

32

V

watching from his headquarters, bewailed that his fighters were 'nothing but so many eggs thrown at the stone wall of the indomitable enemy formation'.

Though

forty-eight

American

planes were also lost early on, as the day advanced, strike formations found themselves unopposed as they ranged over the airfields, wrecking installations and destroying grounded planes. In reply Fukudome despatched the twin-engined 'Betty' torpedo planes of his 61ite T Attack Force to make a series of dusk and night attacks on the carrier groups. They achieved nothing and lost forty-two of their number. Nevertheless the survivors claimed notable successes. Toyoda - not the only admiral to be led astray by his aviators' over sanguine reports during the Leyte operations - decided, like Brutus, that the tide in his afl'airs was at its flood and that he must risk all to reinforce success. The entire operational air strength of Ozawa's Carrier Fleet was flown to Formosa and thrown into the struggle on 14th

October.

The truth was that up to that time Fukudome's vaunted T force had succeeded only in torpedoing the US cruiser Canberra at dusk on 13th October, blowing a huge hole in her hull amidships through which 4,500 tons of water poured to flood her machinery spaces and bring her to a halt. The following day, using his carrier plane reinforcements, Fukudome was able to launch no less than 419 sorties in three waves; but it was a clear indication of the poor state of training yet reached by the carrier groups that they achieved nothing, the largest group, 225 strong, failing even to locate the huge American fleet less than one hundred miles off" shore. It was again a group of T force planes which penetrated the defences of Task Group 38.1 in the dusk on the evening of 14th October, to torpedo the light-cruiser Houston amidships, flooding her engine and boiler rooms and leaving her stationary and in apparent danger of sinking. By the end of these three days of strikes on Formosa, more than 550 Japanese aircraft had been shot down including almost the whole of the carrier air groups, thus eliminating

any

eff'ective carrier-borne air strength in the Japanese fleet in the sea battle to come. Casualties amongst the American carrier air groups, though spectacularly fewer, were nevertheless grievous, eightynine planes being lost with sixty-four

aircrew.

Though both the torpedoed cruisers lay less than one hundred miles from the coast of Formosa and could only be moved under tow, Halsey determined to save them. The cruiser Wichita was ordered to take the Canberra in tow, while the Boston was to do the same for the Houston until tugs could arrive for the two cripples. The subsequent operations comprised a veritable epic in sea salvage performed under intermittent air attack during which the Houston suff"ered a second torpedo hit on her stern. Both the damaged cruisers reached the advanced base at Manus, nevertheless, and after temporary repairs returned to the United States. Reports received of these painfully retiring units, coupled with wildly exaggerated claims by Japanese

air-

men, leading to an announcement from Imperial Headquarters that no less than eleven American carriers, two battleships and three cruisers had been sunk and many other ships

damaged at a cost

of 320 aircraft,

persuaded Toyoda that only a mopping up operation remained to complete the victory. Shima's 2nd Striking Force was ordered out and was only saved from a trap laid by Halsey by warning reports from long range scouting planes on 16th October. The 2nd Striking Force prudently retired to Amami-o-Shima in the Ryukyus, a move which inspired Halsey 's mordant

wit to signal that he was 'now retiring towards the enemy following the salvage of all the Third Fleet ships recently reported sunk by Radio Tokyo'. By 17th October Fukudome's ability to reinforce the 1st Air Fleet in the Philippines when SHO-1 was activated had been reduced almost to vanishing point. In addition to the strikes by Task Force 38, the US 20th Bomber Command stationed on Chinese airfields, had sent their B-29 Superfortresses on 14th, 16th and 17th October to attack shipping in Formosa waters and pound aircraft assembly plants and airfields with some 1,200 tons of bombs. Having seen their two crippled cruisers

and escorts safely beyond

range of shore-based air attack. Task Force 38 moved south to carry on their attacks on Luzon and to be ready to give the promised air support to MacArthur's huge invasion fleet, which had been already on its way to Leyte Gulf from Hollandia and Manus while the air battles over Formosa were in progress. Advanced units whose task it was to secure the islands commanding the entrances to the Gulf were on their final approach as dawn was breaking on the 17th. Under General MacArthur's sup-

reme command, the troop transports and the combat ships supporting the landings comprised the

US

7th Fleet,

commanded by Vice-Admiral Thomas C Kinkaid. who flew his flag in the Amphibious Command Ship Wasatch. The amphibious force was divided into two Attack Forces. The Northern Attack Force was composed of more than one hundred large transports be33

Mitsubishi A6M5 Zero-sen (Allied code name 'Zeke') Engine: One Nakajima Sakae 21 radial. 1.130 hp. Armament: Two 7.7mm machine guns, two 20mm cannon and two 66-lb or 132-lb bombs. Maximum speed: 351 mph at 20.000 feet. Climb rate: In excess of 4.500 feet per minute. Ceiling: 36,000 feet. Weight empty: about 4.375 lbs. Weight loaded: about 6.000 lbs. Span: 36 feet inches. Length: 29 feet 8| inches

H

The Mitsubishi G4M (code name Betty) The Japanese navy's principal wartime bomber. But the demands of its strike and support role had to be paid for in lack of adequate defensive armament. Maximum speed: 276 mph. Armament: up to five 7.7mm machine guns and a 1.765 lb bomb-load. Range: 2.630 miles 34

..#''

sides a swarm of landing ships and craft of all kinds and a destroyer screen for each of the four attack

groups and three reinforcement groups into which the Attack Force was divided. One of these groups included three Landing Ships (Infantry) of the Royal Australian Navy and the British fast minelayer HMS Ariadne. The Southern Attack Force was about half the size. A Fire Support Force

commanded

by Rear-Admiral J B Oldendorf with his flag in the cruiser Louisville was divided into two Fire Support Units, the Southern Unit composed of three battleships, three heavy and three light cruisers under Oldendorf himself, the Northern Unit under RearAdmiral G L Weyler comprising three battleships; each Unit had its own destroyer screen. Another force, the Close Covering Group under RearAdmiral R S Berkey, consisted of two US light cruisers and the Australian cruisers Australia and Shropshire. Its destroyer screen also contained an Australian element in the shape of HMAS Arunta and Warramunga. Halsey's 3rd Fleet which was to provide air support for the operation, by striking at enemy bases, and guard against any attack by the Japanese fleet, was not under MacArthur's command, a fact which was to be of considerable signiflcance in the days to come. Kinkaid, however, had his own carrier element to provide close air support for the landing in the shape of Task Group 77.4, the Escort Carrier Group commanded by Rear-

Admiral Thomas L Sprague with his flag in the escort carrier Sangamon, divided into three Task Units each of six escort carriers, and each with a screen of destroyers and destroyer escorts. Halsey's independence of MacArthur's command and his prior concern to bring the enemy fleet to action first manifested themselves when Halsey, preoccupied with this efforts to trap the Japanese fleet, which had been lured out by the tempting bait of the two damaged cruisers, cancelled the strikes on Philippine air bases on 18th and 19th October

Above: Australian cruisers >1{y5fra//a and Shropshire. Below: Japanese Centre Force leaves Brunei 36

#

i

»*'^Ki»:

'm§m^

X

The Grumman F6F Hellcat The first of the US Navy's fighters which could meet the Zero on equal terms, being strong, well-armed and also manoeuvrable and fast. Engine: Pratt & Whitney R-2800, 2,000 hp at sea level. Armament: six .5-inch machine guns. Maximum speed: 380 mph at 23,400 feet. Range: up to 1,355 miles. Ceiling: 37.700 feet. Weight empty /loaded: 9,238/15,413 lbs. Span: 42 feet 10 inches. Length: 33 feet 7 inches 38

and warned Admiral Kinkaid that even on A-day, 20t]i October, he might not he able to provide the promised support. It fell to Sprague's escort carriers, therefore, to fill the breach. air

Japanese air reconnaissance failed to discover MacArthur' s armada and it was not until dawn on 17th October, when lookouts on the island of Suluan at the mouth of the Gulf of Leyte

Above: Rear-Admiral Jesse B Oldendorf who commanded the force which destroyed Nishimura. Below Right:

MacArthur with President Osmena

Rear-Admiral Clifton

whose

A

F Sprague,

escort carriers narrowly escaped

Vice-Admiral Thomas C Kinkaid with Lieutenant-General Walter Krueger 40

reported the advanced units approaching, that the Alert - SHO-1 went out. Immediately afterwards Kurita's 1st Striking Force was ordered to leave Lingga Roads for Brunei, though it was not until the afternoon of the 18th that the order to all units to execute SHO-1 was signalled. The 1st Striking Force was as well trained for the coming battle as it could be. Night fighting had for long

been the Japanese navy's speciality. In spite of its lack of radar, it had time and again inflicted defeat on Allied forces in night action during the long-drawn campaign for possession of Guadalcanal. Now at last equipped with radar and benefiting from the intensive training at Lingga, confidence ran high. Air defence against attack by the enemy's huge carrier fleet during the daylight approach would be provided by the shore-based air fleets concentrated in the Philippines under Admiral Fukudome which would keep the carrier fleet busy with repeated attacks, and by the massed gunfire of the ships' anti-aircraft guns which had been fitted in great numbers. The real battle would come at night when Kurita's ships would fight their way past the enemy's supporting fleet to

destructively on the invasion forces at dawn. On paper, or set up as a situation in a war game, the scheme would have been laughably unrealistic, taking into account the vast numerical superiority of the Allied forces, even if a part of the American carrier fleet was detached to chase after Ozawa's profl'ered lure. Kurita, as he later admitted, expected to lose more than half of his ships. It was, indeed, basically a last desperate charge of the Imperial Navy in the true Samurai tradition before going down fighting to the death. But fate, or the strange uncertainties of war - call it what you will - was to work to bring it near to an almost incredible success. Now that the Allied landing point was established as the Leyte Gulf, the route for the two portions of fall

€^

42

C

ZAWA'S DECOY FORCE

PA

C

I

F

I

OCEAN

2022, OCT. 24 U.S. CARRIER TASK GROUPS MOVE NORTH TO AHACK

OZAWAS DECOY

FORCE

0600.0CT.24 TG38.2 (Bogan) TG.38.1 (McCain)

0600.OCT.24 TG38.4 (Davison) 1000.0CT,20

US LANDINGS SUPPORTED BY US 7th FLEET (Kinkaid)

'

A-1200

Routes taken by Japanese naval forces

0ct.23

B-1000 0ct.24

C-2000.0ct,24

O-0600.0ct,25

Miles 1

1

r

Japanese reaction was far less immediately vigorous than previous

*^

experience had led the Americans to expect and, in fact, not only had the defenders' tactics changed from their earlier concept of a decisive battle on the beaches to a system of defence in depth, but they intended only a delaying action by the single division on Leyte, postponing the main defensive battle until Luzon was invaded. Air opposition was similarly ineffective and for the most part taken care of by the Combat Air Patrol (CAP) maintained by the escort carriers which claimed sixty-six of the enemy shot down. Nevertheless on 20th October the cruiser Honolulu was surprised by a single torpedo plane and was heavily damaged; while on the following day the Australia was damaged by a Japanese plane which crashed with its bomb load into her foremast. Both ships were salved, however,

K

/

V

V \^y

and retired to Manus iflZ>o«/e."Vice-Admiral Marc A Mitscher, commander of the fast carrier Task Force at the Philippine Sea and Leyte.

Below: His flagship Lexington

repairs to enable

for

them

temporary to reach a

dockyard. Japanese naval reaction was conspicuous by its apparent inaction

><«,:

during the first four days of the Leyte landings. Air reconnaissance by flying boats of the US 7th Fleet scouring the waters to the west of the Philippines sighted nothing.

To Halsey, stationed with Task Force 38 to the eastward of Samar, it seemed an admirable opportunity to give his carrier Task Groups some time away from the combat area for rest and replenishment in rotation. Task Force 38 had been operating under tropical conditions intensively and almost without cessation for ten months during which, as its commander, Vice-Admiral Mitscher reported, 'Probably 10,000 men have never put a foot on shore ... No other force in the world has been subjected to such a period of constant operation without rest or rehabilitation. Halsey therefore detached Vice-Admiral McCain's Task Group 38.1 to Ulithi on the 22nd; Rear-Admiral Davison's 38.4 were to follow on the next day. While Halsey was thus reducing his strength by half, unknown to him there had begun the great converging movement of the whole Japanese Fleet as ordered by SHO-1. Early on '

22nd October, the Centre Force had weighed anchor and, forming up in two lines with screening destroyers on either flank, as shown in the diagram, steered for the Palawan PasNishimura's Force 'C had sage. sailed the same afternoon, while Shima, his force reduced by the detachment of the heavy cruiser Aoba, a light cruiser and a destroyer to escort a troop convoy, had steered south from the Pescadores, planning to enter the Sulu Sea early on the 24th after fuelling at Coron Bay in the Calamian Islands. Far to the north, Ozawa's 3rd Fleet, with only about one hundred partially trained planes embarked in the carriers, had sortied, undetected, from the Inland Sea on 20th October and was steering south for the northern point of Luzon where, at the right moment, he intended to reveal himself to the enemy 38 away in pursuit. All the characters in the great seaair drama about to open were thus coming on stage or, in the case of Ozawa, gathering in the wings. The curtain was to be raised by two American submarines, Darter and Dace, which since 1st October had

and lure Task Force

been enduring the grinding tedium of a long patrol interrupted only by a brief skirmish with a convoy on 12th October when they had succeeded in sending two freighters to the bottom.

But now their patience was

to be richly rewarded. Lying close alongside one another for a

megaphone conference between

their captains in the early hours of 23rd October off" the southern entrance to the Palawan Passage, their radar screens, so long depressingly blank, were suddenly showing the glowing pinpoints of a number of ships at a range of fifteen miles. The rumble of their diesels rose to a roar as they set off" at full speed to intercept. As the radar picture developed they could make out a large formation of heavy ships with a flanking screen of destroyers. From the Darter an enemy report signal was quickly on the air. By 0620 it was in the hands of Halsey. The biggest sea battle in history had begun. Kurita's Centre Force which the Darter and Dace had thus intercepted. 45

Above: Before the assault troops were launched in their landing craft, the beaches were drenched by the gunfire of the Bombardment Group. Here the quota. Below 5-inch secondary armament of the battleship Pennsylvania add their and right: Waves of troop-laden landing craft follow

Avenger covering assault landings

^ *^-'-'

"«

Assault troops wade ashore from Landing Craft, Personnel still in Its two-column formation with 4,000 metres between the columns. At a speed of eighteen knots, with the first streaks of dawn it began a regular zigzag. The light

was

cruisers

and destroyers of the screen

were disposed between the columns and on each side of them. By a fatal mistake, none were stationed ahead, however, so that when the Darter and Dace submerged ahead of the port

and starboard columns respectively soon after six o'clock, there was no obstacle to distract them from a simple attack as in elementary training practice.

Both took full advantage of the situation. At a range of less than 1,000 yards, at 0632 Commander David H McClintock of the Darter fired his 50

six bow tubes at Kurita's cruiserflagship Atago and then swung round and loosed his four stern torpedoes at the cruiser Takao, next in the line. Within twenty-one minutes of the first torpedo leaving its tube, the Atago, hit four times and set ablaze from stem to stern, had plunged to the bottom with 360 officers and men, leaving the C-in-C and his staff' to swim to the destroyer Kishinami. The Takao, hit and crippled by two

torpedoes, turned and limped away by two destroyers.

for Brunei escorted

Meanwhile

Commander

Bladen

D

Claggett of the Dace had put four torpedoes into the heavy cruiser Maya in the starboard column causing her to blow up and sink within four minutes, leaving nothing but a

mass of floating debris. It was not surprising that such a sudden

catastrophic

blow

sent

a

wave of panic through the Japanese fleet. For the next ten hours submarine alarm followed submarine alarm, destroyers scurried to and fro dropping depth charges, and aircraft of the escort dived on imaginary periscopes. Kurita, anxious to transfer to the Yamato and resume effective control, was forced to delegate command to Vice-Admiral Ugaki,

already aboard the giant battleship whence he commanded the First Division. Not until late in the afternoon did the panic subside enough for the Kishinami to go alongside the Yamato. The Centre Force pressed on, nevertheless, in accordance with the SHO plan and by the evening of the 23rd was steering east for the Mindoro Strait. Its progress was noted and reported by the submarines Angler and Guitarro. A situation report from

the C-in-C Combined Fleet, Admiral Toyoda, painted an alarming picture

American forces fully alerted to the approach of the several Japanese units and of massive air attacks to be expected on the morrow. This was unduly pessimistic; only Kurita had as yet been located, and though both of

Nishimura's Force 'C and Shima's 2nd Striking Force would be discovered during the forenoon of the 24th, the American air strength, naval and military, was too fully occupied elsewhere to be able to pay serious attention to them. In any case it did not affect the Japanese determination to push on for the great encounter off Leyte, and while the American carrier planes were busy attacking the advancing surface forces, the Japanese shore-based air strength would concentrate on the carriers themselves. 61

The invasion armada for Leyte assembles in Seeadler Harbour, Admiralty Islands

^^||kk

i^A'^ '.w,>

.*?<•

'Hf tK^

Sibuyon Sea

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*

.

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V,--

•

^>.*.o-

-

.

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•

•

•»

•

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'

And so, indeed, On receipt of

at first turned out. the Darter's enemy report early on 23rd October, Halsey it

had recalled one of his detached carrier groups, 38.4 and, at the end of that day the three groups, 38.2, 38.3 and 38.4 which had been operating out in the Philippine Sea, were moved during the night to positions close to the east coasts of the island chain with 38.3 off the Polillo Islands, 38.2 off" the exit from the San Bernadino Strait and 38.4 off" Leyte Gulf. From these position each group, at dawn on 24th October, launched

armed reconnaissance

Rear-

flights,

Admiral Sherman's 38.3 to cover the west coast of Luzon and the Mindoro Strait, Rear-Admiral Davison's the sea areas round Panay, Negros and Cebu. An omission from this plan, which was to have notable consequences, was any search to the north and north east. Over the great spread of lush, green tropical islands and the calm, blue, sun dappled straits between them, the teams of Hellcats and Helldivers fanned out soon after 0600. It was to a Helldiver from the Intrepid of TG 38.2 that the honour fell of making electrifying 'Enemy in sight' signal at 0746 from a position south of Mindoro where Kurita's force was steering eastwards into

the

first,

the Tablas Strait.

The message reached Halsey flagship

New

Jersey with

TG

in his

38.2 at

he at once ordered the three operational groups to concentrate off the San Bernadino Strait and launch striking forces, while 38.1, on its way to Ulithi, was. recalled and ordered to refuel at sea.

0822;

Less than an hour later Nishimura's Force 'C was located as it was steaming east through the Sulu Sea and attacked by planes from the Enterprise and Franklin. The battleship Fuso was hit by a bomb right aft where her float-planes were mounted on their catapults. A furious petrol fire was started and the planes destroyed, but the ship's fighting efficiency was not impaired. Both Nishimura and Shima, who were also located by shore-based reconnaissance planes before noon, fully expected to be heavily attacked during 24th October. But Halsey's 56

had moved too far north as they concentrated on the principal enemy force in the Sibuyan Sea, while the air element of Kinkaid's 7th Fleet, both in the escort carriers and shore-based, was too busy supporting the landing operations. Kinkaid, however, correctly foresaw that Nishimura and Shima were making for the Surigao Strait where his force carriers

of battleships, cruisers and destroyers of the Support Force would be more than adequate to bar the way. Of Halsey's carrier groups, only Bogan's 38.2, smallest of the three with only one fleet and two light carriers, was able 'at first to launch a striking force against Kurita, composed of twelve dive-bombers, twelve

planes and twenty-one which took off" at 0910. Davison's Group, which had to recover the planes which had attacked Nishi-

torpedo

fighters,

before it could move northwards, did not get within range until late in the day. Sherman's 38.3, on the other hand, already reduced in fighter strength by the despatch of twenty Hellcats at dawn to sweep over the Manila airfields, was forced

mura

KslSf*t

A Hellcat sets a Japanese Zero flaming. Above: A Japanese bomber, down during an attack on the carrier Essex, burns on the sea Left:

to postpone the strike about to be launched soon after 0800 by the appearance on radar screens of a large enemy raid approaching. The shore-based air force of Admiral Fukudome had swung into action, throwing in everything it possessed in three successive waves of escorted bombers, each some fifty to sixty strong. Sherman's Hellcat fighters and the fighter direction organisation which had improved so greatly since the carrier battles of 1942 and 1943, were too good for the attackers who were intercepted well out and their formations broken up. The fighter group which put up the

most notable performance comprised seven Hellcats led by Commander David McCampbell with Lieutenant R W Rushing as his wingman, which had been ranged on deck ready to take

off"

as escort to the strike planes

from the Essex. TL^ enemy formation which they intercepted about thirty miles out consisted of some thirty

shot

torpedo planes and bombers just above the overcast with an equal number of Zero fighter escorts above at

14,000

feet.

McCampbell divided

his force, five of his Hellcats going down to engage the strike planes which tried in vain to escape by diving through the cloud layer, while he and his wingman swooped on the Zeros. The confident acceptance of these odds is a measure of the deterioration of the quality of the Japanese pilots, hastily trained replacements for the catastrophic losses suffered in the carrier battles and in the long struggle for the Solomon Islands and

the Bismarcks.

The Japanese strike

planes,

cut

from their escorts, were scattered and harried, losing nine of their number to the five Hellcats. Seven of the inexperienced Zero pilots had been picked off one by one and sent down flaming when the remainder formed a defensive ring. Holding the advantage as regards fuel endurance, off

60

Grumman TBF-1 Avenger at take off. Armament: one torpedo and up to .3-inch and one .5-inch machine guns. Maximum speed: 271 mph at 12,000 feet. Range: ^2^b miles with a torpedo. Ceiling: 22,400 feet. Weight empty|/oaded:^0.080|^ 5.905 lbs. Span: 54 feet 2 inches. Length: 40 feet. £/7flr/Vje.-

Wright R-2600, 1,700 hp

2,000 pounds of

bombs

plus

two

The Yokosuka D4Y-2 Susei (code name Judy) A navy carrier bomber and first saw service as a reconnaissance aircraft at the Battle of Midway. It was later used extensively and ended its career as a Kamikaze aircraft. Maximum speed: 335 mph. Armament: three 7.7mm machine guns and 1.100 lbs of bombs. Range: 1,320 miles. Crew: 2 61

Above: The US light carrier Princeton set ablaze by Japanese dive bomber Below: The US cruiser Birmingham goes alongside with other ships to assist in fighting the fires and suffers more than 200 killed by an explosion. Right: The Princeton has eventually to be scuttled

McCampbell and

his

wingman had

only to wait for the Zeros to break and head for home when they were able to pick off a further seven stragglers before landing on the nearest carrier with the last few gallons of gasoline splashing in their tanks. McCampbell's group was not the only one to demonstrate the absolute ascendancy American carrier planes had achieved over their opponents at this time. Hellcats from the Princeton sent no less than thirty-four flaming into the sea, the Lexington's fighters accounted for thirteen more, the Langley's at least five. Not a single organised attack penetrated to the carrier group which had meanwhile been using the cover provided by drifting rain squalls, emerging only from time to time to recover fighters short of fuel or ammunition. The cloud cover was a two edged weapon, however, and one lone 'Judy' dive-bomber pilot made clever use of it to deliver a catastrophic blow. At about 0900 the carrier group had turned into wind and cleared a squall. The Princeton had recovered ten of her fighters and was about to receive

vr.^ac:9lKU^-

two more when, at 0938, the 'Judy' was seen to dive out of a low cloud at her. Guns blazed out from the ships of the group, but could not stop the

plummeting plane which pulled out at 1,000 feet to release its 550 pound bomb. through the Princeton's and through two more decks before exploding. Its most devastating eff"ect was to set gasoline ablaze in the hangar which quickly It plunged flight deck

engulfed six armed torpedo planes there, detonating the torpedo warheads and hurling both elevators high into the air. Fires were soon raging throughout the ship and orders were given for all but essential flre fighting parties to abandon ship. Destroyers to pick them up were brought as close alongside as the flight deck overhang would allow; the cruiser Birmingham was laid alongside the weather bow to add her flre flghting equipment to that of the carrier and send a volunteer fire party on board. The antiaircraft-cruiser side to assist.

Reno also came along-

For two hours they fought the blaze valiantly and were at last getting it

under control when the Reno had to cast off to bring her guns into action against a renewed air attack; then the Birmingham hurriedly got under way when screening destroyers reported a submarine contact. With these threats taken care of, the Birmingham once again moved in to resume her fire fighting and then, if possible, to take the carrier in tow. A ghastly tragedy ensued. On board the Princeton one persistent fire near the stern had defied all efforts to get at it. And now, as the Birmingham slid alongside, her decks crowded with men preparing to go across to the carrier, others preparing to pass the tow, besides those on duty on the bridge and manning the antiaircraft armament, the flames reached a stock of bombs in the carrier's torpedo stowage. A savage explosion blew her stern to pieces, lashing the cruiser's deck with a storm of jagged steel splinters and debris; in the flash of an eye the busy scene had

become a hideous shambles.

On the Birmingham's deck 229 lay dead or dying; another 420 were wounded, the majority seriously. Amidst blood-drenched scenes of horror the one medical officer aboard and corpsmen from the Sick Bay, aided by the few unwounded officers and men, gave first aid to 'men with legs off, with arms off, with gaping wounds in their sides, with the tops of their heads furrowed by fragments,' who, as the Executive Officer was to record, insisted 'I'm all right. Take care of Joe, over there,' or 'Don't waste morphine on me. Commander, just hit me over the head.' 'There were no outcries,' the report went on, 'and in cases of those with clean cuts which were not bleeding too badly, when told that those who were bleed-

ing more profusely must be tended first, agreed cheerfully in every case, saying "OK. I'm all right; don't worry about me".' Little wonder that this officer was to say, 'I really have no words at my command that can adequately describe the veritable splendour of the conduct of all hands,

wounded and unwounded.' The struggle to save the Princeton The USS Birmingham and a destroyer draxAf away from the Princeton

was at last given up. The Birmingham backed away to bury her dead and at 1600 the order to abandon the burning carrier was given. Half an hour later she was sent to the bottom by torpedoes from the Reno.

The destruction

of the

Princeton

and the damage to the Birmingham however,

were,

a poor return

for

Fukudome's

tactics of trying to protect Kurita's force by attacking the enemy's air base. While it was taking place the other two carrier groups were launching striking forces

unmolested. Kurita had foreseen the possibility of fighter cover being meagre and, while preparing for SHO, had filled every available space on the decks and superstructures of his ships with machine guns, as many as 120 on each battleship, ninety on his cruisers and thirty to forty on his destroyers. The heavy armament as well, even the monstrous 18.1-inch guns of the Yamato and Musashi, were given a system of anti-aircraft fire control, but after the assurances provided in the SHO plan of suppoit by Fukudome's shore-based air forces and that the enemy carrier force

would be lured away by Ozawa, the weight and persistence of the air attacks which now descended was a bitter blow at morale. Bogan's 1st Strike which had taken off at 0910 from the Intrepid and Cabot opened the Battle of the Sibuyan Sea at 1026. They found the Centre Force steering north east through Tablas Strait in its double circular formation under a clear blue sky. The gun

barrage with which they were met

was spectacular, awe inspiring and seemingly impenetrable. Undaunted, the Avengers and Helldivers plunged through the barrier of steel and high explosive. It proved less effective than had been feared. Two Avengers were hit and forced down; the remainder broke thi'ough to complete their attacks.

The leading Japanese formation, containing the fabled leviathans. Yamato and Musashi of which few details were known, was the centre of attention. Two torpedoes found a mark one in the heavy cruiser Muoko which slowed her down to fifteen knots, so that she was ordered back to base; the other hit the Musashi ;

66

^"h J %^'^ 'i^'.-^V-

:

'¥^i <^'l)i^'

>it'

•^-^2)--

Kurita's Centre Force under attack by carrier planes of Task Force 58 in the Sibuyan Sea. Below: The giant Musashi is hit by torpedoes and bombs, later to sink

Above:

I

V

on the starboard side, but protected by her massive armour, she was little affected and steamed on in station.

A second strike from the Intrepid was the next to reach the target: it concentrated on the Musashi which was hit by two more torpedoes and two bombs. Her speed fell away to twenty-two knots. Kurita reduced that of the fleet, but the Musashi dropped slowly astern. In this grim situation, with long hours of daylight ahead of him, Kurita appealed to Fukudome and Ozawa to play their

meagre results of the former's effort we have seen; as for part.

The

Ozawa, in spite of deliberate radio chatter for the benefit of the enemy's direction finders, he had not yet been located; while a strike launched from his carriers composed of the few half trained pilots embarked, had suffered a crushing defeat and Halsey had been unaware of their ship-borne origin.

The Intrepid's torpedo planes concentrated on the Musashi and scored four more hits. Still she struggled on. Sherman's Group been able to get a large strike airborne from the Lexington and Essex, sixty-eight planes in all. Bad weather with a thick, unbroken overcast which had spread across the area handicapped them; many of the torpedo planes had been armed pound general purpose with 500 bombs, ineffective against battleships. Nevertheless the Musashi took further torpedo hits from this strike and from three further waves of attack planes, one from each of the carrier groups, which attacked during

Around midday, had at

last

the afternoon. Authorities differ as to the number of torpedo hits sustained, figures varying between ten and nineteen. The decisive blow certainly came when the great crippled ship, now more than twenty miles astern in company with the cruiser Tone, took three torpedoes in quick succession on her starboard bow, ripping her open to the sea, putting her bow under water, reducing her speed to a crawl and making her unmanageable. Trailing far astern and moving slowly and cumbrously, she was ordered to break

away and beach

herself; but it

was

too

late.

She

lost

all

power and

but inexorably, sank lower

slowly,

the water. 'Abandon Ship' was ordered, but more than 1,000 of her crew were still aboard her when at 1935 she suddenly rolled over to port and sank. She had run through her brief career without ever firing her huge guns at an enemy fleet. Meanwhile, elsewhere in Kurita's force, by early afternoon damage in

had accumulated from bomb hits, though as yet no other ships than Musashi and Myoko had had their fighting efficiency seriously affected. The anti-aircraft gun barrage had

been more spectacular than effective and few of the attacking planes had been shot down. There was no comfort to be had from the activities of Fukudome's shore-based air force or Ozawa's Main Body. The former had turned a deaf ear to appeals for direct support; as we have seen, he had used his force in a vain attempt to neutralise the enemy carriers; the latter had not yet succeeded in making his presence known to the enemy. At 1500, therefore, Kurita had decided to reverse course in the Sibuyan Sea and, as he reported to Toyoda, "to resume the advance when the battle results of friendly units permit'. This move was to be of incalculable importance to the outcome of the battle. As Kurita hoped, it gave time for Ozawa's 'shirt trailing' tactics to take effect and to draw off at least some of the weight of attack by Halsey's carriers; but, in fact, it achieved

much more. For

the news that he was retiring having, it was thought, suffered very heavy losses reached

Halsey at the very Ozawa's carrier force tible

lure

to

moment -

that that irresis-

American

carrier

admirals - was discovered. The effect on Halsey 's tactics was to be crucial.

From

the start of the operations,

Halsey and Mitscher had been sui'e that the Japanese carrier force would be thrown into this last all-out battle of the Imperial Navy. Though the Battles of Midway and the Philippine Sea had reduced it to a shadow of its former self, its destruction was something of an obsession with the senior commanders in the Pacific Fleet from Halsey downwards, an obsession not unaffected by a desire for vengeance 67

Japanese ships, including battleship Yamato. manoeuvre under attack by carrier planes ?,#.

/>

m:.

s

for Pearl Harbor. When the prior requirements of mounting strikes against Kurita and of providing Combat Air Patrol per-

search

mitted,

missions

had been

flown, therefore, to the northward. At 1540 that afternoon had come the enemy report; it mentioned first only battleships, cruisers and destroyers but an hour later came news of a second group to the north and east of the other, containing three carriers as well as cruisers and destroyers. ;

•

Since debouching from the Inland

Ozawa had manoeuvred so as to keep outside the range of American reconnaissance from Saipan until early on the 24th when he expected to be located. He would then become, he correctly surmised, an irresistible decoy to draw Halsey away and relieve the pressure on Kurita. Like other Japanese strategic plans from Midway onwards, however, SHO-1 depended Sea,

for success upon the exact fulfilment of the individual aims of each of a number of widely separated forces. Failure of one could lead to dislocation of the whole plan. In this case, Halsey failed to locate

Ozawa at the time expected. In an to rectify this Ozawa had

effort

launched the strike which had been so ignominiously repulsed at noon. He had then detached his second in command. Admiral Matsuda, with his two converted battleships, Ise and Hyuga, ostensibly and for the benefit of morale and 'face', to 'attack enemy remnants,' but in fact to make sure of their being located. This was the force that had been at last discovered at 1540, followed an hour later by the sighting of Ozawa's

main force including his carriers. As soon as Halsey received this information he gave anxious thought to the next step he should take.

From

his carrier admirals, jubilant reports of havoc wreaked on Kurita'

force were streaming in. As he was to write later in his action report, it seemed clear that the Centre Force 'had been badly mauled with all of its battleships and most of its heavy

Above: Bomb from a carrier plane Yamato. Below: Japanese cruiser fires

70

AA

battery

hits

cruisers tremendously reduced in fighting power and life.' Or, as he was to signal to Admiral Nimitz the following evening, 'I believed that the Centre Force had been so heavily damaged in the Sibuyan Sea that it could no longer be considered a serious menace to the 7th Fleet.' Furthermore the last strike on the

Centre Force had renorted

it still

on

a westerly course, evidently retiring, at 1600.

That so experienced an aviatoradmiral should have given unquestioning acceptance to aviators' claims (notoriously over optimistic) is hard to understand. He did not seek the opinion of his carrier commander, Mitscher. The fact remains that on the strength of those claims, Halsey

took the decision which was to come near to making the SHO plan successful beyond anything to be reasonably expected and to permitting the Imperial Japanese Navy to go down in one last blaze of glory, taking with it a far from negligible portion of the 7th Fleet.

The

fateful

decision

To appreciate the influences working to bring about what was to prove to be a grievous error leading to the brink of catastrophe, it is necessary to examine at some length the long drawn, fierce controversy which had been raging in the US Navy between the aviators with their burning faith in the carriers as the capital arm to bring about victory over Japan, to which all other branches of the Navy were ancillary, and the more conservative officers who still looked to the battleship as the ultimate battle winning weapon, the support of which was the carrier's main task. The aviators

themselves

were

divided into two types; the early enthusiasts who had taken to the air in their twenties and had held aviation appointments ever since, and the late comers who had gained their wings as quite senior officers, a step necessary by the rules of the US Navy for command of carriers. The former were apt to consider that they alone understood the true potential of the carrier arm and how to wield it. They were insistent that 72

Commanders and commanders Task Forces which had a carrier

Fleet of

element should be aviators or that, at least, they should have aviation specialists as Chiefs of Staff" and Operations Officers. Discontent amongst the aviators began immediately after the attack on Pearl Harbor when, although the battleship element of the Pacific Fleet had been virtually wiped out, leaving prosecution of the war to the the non-aviator Chester

carriers,

W Nimitz was appointed Commander-

(CINCPAC) and Ocean Area (CINCPOA). He

in-Chief Pacific Fleet Pacific

was a man of considerable intelligence and administrative ability and a firm and tactful leader who inspired great affection and devotion amongst his subordinates. Nevertheless the absence of an airman in any senior appointment on his staff made his strategic judgment suspect to the aviators.

Commanding the Pacific Fleet carriers - the Aircraft Battle Force was Vice-Admiral William F Halsey, a very late-comer aviator (as all senior admiral-airmen were bound to

be at that time), whose ebullient, aggressive image endeared him to and boosted the morale of the US Navy and public alike. When Japanese and American carriers first clashed at the Battle of the Coral Sea in

May

1942, however, Halsey was absent with the Enterprise and Hornet launch-

raid on Tokyo. was the non-aviator Frank Fletcher who commanded the Task Force - Yorktown and Lexington - that took part in the battle which was judged a ing

the

Doolittle

Consequently Rear-Admiral

it

tactical victory for the Japanese, lost the light carrier Shoho in return for sinking the Lexington. At the Battle of Midway, that astonishing American victory in which four Japanese carriers and very many highly skilled veteran carrier aircrew were lost against the sinking of the Yorktown, Fletcher was again in tactical command, but credit for the victory was largely due to another non-aviator, Rear-Admiral

who

Raymond A Spruance, who had taken over Halsey's Task Force, Enterprise

and Hornet, at short notice owing to Halsey falling sick. He had also taken over Halsey's staff, however, and it was primarily to his aviator Chief of Staff, Captain Miles Browning, and the brilliantly timed strike despatched on his advice, which caught the Japanese carriers refuelling and rearming full deck loads of planes, that US naval aviation opinion ascribed the victory. Spruance was probably the most

US Naval

strategist and emerge during the Second World War, with an extensive academic career behind him as student and instructor at the War

brilliant fleet

commander

to

His sea service, however, had been exclusively in surface ships, destroyers, cruisers and battleships, with no experience of carriers or flying. His views on naval warfare tended to be, according to the aviators at least, conservative and 'battleshiporientated'; still expectant that the climax to naval warfare might be a second Jutland, though of course, much modified by the influence of aircraft. When, therefore, following Midway, Spruance was brought ashore to be Deputy CINCPAC and Chief of Staff to Nimitz, there was much College.

muttering among the aviators that their views on the conduct of the

War Pacific attention.

received

insufficient

Frank Fletcher remained at sea command of the carrier Task Forces and was again criticised during the campaign for Guadalcanal for a lack of the aggressiveness with which airmen considered the carriers should be operated. Wounded when his flagship Saratoga was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine, he was relieved by Rear-Admiral Thomas Kinkaid, another non-aviator. At the Battle in

of the Santa Cruz Islands in October 1942 during which the Japanese Sho-

kaku and Zuiho were damaged as against the loss of the Hornet and damage to the Enterprise, he too was criticised carriers.

for

his

handling

of

the

The aviators achieved one of their objects when Kinkaid was appointed to the North Pacific, at the conclusion of the Guadalcanal campaign early in 1943, as from this time onwards no non-aviator was to command a fast carrier Task Force. They continued, however, to press for greater air participation in the higher commands. Progress in this direction was made in October 1942 when ViceAdmiral Jack Towers, a dyed-in-thewool aviator whose wings dated back to 1911, was appointed to the newly created post on Nimitz's staff of Commander Air Force Pacific Fleet (COMAIRPAC). His single minded devotion to naval aviation and belief in its dominating position in naval warfare did not endear him at first to the remainder of CINCPAC's staff"; nor was he received into the inner policy making circle. Nevertheless, with the aid of the brilliant Forrest Sherman, erstwhile Captain of the Wasp which he had lost to a Japanese and whom submarine's torpedo, Towers took as his Chief of Staff, Towers performed so admirably in building up and administering the carrier force which from June 1943 began to grow quickly into a huge armada, that he earned Nimitz's admiration and eventually his confidence, converting him largely to the airman's point of view. It has been noted earlier how. in anticipation of the huge access of 73

strength in ships and planes expected to start arriving in the early summer of 1943, naval forces of the Pacific Fleet were reorganised into three separate fleets, 3rd, 5th and 7th, with Spruance in command of the 5th or, as it was called until 1944, the Central Pacific Force. It was to the 5th Fleet that all the new carriers were allocated; Halsey's South Pacific 3rd Fleet command had to make do, like Kinkaid's 7th which served under MacArthur's supreme command in the South West Pacific, with shore-based naval air, except for one old carrier, Saratoga. When the decision was taken to advance against Japan through the Central Pacific by means of amphibious assault and capture of the Gilbert and Marshall Islands, Nimitz, stating that it was time to establish 'a new concept in planning and development,' turned to Towers for advice. The result was a firm, formal statement of the aviation dogma, reiterating that 'Carrier air operations are highly specialised and should be conducted by officers thoroughly trained therein. To be "air-minded" is no substitute for long aviation experience.' It naturally followed that fleet commanders should either be aviators or have Chiefs of Staff who were aviators - a clear criticism of the appointment of Spruance and his non-aviator Chief of Staff, Captain C J Moore and Operations Officer, Captain Emmet P Forrestel, to say nothing of Nimitz himself and his largely non-aviation staff.

Spruance's appointment stood; but of the carrier divisions of the new fleet went to aviators and when Task Forces were assembled and employed in the several carrier strike operations on Japanese-held island bases prior to the assault on the Gilbert Islands, it was the carrier admirals who commanded them. As time went on, both Nimitz and Spruance came nearer to accepting the views of the aviators and the latter, though he still visualised the possibility of a surface action between battleships developing during a confrontation with the Japanese Fleet, which airmen insisted was an impossibility in the air age, decided to

command

74

integrate the battleships in the carrier task groups with the primary object of providing anti-aircraft gun defence to the carriers.

Nevertheless provisions were

made

for the battleships to be withdrawn from the carrier groups, should the occasion arise, and formed up in an

old fashioned Battle Line under ViceAdmiral Willis A Lee, the gunnery and battleship expert whose flagship Washington had achieved the specta-

cular victory in the night Battle of Guadalcanal. One last victory for the aviators' views remained to be won - the substitution of a fully mobile, offensive role for the fast carrier forces during the amphibious operations in place of a static role tied to the close support of the amphibious forces. The latter, employed during the assault on Tarawa in the Gilbert Islands, when carrier task groups were given defensive sectors, resulted, as the aviators had predicted, in night attacks by land-based aircraft during which the carrier Independence was torpedoed and put out of action for six months. When plans for the capture of the Marshalls were considered, therefore, Nimitz decided, against the advice

both of Spruance and of his amphibious commander, Rear-Admiral Richmond Turner, to concentrate the assault on Kwajalein, leaving the carrier forces full mobility to neutralise the nearby island air bases of Wotje and Maloelap. Meanwhile, to command the massed carrier force of the 5th Fleet,

Task

Force 58, had come the most respected and experienced of the 'dyed-in-thewool' naval aviators, Rear-Admiral Marc A Mitscher who had gained his pilots' wings in 1916. In March he added to his appointment as CTF 58 that of Commander Fast Carrier Forces Pacific Fleet with the rank of Vice- Admiral. In June 1944 came the assault on Saipan in the Marianas in which Spruance with his flag in the cruiser Indianapolis commanded the huge Admiral William F Halsey, whose northward move with Task Force 58 in response to the lure of Ozawa's empty carriers has been subject of controversy

\.l

r^

;

5th Fleet comprising Task Force 51, the Amphibious Force under ViceAdmiral Turner, and Task Force 58 under Mitscher. In the course of it Admiral Ozawa brought out the

whole Japanese Combined Fleet, in combination with numerous landbased air formations flown in from Japan to the islands of Iwo and Chichi Jima to the north of Saipan, and from the south to the island of Guam, to challenge the Fifth Fleet. Spruance, serviced by the non-aviator still Moore as Chief of Staff", unwilling to move far from Saipan and so, as he saw it, uncover the weakly defended amphibious forces, and uncertain of the enemy fleet's position, stood on the defensive against the urging of Mitscher who wished to take the carrier Task Force boldly forward to seek out and destroy Ozawa's carriers. The resultant Battle of the Philippine Sea saw the massacre, amounting to annihilation, of the whole Japanese carrier-trained air arm. The new Japanese fleet, carrier Taiho and the veteran Shokaku were both sunk, but by American submarines; only the light carrier Hiyo was sunk by TF 58's planes; the remainder of Ozawa's fleet escaped. Lee's Battle Line, withdrawn from the Carrier Task Groups

and deployed in battle array between them and the enemy, never came within 200 miles of the latter. Criticism of Spruance's tactics was not confined to naval aviators. To a navy brought up on the doctrines of Mahan, destruction of the enemy's ships took precedence over every other object.

The

fact that, as a result of the annihilation of Japanese aircrews, the enemy fleet was a crippled force did not console the critics. By the time the operations round Leyte Gulf began, the 5th Fleet had become the 3rd Fleet with Halsey in command while Mitscher remained in command of the carrier force, now Task Force 38. Spruance had transferred with his staff" to Pearl Harbor, there to plan the next campaign, the occupation of Okinawa, for which the fleet would become, once again, the 5th Fleet under his command. Halsey, the pugnacious commander, not unconscious of the reputation he held for bold, aggressive tactics, was unlikely to be distracted by defensive 76

requirements from fieizing any chance Spruance's failure. retrieving of Furthermore, though Nimitz had studiously avoided any criticism of Spruance, his most trusted fleet commander, he had inserted in Halsey's orders the explicit instruction that, should an opportunity. arise to destroy the enemy's main fleet, it became his primary task to seize it. And now, with Kurita's Centre Force apparently eliminated, the opportunity was being presented.

At 1405, after earlier arrangements for a reconnaissance to the northward from the Lexington had been cancelled

for

lack

of fighter

escorts,

Admiral Mitscher had given permission for the scout bombers to set out singly without escort. One and a half hours later one of these had located and reported a Japanese force of battleships, cruisers and destroyers some 130 miles east of the coast of northern Luzon. An hour later, to the relief of Ozawa, who was despairing of ever being successful in his efi'orts to lure Halsey north, another scout had at last definitely located his carriers ninety miles further north. Nevertheless Halsey pondered long before coming to a decision. Three alternatives were open to him: to divide his force, leaving his Battle Line to guard the exit to San Bernadino Strait, with McCain's Task Group 38.1 to provide it with air cover while the other three carrier groups went

north to remain with his whole force or to go north with his whole force. The first of these was a heresy to ;

any uncritical follower of Mahan's doctrines. Although his staff discussed the possibility of leaving Lee's Battle Line,' Halsey, the uninhibited fighter and student of tactics, rather than strategy, was not the man to see the exception that proved a rule and he dismissed the idea. Paradoxically, it needed a Spruance, the cautious, conservative but brilliant strategic thinker to risk so unorthodox an act. Halsey, the aviator imbued with the doctrine of mobility for carrier forces, dismissed the second alternative as keeping the carriers 'statically off the Strait.' He decided to adopt the offensive

which to him meant taking his whole

force north to annihilate the carriers

which had escaped

months

Spruance

four

earlier.

Halsey's battleship Lee, admiral, bringing the light of cool reason to bear on the information available, correctly assessed the situation, including Ozawa's negligible striking power and decoy role; he passed his views to Halsey, receiving a bare acknowledgement in reply. Nor did the fresh information from a night reconnaissance plane from the Independence, received at 2006, that Kurita had again reversed course and since 1714 had been heading once more for the Strait cause Halsey to change his mind. He had already considered the possibility with his staff and decided that Kurita's force 'might plod through San Bernadino Strait and on to attack Leyte forces Willis

might inflict some damage, power was considered too seriously impaired to win a decision.' At 2022, the fateful order went out to the fleet. Lee now reinforced his previous message with one to the effect that he was sure Kurita was coming through the Straits. Rear-Admiral Bogan, commanding TG 38.2 which .

.

.

but

and

.

.

.

its fighting

care

of

Kinkaid's

7th

Fleet.

But

Kinkaid was quite unaware of this. During the afternoon of 24th October he had intercepted a signal from Halsey to the 3rd Fleet which was headed 'Battle Plan' and listed the organisation of his battleships

and certain cruisers which 'will be formed as Task Force 34'. This was a vestigial remnant of pre-carrier days, the formation of a Battle Line to engage their equivalents in the enemy fleet should they get within gun range. The 'will be formed' was to signify an intention for the future, not an immediate order; but Kinkaid, who did not intercept a subsequent voice radio

message

clarifying

sumed that Task Force

this,

as-

had been detached from the carrier Task Groups and formed. Thus when Halsey ordered his three Task Groups to rendezvous and proceed northwards, Kinkaid assumed that Task Force 34 was remaining to watch the San Berna34

dino Strait.

included the Independence, hinted at his disquiet by drawing Halsey's attention to the additional information sent back by the night scouting Avenger that all the lights marking the tortuous channel through the Strait, normally extinguished, were flashing at full brilliancy. The impatient tone in which this message was acknowledged caused him to abandon the intention of suggesting that his Task Group and Lee's battleships should be detached. Mitscher's chief of stafi", Commodore Arleigh Burke and Commander Flatley, operations officer, woke their admiral, urging him to make a similar proposal. 'Does Admiral Halsey have that report?' asked Mitscher. 'Yes,' said Flatley. 'If he wants my advice he'll ask for it,' decided Mitscher,

and went back to sleep. So, on through the night Task Force 38 raced north bent on annihilating the last Japanese carrier force. The seaward defences of Leyte Gulf and the great concentration of shipping there were now left entirely in the 77

The battle of Surlgao

Strait

)

M

I

BATTLE OF SURIGAO STRAIT

SEA

NDA NA

Night Oct 24/25,1944

f^'^ A

E Yamashiro sunk 0419

Fuso sunk 0430

B Yamagumo

sunk 0319

(Above details are shown

F Mogami h Nachi

G Abukuma H Asagamo

C Michisio sunk 0358 D Mogami retires 0335 in

collide

0424 Nautical miles

hit

0325 1

sunk 0721

the order of their appearance

in text)

I

As darkness fell on the evening of 24th October, therefore, Kinkaid felt he had reason to be quietly confident. With Kurita apparently taken care of, only the Nishimura-Shima force remained to be considered. Although since their location in the Sulu Sea during the forenoon of 24th October no steps had been taken to shadow them, Kinkaid correctly assumed that they must be intending to break into Leyte Gulf through the Surigao Strait. The task of confronting them was given to Rear-Admiral Oldendorf 's Bombardment and Fire Support Group, while the 7th Fleet's Motor Torpedo Boat Squadrons were de-

in the approaches to the Strait and along both shores of the Strait itself in sections of three boats each.

ployed

At 2236, Ensign Peter Gadd's PT 131 on patrol with Section No 1 made radar contact with Nishimura. At twenty-four knots the three boats streaked across the glassy sea to the attack - the first moves in what was to be the Battle of the Surigao Strait. The PT Boats were a branch of the Navy requiring from its officers the maximum of dash but a minimum of regular naval expertise or general professional training. They tended, therefore, to be commanded by high spirited young men, amateur sailors of the US Naval Reserve, who dreamed of nothing but the day when they would steer their thirty knot craft, skimming lightly over the surface of the sea through the darkness, to launch their torpedoes at point blank range at a powerful enemy. No such opportunity had as yet come the way of most of them; they and their mettlesome mounts had had to be content with uneventful patrol or employment as fast despatch boats. Though they had rarely fired a torpedo even in practice it is not surprising that they welcomed with excited delight the prospect now

presented to them. Their orders were to report all contacts and attack independently. Bearing in mind the likely reaction of their recipients to their first sight of

an enemy battleship

it would have been wiser perhaps, if the orders had read 'to report all contacts before attacking independently.' As it was,

when Nishimura's

force detected the section of boats by the light of the setting moon at 2256 and they were illuminated while still trying to get their contact reports away by radio, they at once went into the attack. In spite of zigzagging and making smoke to cover their approach they were driven off" by gunfire from the destroyer Shigure; shell hits knocked out their radio, so that it was not until PT 130 was able to close the neighbouring Section 2 an hour later that the first report of the enemy was passed to Admiral Oldendorf, reaching him at 0026 on 25th October. Fortunately this delay mattered little; Oldendorf, in his flagship Louisville, had long before arrayed his Bombardment and Fire Support Group across the northern exit from the Surigao Strait; his six battleships, Maryland, West Virginia, Mississippi, Tennessee, California and Pennsylvania in single line ahead, patrolling back and forth; his cruisers divided into right flank (Phoenix, Boise and the Australian Shropshire), left flank (Louisville, Portland, Minneapolis, Denver and Columbia) patrolling similarly five miles further down approacl. enemy's expected the course. Fifteen destroyers attached to the flank cruisers were available to attack with torpedoes before the big ships could bring their massive gunSeven more desfire into action. troyers on anti-submarine patrol also prepared to go into the attack as soon as Nishimura entered the Strait. In all these ships, patrolling blacked out through the calm, dark tropical night, briefly lit from time to time by lightning flashes (the moon had set at around midnight), tension mounted as reports from the PT boats flltered through. Nishimura's Force 'C,' with the Cruiser Mogami and three destroyers scouting ahead of the two battleships ind the Shigure, until 0030 when the two sections v/ere reunited, advanced steadily into the Surigao Strait, brushing aside attack after attack by the PT boats, none of which achieved anything, the last of them firing six torpedoes at 0213. By this time the first

Japanese admiral knew that, if he held on, the simultaneous descent on 81

the enemy forces in Leyte Gulf envisaged by SHO-1 could no t be acMeved. For from Kurita had come the news that, following his temporary reversal of course in the later afternoon, he would not be able to reach Leyte Gulf until 1100 on the following morning. Though the same signal ordered Nishimura to break into the Gulf as scheduled, i.e. at dawn, and to join Kurita ten miles northeast of Suluan Island at 0900, his present progress, unless halted by enemy attacks, would take him through the Surigao Strait by 0400 to confront whatever opposition awaited him alone. This,

of course, would involve a battle and it may be that Nishimura believed that the Japanese superiority in this form of encounter, as demonstrated in the battles amongst the Solomons in the previous year, would even the overwhelming odds facing him. Or perhaps he had by this time fatalistically accepted that the Gotterddmerung of the Imperial Navy had arrived and decided to press on without delay to the certainty of a warrior's death. What was in his mind will never be known, but he took no steps whatever to delay his advance. Only forty

night

miles astern Shima's 2nd Striking Force, which could have provided a powerful reinforcement, was hurrying to join him. But neither admiral signalled to arrange a rendezvous. It has been suggested that Nishimura deliberately abstained so as to avoid putting himself under the command of Shima who had formerly been his junior. This, however, overlooks the fact that it was up to Shima as the senior of the two, to initiate such a rendezvous. A more likely explanation arises from the fact that, in the absence of any supreme commander nearer than Toyoda in Japan, the

two admirals were

officially subordi-

nate to different fleet commanders. Shima received his orders from Toyoda's Combined Fleet Headquarters though organisationally his ships had become the sea going portion of a notional Southwest Area Fleet under Vice-Admiral Mikawa five days earlier.

ordinate 82

Nishimura was directly subto Kurita. The protocol-

minded Japanese were not the people cut through such tangled red tape by direct intercommunication. So the two forces steered blindly through the night for the Surigao Strait independently and ignorant of to

each other's situation. A more dangerous foe than the gallant but ineffective FT boat squadron was now about to challenge Nishimura. The seven destroyers of Captain J G Coward's Destroyer Squadron had been on anti-submarine patrol operating independently of Oldendorf 's fleet and Coward had earlier secured approval to move in to the attack at the first opportunity, after which he would retire and leave the way clear for Oldendorf's forces. Soon after 2 a.m. he judged the moment had come. Coward had left two of his ships guarding another entrance to Leyte Gulf to the north of Dinagat Island. With the remaining five he planned to deliver a pincer attack; down the eastern side of the strait he himself, in the Remey, led the McGowan and

Melvin while Phillips

Monssen

Commander Richard H

McDermut led the down the western shore.

in

the

By

0245 Nishimura' s force at fifteen miles was showing up clearly on the destroyer radar screens. It was advancing in single line, the destroyers Michishio, Asagumo, Yamagumo and Shigure leading, followed by the battleships Yamashiro (flagship) and Fuso and finally the heavy cruiser

Moga7ni. It

was a perfect set up for the attack-

destroyers. Neither the radar with which the Japanese had been recently equipped nor their proverbially acute night vision gave them warning; at 0300 Coward's division, some 8,000 or 9,000 yards on Nishimura's starboard bow, was already turning to fire torpedoes when a searchlight beam stabbed out to illuminate the Remey and the first Japanese shells began to raise tall columns of water around them. Twenty-seven torpedoes began their eight minute run to the target; and

ing

the three destroyers streaked away at thirty-five knots illuminated by starshells but escaping any damage; behind them, Nishimura, displaying the same inertia that had settled

down on him from the moment he had hoisted his flag a few weeks ago at Lingga Roads, steamed steadily on, making no effort to comb the tracks of the torpedoes he must have known were approaching. One or more of them hit the Fuso. Disabled and on fire, the battleship circled helplessly to starboard and stopped. Engulfed in flame, she blew up thirty minutes breaking into two halves, later, eventually to sink about 0430. Phillips's division reached their firing point ten minutes later than

and in danger of sinking; the Asagumo, with her bows blown off", turned to limp away out of action. Only the Shigure, which bore a charmed life, and the cruiser Mogami remained

undamaged. Undaunted and evidently ignorant of the fate of the Fuso and Yamagumo, Nishimura signalled to Kurita and

Shima

for the moment from a similar fate to the Fuso's, his flagship being hit by only one torpedo which did no vital

at 0330. 'Enemy torpedo boats destroyers on both sides of northern entrance to Surigao Strait. Two of our destroyers torpedoed and drifting. Yamashiro hit by one torpedo but fit for battle.' And doggedly he pressed on - to certain destruction. Oldendorf's Right Flank Destroyers had already been released to attack and were advancing at twentyfive knots in two divisions. Close into the Leyte shore. Captain K McManes in the Hutchins led the Daly and Bache. Further out in the strait the Australian destroyer Arunta

damage, the manoeuvre put the Japanese destroyers in the van squarely athwart the torpedo spread. Yamagumo blew up and sank at once; the Michishio was left immobilised

Captain K M McManes describes the operations of Destroyer Squadron 24 against Nishimura's force in the Surigao Strait

Coward's and had been under fire for three minutes when the time came to Like torpedoes. twenty launch Coward's, Phillips's division escaped unscathed; and though Nishimura was at last sufficiently aroused to make a brief turn away before resuming course, which saved the Yamashiro

and

M

ff^^

ss;^

,

under

Commander A E Buchanan RAN led the Killen and Beale and these

available

were the first to get into torpedo range, launching fourteen 'fish' between 0323 and 0325 before reversing course and retiring northwards. One of them, ascribed to the Killen, hit the Yamashiro for the second time; the explosion brought her almost to a halt but she was not yet knocked out and soon she was driving forward again at fifteen knots. The fifteen torpedoes launched by McManes' division between 0329 and 0336 all missed. Hutchins, Daly and Bache then circled, engaging the two damaged destroyers Michishio and Asagumo with gunfire until ordered by Rear- Admiral Berkey the Right Flank commanding Cruisers, to retire to clear the range for the big ships' guns. As they turned away northwards the Hutchins got her last five torpedoes away to give the coup-de-grdce to the Michishio which blew up and sank at 0358. As McManes retired, his ships found a fresh target for their guns the Mogami, which by this time had reversed course away from the inferno of heavy calibre shells which had

fection of Oldendorf's performance. At 0335 the nine destroyers of Captain

with deadly accuracy from Oldendorf's cruisers and battleships on the survivors of Nishimura's line at 0353. Since 0323 Oldendorf's ships had been watching on their radar screens the progress of the enemy and of the attacking destroyers. Spread at right angles across Nishimura's track and undisturbed by enemy fire, they enjoyed an overwhelming numerical superiority, besides a tactical advantage which was the dream of every big ship sailor; with all their guns(eighteen 16-inch, forty-eight 14-inch, twentyseven 8-inch, forty-three 6-inch) they were able to concentrate on the two Japanese 'heavies', under conditions similar to peace time practice. At 0351, the cruisers, followed two minutes later by the battleships, opened fire under radar control, at ranges of seven and three quarter miles for the former, eleven and a quarter for the latter. Eagerness - perhaps over eagerness it may be thought - to bring every fallen

Japanese battleship Fuso of Nishimura's force under attack by carrier planes in the Sulu Sea

weapon to bear on so inferior an enemy, was now to mar the per-

N

Smoot's Destroyer SquadFlank Cruisers, had been ordered forward to the attack. Smoot's own Division 1 Albert W Grant, Richard P Leary and Newcomb were steering head on for the enemy line, Captain Conley's Division 2 - Bryant, Halford and Robinson on the enemy's port bow and Commander Boulware's Division 3 - Bennion, Leutze and Heywood L Edwards on the

Roland

ron, screening the Left

starboard bow. All were still short of their firing positions when the first American salvoes roared over their heads at the same time as the Japanese ships opened fire on them. Divisions 2 and 3 wasted no time in launching their

torpedoes between 0354 and 0359 and Now both Yamashiro and Mogami swung round to port in the face of the overwhelming storm of

retiring.

shells falling around them and brought own guns to bear in reply. None of the thirty torpedoes launched by Divisions 2 and 3 scored a hit, therefore. Smoot was still advancing to confirm his target when he saw the Yamashiro' s alteration; he turned his Division parallel and at 0404 began launching his torpedoes. At a range of three miles - closer than any destroyer attack that night - and with a steady target, he scored two hits on the all their

battleship which was already slowing to a halt, ablaze from innumerable shell hits.

But Division I's close approach to the enemy, MogamVs turn away to port and Shigure's to starboard all combined to confuse the radar picture in the American light cruisers, one of which now took the Grant as her target. Already under a damaging fire from 4.7-inch guns of the Yamashiro's secondary battery, the destroyer cowered under a hail of American 6-inch shells, of which eleven hit, setting her ablaze and bringing her to a halt with thirty-four killed and ninety-four wounded amongst her crew, before Oldendorf heard of the catastrophe and ordered Cease Fire at 0409. The Grant was then towed out of action by the Newcomb. Nishimura's two big ships had 85

^«-<

Above: PT boats were the first units to oppose Nishimura. Centre: Shell damage to PT 152. Far right: PT 321 rescues unwilling Japanese survivors

meanwhile been turned into an inferno as hit after hit by shells varying from 6-inch to 16-inoh plunged home. The Mogami had been the first to turn

away

at 0353, launching torpedoes as she did so, but so quickly shattered and set on fire that by 0400 she was steering south to escape, followed by a hail of shells from McManes' destroyers. Two minutes later a salvo of 8-inch shells from an American cruiser hit her, one bursting on the bridge to wipe out all her senior officers.

Others penetrating to her

machinery spaces brought her almost to a halt and barely under control. When the storm burst around the Yamashiro, Nishimura had steamed steadily on for a few minutes seeking to locate a target. Having no radar it was not until the five Left Flank cruisers vyere sighted that the battleship had been able to make any reply. Then she had swung to port as we have seen, to bring all her guns to bear and 86

by 0358 her heavy shells had begun to fall round the Denver, Columbia and Minneapolis. She failed to hit any of them,- however, and was herself repeatedly hit by the 16-inch of the battleship West Virginia and the 14inch of the Tennessee and California, all of which, equipped with the latest centimetric fire-control radar, made devastatingly accurate shooting. The other three American battleships, lacking that equipment, were unable to distinguish a clear target; the Pennsylvania did not fire at all; the Mississippi only two salvos; but the Maryland joined in by ranging on the splashes of the West Virginia. To the fire of the battleships was added that of the cruisers, 6-inch shells in an almost continuous stream, 8-inch with only slightly more deliberation. Tiie Portland, however, shifted her aim to the Mogami after five minutes, while the Denver and Louisville turned their attention to the hapless Grant, identified on their radar as Shigure. Nevertheless the Yamashiro was taking fearful punishment in the midst of which the Grant's two torpedoes tore open her hull.

When the gunfire died away in response to Oldendorf 's order of 0409, the Yamashiro was sinking, finally to disappear beneath the surface ten minutes later, taking Nishimura to the warrior's death he seemed to have been deliberately seeking; the Mogami was limping slowly away southwards; the Shigure of the charmed life was also retiring, shaken from stem to stern by near misses but hit only once, by an 8-inch shell which failed to explode. The ten minutes respite granted to these two ships allowed them to draw away out of radar range. The Mogami had further tribulations to suffer, however. At 0430, as she was repairing steering slowly south, damage and fighting fires, out of the darkness loomed the Nachi, Admiral Shima's cruiser flagship. Whatever comfort this reinforcement may have

brought was short

lived.

Judging the

Mogami

to be stopped, the Nachi steered too closely across her bow and was rammed, suffering severe damage to her stern which reduced her speed to eighteen knots.

Shima, with

whom Nishimura had

made no attempt

to

join

up,

had

arrived in the Surigao Strait at 0325 to be met by PT 137 which got ofl" a lucky torpedo shot, aimed at a destroyer but hitting the light cruiser Abukuma. Leaving the crippled ship to limp off the scene, Shima had sped on up the Strait at twenty-eight knots, the cruiser Ashigara following the Nachi while his four destroyers scouted ahead. His only news from Nishimura had been his 0330 radio message. At 0410 had come the daunting sight of the two burning sections of the Fuso which he took to be all that was left of Fuso and Yamashiro.

This had brought home to Shima hopelessness of his situation. Lacking Nishimura's fatalistic attitude, when objects had appeared on his radar screen at 0420 which he took to be the enemy fleet, he had ordered his the

two cruisers to fire their torpedoes, recalled his destroyers and then turned south to retire. The target, in fact, would seem to have been a group of small islands on the eastern side of the Strait. It had been during these manoeuvres that his flagship had collided with the Mogami. 87

88

us

PT boat with the Higgins type of PT boat, was the mainstay of the US motor torpedo boat forces. It proved its worth in the confined waters around the island archipelagos of the Pacific. Displacement: 38 tons. Dimensions: 80 by 20J by 5 feet. Speed: 40 knots. Armament: one 20mm cannon, four .5-inch machine guns, eight depth-charges and two 21 -inch torpedoes. Crew: 14 EIco Type

This,

of the ships which annihilated IMishimura's Force in the Surigao Strait during the night action 24th-25th October. Right: USS Columbia, of Oidendorf's left flank cruisers, whose twelve 6-inch guns could smother a target with a continuous stream of shells. Below right: The US Destroyer

Some

McDermut with the Monssen torpedoed the Japanese flagship Yamashiro and two Japanese

W

destroyers. Below: The USS Albert Grant, under Captain Roland N Smoot,

Yamashiro twice with torpedoes, was herself heavily damaged by gunfire from American as well as enemy ships, being finally towed out of action, the only US ship to be damaged in the Surigao Strait hit

but

>»»*fc^

Above: Vice-Admiral Kiyohide Shima

who

arrived in Surigao Strait after Nishimura's debacle. Right: Nagato fires her main battery at distant planes

By

0500,

with

the

still

burning

Mogami now in company, Shima's force was retiring southwards. Oldendorf 's cruisers had made radar contact with them at about 0430 and had turned south after them. At fifteen knots it can hardly be described as a pursuit and it was not until 0520 and by the

dawn

light that the Mogami was distinguished and taken under fire by Louisville, Portland and Denver. She

was

still afloat

and under way, how-

when after a quarter of an hour's bombardment Oldendorf turned his force temporarily away. Twenty ever,

.^-

A

minutes later the indomitable Japanese cruiser with acciirate fire from her main battery drove off" two PT boats trying to attack her she and a screening destroyer repulsed another at ;

0645.

By the time Oldendorf had resumed the chase all three Japanese cruisers, Shima's four destroyers and the Shigure were passing clear of the Strait. All that was left for the guns of the American ships was the little Asagumo which, since having her bows blown off three hours earlier, had lain stopped in the middle of the Strait. In that time she had survived a torpedo attack aimed at her and a gun duel with a division of American destroyers; she was fighting back gallantly under attack by the des92

troyers Cony and Sigourney when the fire of the twenty-four 6-inch guns of the Denver Sind Columbia fell on her in a devastating storm. As she sank bows first her after turret spat defiantly back to the last moment. The last act of the Battle of the Surigao Strait was to be performed by seventeen Avenger torpedobombers despatched from the 7th Fleet's escort carrier force operating off Leyte. At 0910 they discovered the

shattered Mogami limping painfully away through the Mindanao Sea. Their attack was more than even that stoutly fought ship could absorb. She could steam no more. Her crew were taken off by the destroyer Akebono and a final torpedo sent her to the bottom. Meanwhile Oldendorf had turned back for Leyte as soon as the Asagumo had been sunk. Hardly had he done so when the incredible news reached him

that Japanese battleships had been encountered to the eastward of Samar and were attacking the almost defenceless escort carrier force supporting the Leyte landing. With magazines and shell-rooms depleted, the battleships and cruisers of his Bombardment Force seemed to be all that stood between MacArthur's vast invasion fleet and destruction. Consternation reigned in Admiral Kinkaid's flagship in Leyte Gulf. 98

rue battle off

Samor

Since the American invasion force had swarmed ashore on Leyte five days earlier, its air support, both defensive in the form of fighter cover against enemy bomber attacks and ofi"ensive in the shape of ground attack operations, had been largely supplied by

the force of sixteen escort carriers (CVE) of Task Group 77.4 operating in the Philippine Sea under the

command L Sprague

of Rear-Admiral Thomas flying his flag in the Sangamon. The air complement of each of these ships was twelve to eighteen Wildcats (a few had Hellcats) and

eleven or twelve Avenger torpedoplanes, the latter being employed on anti-submarine patrol duties as well as attack missions. None were trained for night flying operations. Airfields ashore at Dulag and Tacloban had been captured but by 25th October they were still only fit for use as emergency landing strips. The Group was divided into three self-contained units: 77.4.1, 77.4.2, 77.4.3, familiarly known as Tafl'y 1, 2 and 3, respectively, their voice radio

bomber

callsigns.

Taffy 1, under Thomas Sprague himself, occupying the most southerly operations area of the three - off Mindanao - was composed of four CVE's. Off the entrance to the Gulf of Leyte was Taffy 2, six CVE's under Rear-Admiral F B Stump in the Natona Bay, while off the east coast of Samar was Taffy 3, six CVE's under Rear-Admiral Clifton Sprague with his flag in the Fanshaw Bay, the other five being the St Lo, White Plains, Kalinin Bay, Kitkun Bay (fiagship of Rear-Admiral R A Ofstie)

and Gambier Bay. Each unit had its screen of three destroyers (DD) and four

destroyer-escorts

(DE),

the

former armed with five 5-inch guns and ten torpedoes, the latter with two 5-inch guns and three torpedoes. Major fleet actions were not normally the concern of CVE's. Their eighteen knot speed and main gun armament of only one 5-inch disqualified them. The events of 24th October in the Sibuyan Sea and of the following night in the Surigao Strait had been of only indirect interest to them. Except for the strike planes launched at daybreak from 96

Taffy 1 in pursuit of Japanese survivors of the Surigao Strait encounter (planes which were eventually to end the harassed career of the Mogami), and orders from Kinkaid for Taffy 2 to mount a dawn search to the northward which was delegated to the Ommaney Bay, the 25th opened with what had become routine flying operations to provide fighter cover and

anti-submarine patrols. Even the search mission was little less routine than the dawn General Quarters, a customary precaution against being surprised by an enemy at that most dangerous moment of the day. No particular urgency seems to have been attached to the search by the Ommaney Bay and it was not until 0658, nearly half an hour after the sun had risen over a calm sea, lightly ruffled by a northeasterly breeze, with scattered tropical rain squalls sweeping slowly across it, that the last of the ten reconnaissance planes was airborne. One minute later Clifton Sprague of Taffy

3,

was gazing, appalled, at

dye-coloured shell splashes rising out of the water near his flagship Fanshaw Bay and the neighbouring White Plains.

That

something

incredible

was

occurring had first become apparent twelve minutes or so earlier. A burst of gunfire in the northwest had been followed by an excited call from an Avenger on anti-submarine patrol at 0647. The pilot. Ensign Hans Jensen, had reported four battleships, eight cruisers and a number of destroyers before gliding down to launch his depth-charges alongside a cruiser. Sprague's immediate thought - that the young aviator must have mistaken some of Halsey's fieet for the enemy-had been as quickly banished when over the northwestern horizon the massive top-hamper of Kurita's heavy ships had been seen to rise. The impossible had happened. An American fieet with all the advantages of lavish air capability and superior radar had been surprised and brought to action by an enemy of overwhelmingly superior gun power. Some 300 miles to the north, off the northeast coast of Luzon, the six fast battleships of Halsey's 3rd

CENTRE FORCE

YAMATO & NAGATO

(Kurita)

KONGO

0735

KONGO TURNS TO AVOID JOHNSTON'S TORPEDEOS

\ HARUNA

0730 i

i •-

0700

KONGO 6 HARUNA OPEN

FIRE

KUMANO TORPEDOED SUZUYA BOMBED 6 DAMAGED

0754 KURITA TURNS NORTH TO AVOID TORPEDOES

YAMATO SIGHTS US CARRIERS

HAGURO LEADS CHOKAI. CHIKUMA \ &TONE

0659

YAMATO OPENS FIRE AT 35.000 YDS

BATTLE OFF

SAMAR

Oct 25,1944

"^mm^f'-y; :%

^^Jit»

I* ^^-J %

%.

^

i^r^

'>?r:^:

''n'-^Xf.

wMch, as Task Force 34, botn Kinkaid and Nimitz imagined to be guarding against such an occurrence, had duly formed up into a 'Battle Line' ahead of the Carrier groups four hours earlier; but the expected target for their fifty-four 16-inch guns was only Ozawa's scratch force of carriers which Halsey naively hoped would advance confidingly within gun range before dawn. The problem presented to Sprague had no easy solution. Safety, it seemed, could only, in the long run, lie in the direction of Leyte Gulf to southwestward whence, prethe sumably, Oldendorf 's battle squadron would be coming out to the rescue. In the meantime, however, Sprague's fleet

only defence lay in his strike aircraft; a southwesterly course was down wind on which he could not launch them. A course directly into wind would take him quickly into decisive range of Kurita's guns. A decision was reached by 0657 to

compromise by steering initially due east, partially away from the enemy, yet allowing a cross-wind take-off the carriers' planes. Then, as opportunity ofl"ered, course would be edged round clockwise to southeast and south. The six CVE's on the perimeter of a 2,500 yard diameter circular disposition, turned together accordingly at seventeen and a half knots, launching every available aircraft with whatever armament they happened to be equipped. Outside the carrier circle were the escorts each in their allotted sector, 6,000 yards from the centre. At Sprague's order, every ship began to belch a trail of black smoke from funnels and white chemical smoke which, spread by the light breeze, hung low in the hot and humid air. Before it became effective as a screen, however, the carriers nearest to the enemy. Fanshaiv Bay and White Plains, were taken under fire by the Japanese battleships. The Yamato's 18.1-inch were the first to thunder out at the colossal range of 35.000 yards and made, on this the only occasion on which those monstrous guns ever engaged an enemy warship, remarkably good shooting. Equally good was that of

for

Kurita's battleships under attack

99

Above: Commander Ernest E Evans commissioning of USS Johnston in which he was to die. Right: US

at

Heermann fought gallantly defence of escort carriers

destroyer in

the 14-inch guns of the Kongo and Haruna, the two battleships nearest to the enemy, which joined in soon afterwards. The splashes of the salvoes, dye-coloured yellow, blue, green or red to distinguish their origin,

repeatedly and narrowly straddled the White Plains. Near misses set her whipping so fiercely that men were thrown off their feet and a fighter jumped its chocks, its whirling propeller chopping off the wing tip of another. By a seeming miracle, however, no direct hits had been scored when the spreading smoke screen shrouded her, causing the Japanese

gunners to shift their fire. The St Lo, northernmost of the formation and so standing out clear of the smoke,

now

received similar treatment, suffering casualties as shell splinters from near misses swept her deck. Clifton Sprague was later to record that at that time 'it did not appear that any of our ships could survive another five minutes'. But now came temporary salvation in the shape of a rain squall into which, one by one, the carriers dis100

Ifia

appeared between 0706 and 0715. Japanese radar was too primitive for accurate blind fire; the splashes fell wide and then ceased. As soon as all planes had taken off, available Sprague was able to bring his carriers round to a southerly course unseen by the enemy. Thus, for a while, the range began to open in spite of the great speed advantage held by the Japanese. For Kurita, equally surprised by the encounter as his enemies, had assumed that the flat topped silhouettes on the horizon were some of Halsey's fleet carriers. To secure the windward position, therefore, and head them off from steaming into wind to fly off" their planes, he had steered to the eastward and continued to do so now. As he was to

fast

later, he 'planned first to cripple the carriers' ability to launch and recover planes and then to mow down the entire task force'. This initial misconception of the situation was to continue in Kurita's mind throughout the ensuing day, as will be seen many of his ships were

report

;

to get within close range of the escort carriers and their captains could have disabused him of it; but it never crossed their mind that it was necessary. Besides having had no sleep for two nights, Kurita had undergone the traumatic experience in the last two days of having one flagship sunk under him and another damaged by bombs during a long day of repeated, massed air attack during which 'unsinkable' the mighty Musashi had been sent to the bottom. His morale had undoubtedly been shaken and now the all too familiar sight of Avengers streaking in low, of Wildcats and Hellcats, their machine guns chattering, diving to strafe the bridges of his ships, distracted his tactical sense. Being in the process of changing from night to day formation at the moment of sighting the enemy, by making the signal for 'General Chase', he not only lost tactical control of his force

by thus abandoning any coherent formation, reduced the effectiveness of its anti-aircraft fire and exposed his ships to damage even by the often but,

unsuitably armed aircraft from the CVE's. Though flown by pilots of little combat experience, these 'second line' aircraft were to draw rueful admiration from the enemy for their skill and gallantry. Their early attacks, begun while their parent ships were still in the cover provided by the rain squall, were thinly spread and uncoordinated. They were soon joined by planes from Taff"y 2; but something more would be required to check the onrush of Kurita's pursuing ships when the little, slow and defenceless carriers came out again into the open. The situation called for desdesperate measures. At 0716 Clifton Sprague ordered the three destroyers of his screen, Hoel, Hcermann and Johnston, to counterattack. The destroyer on the circular screen which was nearest to the enemy was the Johnston. Her captain. Com-

mander Ernest E Evans, had needed no orders to tell him what to do. The Johnston, while laying a smoke screen, was already steering for the nearest group of enemy ships, four 101

,

heavy

cruisers, on the leading ship of which, the Kumano, flagship of Vice- Admiral Shiraishi, she opened fire at 18,000 yards and soon scored a number of hits. Already planes from Taff"y 3 and Taff'y 2 were swooping to the attack; the Suzuya, next astern of the Kumano, was hit by a bomb, and, with her speed reduced to twenty knots fell out of the line. Under cover of the air attack, the Johnston was able to streak in unscathed to within 10,000 yards to launch her full outfit of ten torpedoes. Shiraishi's flagship was hit, her bow blown off" and set on fire. The admiral had himself transferred to the Suzuya, but by the time this had been completed, both cruisers had dropped far astern of the running fight in which they played no further part. By this time the remainder of Kurita's ships had followed Sprague's movements round on to a southerly course; the cruisers, in two groups, had raced out ahead of the battleships and were circling the carrier group to hem it in from the eastward while the battleships - Yamato and Nagato in column, Kongo and Haruna

independently - chased from directly astern. Up to this time the destroyer had borne a charmed life but now battleships and cruisers alike turned their guns on her. Three 14-inch and three 6-inch shells slammed into her. Only the fact that the bigger shells, being armour-piercing types, plunged clean through before exploding, can account for her not being blown to pieces. Damage and casualties were heavy, nevertheless; speed was reduced to seventeen knots; the bridge, the after engine* room and boiler room were all wrecked; yet, after ten minutes respite under cover of the rain squall, the Johnston returned to the fray, her 5-inch guns in action again. As she emerged from the squall at about 0750, she saw her squadron ;

mates, Hoel and Heermann pass on an opposite course, steering for the enemy. Some 3,000 yards further in rear was the little D £" Samu e'l B Roberts bringing her exiguous armament in support of her more powerful comrades. Evans at once turned up astern of them to give them the support of his guns.

The HoeU commanded by Commander L S Kintberger and carrying the senior officer of the squadron, Commander D Thomas, getting into action ten minutes after the Johnston, had selected the huge Kongo for her target. Racing in with guns blazing she was met by a concentrated fire. A shell smashed into her bridge at 0725, but she was able to launch half her torpedoes at a range of 9,000 yards before turning to escape. The Kongo evaded them; but to do so she turned away northwards, her engagement of the carriers delayed for precious minutes. In reply she wreaked heavy damage on the Hoel, the shell explosions leading Kurita to record an enemy cruiser blown up and sunk. Her upper works and bridge a shambles, only two guns still in action, the Hoel, now being joined by the Heermann (Commander Amos T Hathaway) from the far side of Taffy 3, and followed by the Roberts and the crippled but dauntless Johnston, nevertheless led away to find a target for her remaining five torpedoes and at 0750 launched them at

W

the heavy cruiser Haguro, leading ship of a column. They failed to hit the cruiser; but it was probably these torpedoes which, at 0754, were sighted on a collision course from Kurita's flagship. At his command the Yamato and Nagato were turned away to a northerly course parallel to that of the torpedoes. This move, reminiscent on a smaller scale of a similar turn to avoid destroyer torpedoes twentyeight years earlier at Jutland, had a not dissimilar result; for the Yamato with torpedo tracks on either side of her was forced to maintain her northerly course for ten minutes and by the time the torpedoes had run their distance and sunk and she was able to turn back, the battle had left her and the Nagato far behind. Four minutes later the Heermann also got seven torpedoes away at the

Haguro. The Hoel was in no shape by this time for anything but to limp hopefully away for safety. The Heermann, as yet undamaged, and coming under fire from the 14-inch guns of the Kongo and Haruna, turned defiantly on these huge antagonists and. supported by the guns of the crippled Johnston, hammered their superstructures with 5-inch shells before launching her three remaining torpedoes at the Haruna, and retiring, miraculously unscathed. With her went the Johnston and Roberts. The last named, it will be remembered, had followed her bigger sisters at a respectful 3,000 yards, determined not to be outdone. Taking advantage of the drifting smoke clouds. Lieutenant R Copeland had succeeded in getting her to within 4,000 yards of the cruisers to launch her three torpedoes, though without concrete result. As she retired, an enemy cruiser on a converging course was brought under fire by the DE's two 5-inch guns; but in spite of this temerity, the Roberts escaped, for the time being, unharmed. Two others of the little DE's had meanwhile been boldly attacking

W

independently. Lieutenant-Commander A F Beyer of the Raiimond had also selected the Haguro Escort carriers of 'Taffy

heavy

fire

3'

for her

suffer

from Japanese

battleships and cruisers

^J

^*

108

target and racing- through a forest of splashes from the cruiser's 8-inch guns, fired her three torpedoes at 0756. Three minutes later the Dennis

(Lieutenant-Commander Samuel Hansen, senior officer of the DE's) also

attacked the cruiser column with torpedoes and gunfire before retiring in company with the Heermann, Johnston

and

Roberts.

None

of these tor-

pedoes found a target; but each wave of them forced the cruisers to swerve away to evade them, gaining precious minutes for the fleeing carriers and forcing the cruisers to turn their guns on their attackers instead of on the vulnerable CVE's who were being rapidly overhauled and must soon be within killing range of the cruisers' powerful batteries. At about this time, on board Halsey's flagship, the battleship New Jersey, the first of a series of signals

mounting urgency arrived on the Admiral's desk. It was a desperate appeal for help from Kinkaid who was unaware that most of the 3rd Fleet was more than 300 miles away engaged in the chase and destruction of Ozawa. In reply Halsey ordered McCain's Task Group 38.1 to in tones of

proceed

to

the

assistance

of

the

Seventh Fleet; but McCain, too, was hundreds of miles away to the eastward, refuelling; the earliest he could get his strike planes into action against Kurita would be 1300. Similarly, Oldendorf's battleships and cruisers which had been chasing the remnants of Japanese forces in the Surigao Strait, were ordered back to Leyte Gulf; but they could not reach the scene of action off Samar for at least three hours. The Seventh Fleet Taffies were truly on their own with nothing but their own resources

on which to rely - their 'second-line' and the meagre force of

air groups

destroyer escorts of Taffy 3. A price had to be paid for the reckless gallantry of the little ships. It was a miracle that all were still afloat and only the Johnston and Hoel seriously damaged. But the latter had nearly run her sacriflcial course. Her speed gradually falling away. Escort carrier Kitkun Bay launches Wildcats. In background White Plains

under 104

fire

she was lagging behind the remainder and was hemmed between the Kongo to port, the heavy cruisers to starboard. Her two forward guns still flashed deflance; but in return she was pierced through and through by more than forty shells ranging from 5-inch to 16-inch. At 0830 an 8-inch shell in the engine room brought her to a standstill, on flre, listing to port and down by the stern. It was time to abandon ship. At 0855 she sank. The heroism with which the ships of Taffy 3's screen had been harrying

and holding ofT their powerful opponents has inevitably held the attention. More deeds of matchless courage have yet to be recorded; but for the moment we must take up the story of the carriers. Taffy 3's respite under cover of the rain squall ended as the carriers began to run out into the clear at 0723 to see, on their port side, four Japanese cruisers drawing clear of the remainder of Kurita's force and overhauling. all available planes now airborne and ordered to concentrate on

With

the cruisers, Clifton Sprague had begun to edge his carriers round to the southward; by 0746 their course was south, by 0800 southwest, heading at their best speed towards Leyte Gulf whence must come any possible help. The Japanese squadrons, manoeuvring independently, followed round and, by this time, but for the delays and distractions imposed by the Taffy planes and by Sprague's destroyers and DEs, the end of Taffy 3 would have been imminent. Even so, the situation was a des-

carrier Gambler Bay in battle off Samar. salvoes, she sank afterwards

Above: Escort

enemy

r*"*"-

^L ^j fe i

iii|gfc<|^^

.-^^s^f^SS:

Below: Straddled by

perate one, particularly for the two carriers on the northeast quadrant of the circular disposition, the Gambier Bay and Kalinin Bay which were standing out in full view of the enemy, clear of the drifting smoke screens to the northward. The Japanese cruisers, Haguro and Chokai on the port quarter, Chikuma and Tone astern, at ranges of less than 18,000 yards and rapidly closing, concentrated on these two

who barked defiantly, and by no means ineffectively, back with their solitary 5-inch guns. Beyond the cruisers were the battleships, also bringing their big guns into play. Fortunately the Japanese were armour-piercing shells and firing many of those which hit the thin skinned 'Woolworth' carriers plunged through before exploding. The Kalinin Bay was the first to be hit at 0750, again a few minutes later and thereafter repeatedly by 8-inch shells. She was heavily damaged but heroic efl"orts kept her afloat and in formation. By 0815 the St Lo, most northerly of the carrier circle, and Fanshaw Bay ahead of her were both steaming

through shell splashes. The former escaped unscathed; the flagship was hit four times by 8-inch shells and suffered casualties but was kept going. It was on the Gambier Bay, however, that the full fury of the cruiser fire fell when at 0810, after avoiding being hit for twenty-five minutes, she was at last heavily damaged and set on fire and her speed reduced to eleven knots by the Chikuma, which by this time had closed to a range of only 10,000 yards. Salvo after salvo from several cruisers now struck home. By 0845 she had lost all power and was listing heavily. Five minutes later the order was given to abandon ship; at 0907 the Gambier Bay capsized and sank. Efforts to save her had not been lacking and Sprague's order to his destroyer escorts to draw the fire of the cruisers had been anticipated, the Butler, Dennis, Raymond and Roberts as well as the Heermann and the much damaged Johnston all intervening. They could not save the Gambier Bay; but their gunfire contributed to the accumulating damage suffered by the cruisers, particularly the Chikuma which, at 0842, was seen

to make a complete circle while air attack.

under

The little ships could not expect to escape punishment, though in fact, the Butler and the Raymond which closed to within 6,000 yards of the enemy did so. Fortunately the cruisers were now coming under an ever increasing weight of air attack. Nevertheless the Dennis was heavily hit and forced to take cover behind a smoke screen; the Heermann, too, was hit several times and so badly flooded forward that her forecastle was nearly awash; she stayed in action however, until relief came from renewed air attacks on the cruisers.

Only the little Roberts, which until had miraculously escaped any damage, paid the full price, when after being crippled by a number of

0850

8-inch hits in quick succession, she was struck at about 0900 by a salvo of 14-inch shells from the Kongo which reduced much of her to a tangle of twisted steel. Even so, the stout little ship did not sink for another hour, enabling all who were still alive to abandon ship, their wounded placed on rafts, so that more than half of her crew, including her captain, survived. During these two hours of confused and confusing surface action with its quirks of fortune, planes from the Taffies had also been playing their part with splendid initiative and gallantry; but for this the heavy casualties sustained by Taffy 3 must have risen to annihilation. Taffy 1, operating some 130 miles south of Taffy 3, had not been able to make a significant contribution; they had been earning themselves a notable niche in history in a different fashion as will be recounted later. The planes of Taffy 3. as mentioned earlier,

had been launched in des-

perate haste during the first twenty minutes of the battle, carrying the weapons with which they had been armed for the missions arranged prior to the startling appearance of Kurita's force - bombs, rockets or even depth-charges. They had gone immediately into the attack and had had an early success when they crippled the Suzuya, knocking her out of the action. The cruiser Haguro also 107

Avenger torpedo planes

took a bomb hit on one of her forward turrets. inflicted

What other damage was by aircraft at this stage is

impossible to identify but the harassment they gave to the Japanese ships undoubtedly saved the carriers and 3SCorts of TaflFy 3 from more severe ;

damage.

Commander R L Fowler was air group commander of Rear-Admiral Ralph Ostie's division of Taffy 3 consisting of the Kitkun Bay and Gambler Bay. Aloft in his Avenger he assumed the task of strike co-ordinator, which he continued to perform throughout the battle. Aircraft of Taffy 3 which had completed their attacks, unable to return to their hard pressed parent ships, either landed at the Tacloban 108

air strip where they were able to re-arm with bombs or they put down on a carrier of Taffy 2 and pre-empted torpedoes awaiting the return of her

own

planes. In Rear-Admiral Felix B Stump's six escort carriers - Natona Bay,

Manila Bay, Marcus Island, Kadashan Bay, Savo Island and Ommaney Bayof Taffy 2, operating to the southeast of Taffy 3's initial position, all Avengers had been at once ordered to ship torpedoes and they were soon reporting to Fowler for target orders. Yet other planes which had set out on missions in support of the Leyte landings were redirected to the carrier battle by the Commander Support Aircraft 7th Fleet, Captain R F

Whitehead and, at 0830, just as the Japanese seemed to be closing in for

Johnston, which had been engaging the Japanese cruisers in a vain attempt to save the Gambier Bay, ran out from the cover of a smoke screen to find herself confronted by a division of four Japanese destroyers led by the light cruiser Yahagi, flagship of

Rear-Admiral

Kimura. Kurita had stationed them in the rear at the beginning of the action; but now they were racing forward intent on delivering a torpedo attack. Without a moment's hesitation. Commander Evans steered to engage them. His gunfire and the swoop of an American fighter plane, its machine guns hammering, affected Kimura's judgment. Though still astern of the carriers and barely within range even for the amazing Japanese Long Lance liquid-oxygenpropelled torpedoes, he immediately turned and launched the Yahagi's outfit and ordered the destroyers to do likewise. Evans's bold defiance, and the unceasing harassment kept up by the carrier planes thus ruined the Japanese attack. By the time the torpedoes caught up with the two nearest carriers, St Lo and Kalinin Bay, they were near the end of their run, slowing

down and

Fowler was able to send in massed attack. The Chikuma we have seen earlier circling under this attack. At the same time the Chokai took a number of bomb hits, damage from which had a cumulative the the

kill,

first

easily avoided.

One was

exploded by machine gun fire from a diving Avenger; another deflected by shots from the St Lo's 5-inch gun. This lamentable performance by his squadron did not deter Kimura from brazenly claiming, in a signal to Kurita, one carrier of the Enterprise class sunk, another almost certainly sunk as well as three destroyers. But for the Johnston the end of a short but action-filled life had come.

effect.

The Japanese squadron concentrated

In all, Taffy 2 launched five strikes, three during the crucial period up to 0900 in which forty-three torpedo planes participated. No less than forty-nine torpedoes were aimed by

their guns on her. Shells from the cruisers, too, were plunging into and around her. In a few minutes she was brought to a standstill, on fire and sinking. At 0945 she was abandoned while the Japanese destroyers circled, shooting at her lifeless hulk until she sank at 1010. The captain of one of them was seen to salute her heroic end. Casualties, were inevitably heavy, 186 alas, officers and men of her crew being lost, including the dauntless Com-

Stump's Avengers while fighters attacked with bombs and rockets. How many torpedo hits were obtained by planes of Taffy 2 and 3 cannot be established, but certainly the Chikuma was crippled by one at 0853. At this moment, however, a new and potentially serious threat to the carriers of Taffy 3

loomed

up.

The

enemy

mander Evans. 109

While this tragic drama was taking place, the main battle had taken a turn which to this day defies an easy sxplanation. Though both the Chokai and Chikuma had suffered an accumulation of damage which had crippled them and put them out of action, the Haguro and Tone had closed to within 10,000 yards - a truly killing range of the carriers. The battleships Kongo and Haruna 'were not much further away and coming up fast. Yet at 0925 Clifton Sprague, who was later to recall that 'At best I expected to be swimming by this time,' saw the

ships turn away and disappear into the smoke haze to the north. 'I could not believe my eyes ... I could not get the fact to soak into my battle numbed brain,' he wrote. Kurita, lagging in the Yamato over the horizon behind the remainder of his force, unable to get a clear picture of the situation, had decided that he must gather his scattered ships together while he considered his next move. He turned away on a northerly course and recalled them. Suddenly the whine and crump of shell fire round the fleeing American ships died away. The damaged ships could concentrate on repairs; others could gather in their planes. In a few hours help could be expected from TG 38.1 which was racing at thirty knots to a position from which a full scale air strike could launched. Hope was born again. From Clifton Sprague's survivors many a sigh of relief and many a prayer of thanks went up. But in fact, Taflfy 3's ordeal was far from over. From airfields in Luzon Japanese Zero fighters and 'Judy' single seat dive-bombers were on their way, each carrying a 550 pound bomb and flown by a pilot whose consecrated white scarf was bound round his head above the staring fanatic's eyes of one who had sworn to immolate himself by crashing suicidally on to the deck of an enemy ship. A new and deadly form of attack had been introduced in a last, vain hope of neutralising American naval

enemy

air power.

US destroyers Johnston (above) and Hoe/ were both sunk in battle off Samar when attacking Japanese battleships and cruisers 110

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Japanese survivors captured by Filipinos after the battle

Kamikazes attack

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On 17th October, as the first American Ranger units were tumbling ashore on Suluan and Dinagat Islands at the

mouth

of the Gulf of Leyte, at Clark Field near Manila there had arrived Vice-Admiral Takijiro Ohnishi to take over from Vice-Admiral Teraoka the command of the 1st Air Fleet, responsible, in co-operation with the Fourth Air Army, for land-based air support in and around the southern Philippines. It was but a sorry remnant of this once powerful force that he found. In the great air battles fought over Iwo Jima, Chichi Jima, Guam and Rota during the capture of the Marianas and the naval battle of the Philippine Sea in June and in Halsey"s carrier strikes in September, its out-dated planes, flown by inadequately trained pilots had been massacred by the Hellcats of Marc Mitscher's Task Force of fast carBarely one hundred planes riers. remained operational with which to support Kurita's battle fleet in the impending SHO operation, in face of the same overwhelming American naval air strength which would be deployed in opposition. Only some

new weapon

of unprecedented effectiveness could save the day. Such a weapon, a more deadly means of delivering a bomb on to the vulnerable flight deck of a carrier, had been in Ohnishi's mind for some time. It was one which only a body of warriors brought up in the patrioticreligious cult of Bushido could easily

contemplate. It had been suggested on numerous occasions ever since the Battle of the Philippine Sea when the last trained Japanese carrier air groups had failed to achieve any damage to the American carriers and had themselves been almost wiped out in the attempt. A leading proponent had been Captain Eiichiro Jyo who was now commanding the carrier Chiyoda in Ozawa's sacrificial decoy fleet. Pilots, he had proposed, should dedicate themselves to plunging their bombladen planes bodily on to the target, thus ensuring a hit at the cost of their own lives rather than pulling out of the dive and relying upon an aiming skill there was neither the time nor the training facilities for them to 116

acquire. Jyo had volunteered to be the first; but when his idea was finally adopted, he was not to have the satisfaction of knowing it and would be about to make a less spec-

tacular though no less noble sacrifice of his

life.

Two days after his arrival to take over the command at Clark Field, Ohnishi assembled the twenty-three non-commissioned pilots, the least trained or experienced of the fighter group and, after a brief speech in which he stressed the desperate state of the Empire and the decisive nature of the great battle for Leyte Gulf about to begin, he invited them to volunteer for a Special Attack Unit dedicated to crashing their Zero air

fighters in this way, each armed with a 550 pound bomb. Each was given a blank sheet of paper on which, if

they volunteered, they should write their names; if not, they should leave it blank; the papers were then to be returned to the admiral. To a man, all volunteered to become the first Kamikaze Attack Unit. The name, meaning Divine Wind, commemorated the providential storm which in the year 1281 had scattered the invading fleet of the Mongol Emperor, Kublai Khan. To lead them; Lieutenant Yukio Seki was chosen. On the following day Ohnishi praised them in an emotional speech, telling them they were "already gods without earthly desires"; each pilot was given the 'hachimaki', the folded white cloth to wear, which the fighting samurai of old tied round his head to confine his long hair and keep the sweat from his eyes. Veteran pilots of the Air Group were now despatched to other bases to 'spread the gospel" and set up other units, one of the first being Tadashi Nakajima who in collaboration with a brother aviator Rikihei Inoguchi, was to write the story of the Kamikazes.* Meanwhile the first unit was divided into small sub-sections of a few Kamikazes, each section being given an inspiring, emotive name. On each sortie, more experienced pilots would fly escort to them to beat off attackers and draw their fire while the Kamikaze pilots would press on unswervingly for the target. The first section to take off on their

Sequence showing dive by

a

Zeke fighter on

plane can be seen, pursued by an Avenger

USS Suwannee. A second Japanese

heroic mission was the Shikishima, led by Yukio Seki on 21st October. To their chagrin, owing to bad weather, they were forced to return on this and several subsequent occasions without having located a suitable target. It was another unit, formed at the air base at Davao, which had the honour of delivering the first blow of a mounting campaign which was to culminate in mass Kamikaze strikes (Kikusui) six months later,

amphibious assault on Okinawa, which was to come very during

the

near to forcing the retirement of the Allied Pacific Fleet. It was Taffy 1 which at 0740 on 25th October, while hastily gathering in and re-arming planes to send to Taffy 3's assistance, had the first daunting experience of one of these piloted missiles. It plummeted out of a cloud to crash through the flight deck of the CVE Santee and on through the hangar deck before exploding to start a raging fire which threatened to engulf a stack of eight 1,000 pound bombs. Fire parties quickly brought the fire under control but hardly had they done so when the Santee shud;

118

dered from another heavy explosion, this time from a torpedo launched by the Japanese submarine 1-56. The Santee's builders had reason to be proud of their handiwork, however, for within a few hours she was under way at sixteen and a half knots and, with her decks temporarily repaired, operating aircraft again. Meanwhile two other Kamikazes, diving on the Sangamon and Petrof

Bay had been

hit by anti-aircraft fire in time to send them swerving away to miss. A fourth however, though hit by gunfire from the Suwannee

which had already shot down two Zeros, came vertically down to explode as it tore through the Suwannee's flight deck, punching a ten-foot hole in it and blasting a jagged twenty-five foot hole in the hangar deck. Casualties were heavy; the after elevator was put out of action; a fire blazed up in the hangar, but this was quickly dealt with, and within three hours planes were again landing on the Suwannee.

The first Kamikaze attack had proved less effective than expected; not a single ship had been sunk or

f<6tn\ra\ Ohnishi hands the ceremonial cup of sake to his

Above:

'kamikaze' pilots, who wear the hachimaki c\oth of the Samurai. Left and far /eft: His dedicated followers

even driven out of action. Nevertheless a mere handful of the now obsolescent Zeros had achieved more than the majority of the far more massive strikes launched by Fukudome's 2nd Air Fleet throughout the previous day, and at a comparatively trifling cost; and it was not to be denied that the new victims.

tactics

had shaken their

That they had reason to be apprehensive was to become apparent three hours later when Yukio Seki, leading the five Zeros of the 'Shikishima' section, came streaking low over the water, below the radar cover of Clifton Sprague's Taffy 3, whose carriers, after their seemingly miraculous escape from Kurita's guns and torpedoes, were thankfully recovering their planes. Zooming up, at the last moment they rolled over and dived at their targets; one aimed his plane at the bridge of the Kitkun Bay which he narrowly missed, carrying on to hit her deck-edge on the port side where the bomb exploded as the Zero bounced into the sea. Damage was severe but did not put the carrier out of action.

Two others of the Shikishima section were shot down as they dived on the Fanshaw Bay. Another dived at the White Plains to be met by a storm of 40mm and 20mm cannon fire which even if it did not shatter the plane or wound the pilot was enough to ruin his aim; he missed the flight deck by inches to explode as he hit the water, showering the deck with debris and the grisly fragments of his own body. The fifth Zero also started down towards the White Plains but at the last moment swerved away for the St Lo. This pilot made no mistake, hitting squarely on the flight deck, plunging through to start the awful conflagration that had already proved fatal to so many carriers in the Pacific war. A series of explosions tore the hapless ship asunder and in less than half an hour the St Lo foundered. Thus the first volunteers for the Kamikaze Attack Unit achieved the Unit's first major success and gained the hero's death so dear to the samurai tradition. The Unit had meanwhile been growing fast since Ohnishi's

first call for

119

it was a group of no less than fifteen Judy dive-bombers, carrying 1,100 pound bombs which next attacked Taffy 3 at 1110 the same day. Fighter patrols drove off the majority but one got through to dive at the Kitkun Bay only to be destroyed by the ship's

volunteers a week earlier;

gallantly steadfast guns' crews, when barely fifty yards away. The Kalinin Bay was not so lucky. Out of four which took her for their target, one crashed on her flight deck, another hit the after smoke stack. Nevertheless the Kalinin Bay survived.

The ordeal of the ill-used Taffy 3 was at last over. Of its four surviving carriers all had siiffered damage, either from Kurita's guns or from Kamikaze attacks or both. That they lived to fight again was little short of a miracle or as Clifton Sprague was to express it, attributable to 'the definite partiality of Almighty God'. Sprague, accepting the risks of having no screen, sent his four surviving escorts, Heermann, Dennis, Raymond and Butler to pick up 754 survivors of the St Lo. When three fresh escorts were provided by the 7th Fleet, the

heavily damaged Heermann and Dennis were sent away to the Palaus to seek temporary repair by the Service Squadron there, while the carriers retired to lick their wounds at the Fleet Base at Manus in the Admiralty

'Yamato' section from Clark Field, three Kamikazes with two escorts. Arriving while the Taffy's Combat Air Patrol was busy driving off a dozen 'Judy' dive-bombers, the Kamikaze Zeros were able to break through.

Islands.

Two narrowly missed Sangamon and

Before returning- to follow the events of the 25th one more Kamikaze attack which was to be made on the escort carriers shortly after noon on the following day must be recorded. Once again it was on Taffy 1 and once again it was the Suwannee that was chosen as target, this time by the

Petrof Bay; but the third made no mistake, striking squarely on to an Avenger on the forward elevator of the Suwannee ; the two planes exploded together, setting fire to others on deck. More than 150 men died and many were wounded, but by the devoted efforts of damage control parties, the ship was saved. While Taffy 1 and Taffy 3 were suffering their ordeal by Kamikaze on the 25th, Rear-Admiral Stump's Taffy 2 had kept up the harassing attacks on Kurita's force which, after so strangely letting go its apparently doomed victims soon after

had re-formed on a northerly course which was maintained until 1055. For the next hour and forty minutes the course was in a southwesterly direction, heading once more, it seemed, for Leyte Gulf. Struggling to assess the situation from the numerous enemy signals intercepted (nothing had been heard from Ozawa in the north) the anxious and shaken Kurita was in fact pondering what to do next while manoeuvring to avoid air attack. Though several of his ships had been at close quarters with Sprague's little CVEs and could have enlightened him. he apparently still believed that he had been in action with part of Halsey's 3rd Fleet. Taffy 2. briefly sighted from the Yatnato, had been similarly identified. A report had reached Kurita at 0945 of yet another enemy force, which could be part of the 3rd Fleet, off the San Bernadino Strait. Rejecting the self sacrificial, fatalistic spirit in which the whole SHO operation had been conceived, he weighed up the advantages to be gained and the price it would entail if he pressed on into Leyte Gulf to attack the 0910,

amphibious forces there. Kurita's shocking experiences of the previous day's repeated air attacks, the destruction of the giant

Damage received USS Suwanee

at

hangar deck

level

by

"

'"^^'S"^

121

Musashi and crippling damage to the four heavy cruisers, Suzuya, Kumano, Chokai and Chikuma under the resolute assaults of the CVE planes, had shaken his nerve. Though a seaplane catapulted from the Nagato reported that thirty-five transports were lying in Leyte Gulf, the number he would be able to destroy would not com-

pensate for the loss of Japan's last surface fleet which a continuation of the air attacks, he feared, would achieve.

And

still

respite.

they came, giving him no

The

aircraft

which

Com-

mander Fowler had directed

so skilfully and efi"ectively to the attack at around 0830 had landed on Taffy 2

decks where they had been re-armed with bombs. Launched again at 1100 and combining with others of Tafi"y 2 led by Lieutenant-Commander John R Dale, USNR, they had made up a force of seventy planes, half bombers and half fighters which came in sight of Kurita at 1220. It was enough to make his mind up. He turned away northwards and, though the subsequent attack did little damage, he set course for the San Bernadino Strait. 'Face' demanded a euphemistic report of this retreat to his C-in-C. 'First Striking Force has abandoned penetration of Leyte anchorage and is proceeding north to search for enemy task force. Will engage decisively, then pass dino Strait.'

through San Berna-

Kurita' s cripples were orderea to retire independently. Only the Kumano was able to comply. The Chokai

and Chikuma were lying stricken and motionless. The destroyers Fujinami and Nowake, sent to stand by them,

could only take ofi" the survivors of their crews and then sink them. The Suzuya, bombed and hit a second time, was in flames. The luckless Admiral Shiraishi once again shifted his flag, this time to the Tone. The crew, unable to control the fires which were exploding the ship's torpedoes, were taken off" by the destroyer Okinami and the Suzuya was sent to join her sisters on the bottom. Thus the dire consequences of Halsey's acceptance of the lure of

Hangar deck

Suwanee 122

fire in escort carrier after kamikaze hit

^^*

i carrier under kamikaze attack. Below: Funeral service for the right: In the wardroom, casualties are given emergency treatment

Above: Escort dead.

Above

Ozawa's empty carriers, a holocaust of either the Taffy escort carriers or the amphibious shipping in the Gulf, was avoided. There remained the question of whether the remainder of Kurita's force was to be allowed to escape. Hurrying to the scene was

Vice-Admiral McCain's Task Group 38.1 - the fleet carriers Wasp, Hornet and Hancock and light carriers Monterey and Cowpens - which had been refuelling nearly 400 miles to the eastward when, at 0848, it had been ordered by Halsey to go the 7th Fleet's rescue. It had at once ceased fuelling, formed up and at thirty knots steered launching range. get within to Between 1030 and 1040 a strike of Hellcats. thirty-three forty-eight Helldivers and nineteen Avengers had been flown off 335 miles from the target.

The long range and uncertainty as to whether planes could land for refuelling at Tacloban combined to necessitate the use of wing tanks with the consequent reduction of bomb loads and, in the case of the

Avengers, the substitution of bombs for torpedoes. Combat fatigue no doubt affected pilot performance, too; for McCain's Group had been recalled when on its way to Ulithi for a well earned and overdue period

and recreation. The result of the attack, which was made at 1316, was insignificant, only one bomb having hit the cruiser Tone, and this failed to explode. A second, smaller strike at 1500, also failed to cause any serious damage and out of the 147 planes engaged in all, ten were shot down with a loss of twelve aircrew. Nevertheless these and further strikes by planes of Taffy 2, though equally unproductive, served to confirm Kurita's determination to press on at best speed along his escape route through the San Bernadino Strait. To see how this decision was to avert what would have developed into a last encounter of the battleship era we must now rejoin Halsey who had turned north the previous evening to seek out and destroy

of rest

Japan's last carrier force. 125

and slaughter

Ozawa, it will be recalled, had at last been located by American reconnaissance planes during the afternoon of the 24th. He then felt sure that he had successfully staged his decoy role in the SHO operation. With only twenty-nine planes, nineteen of them Zero fighters, remaining on board his single fleet carrier (Zuikaku) and three light carriers (Chitose, Chiyoda, Zuiho), his task was now to sell his force as dearly as possible, relying mainly on his antiaircraft guns, while luring Halsey as far as possible away from Leyte Gulf. It had been heartbreaking, therefore, to intercept Kurita's message at 2000 that he had turned about in the Sibuyan Sea and so had apparently disrupted the SHO plan. Disconsolately he too had turned away northwards. But then an hour later had

come Commander-in-Chief Toyoda's order for all forces to press on to the attack. Once more Ozawa had turned southeast, recalling Matsuda's detached force to a dawn rendezvous. Though no further news of Halsey^ had come in during the night, Ozawa felt grimly confident that daylight would bring American carrier planes swarming round. Around midnight Halsey's three Task Groups had made rendezvous. As they headed north together, they were divided into two Task Forces. Marc Mitscher, with his flag in the Lexington, was ordered by Halsey to

assume tactical command of Task Force 38, which comprised five fleet and five light carriers with their destroyer screen. To be ready to deliver the coup-de-grace to enemy ships expected to be crippled by the carrier air strikes on the morrow. Task Force 34, six battleships, seven and eighteen destroyers cruisers under Vice-Admiral Willis A Lee, in the Washington, was ordered to form up ten miles in advance of the carrier force. At 0100 on the 25th, the Independence, Mitscher's night flying carrier, launched five planes to scout ahead over an arc from northwest to north (320 degrees to 010 degrees). By 0235 the two sections of Ozawa's force had been re-located as they steered southeast and north respectively 128

towards

their rendezvous; but a errors now combined to confuse the picture of the situation series

of

the American flagships' plots. Owing to a mistake in transmission of the sighting report, the enemy was shown less than one hundred miles ahead when, in fact, he was more than 200. Contact by Lee's

on

overwhelming force was expected by 0430.

of

battleships

Had the aircraft that located the enemy remained to shadow, the error would have soon been amended; but it was forced by engine trouble to return; the relief plane, led astray by radar defects and the original reporting error, failed to regain contact.

At dawn the disappointed battleship men, who had been so tensely expecting an opportunity to bring their untried 16-inch guns and radar-control systems into action, were stood down. The enemy's position had become a matter for guess work which only a fresh air search would clear up. This had been ordered to be launched at first light, but in the meantime an air strike in maximum strength had been ranged on the American carriers and at 0540 the first of a force of 180 aircraft, evenly divided between fighters, dive-bombers and torpedo planes roared ofi" the decks. Over a white flecked sea ruffled by the northeasterly trade wind they climbed up into a clear blue sky to form up and orbit some seventy miles ahead to await news from the scouts. Conditions were identical with under Admiral those in which, Spruance, the Battle of the Philippine Sea had been fought four months earlier.

But now it was an airman, Halsey, who was in command, and one with a firmly based reputation for an aggressive spirit. 'Kill Japs, kill more Japs', had been the slogan issued to the fleet when he took command in the South Pacific during the struggle 'Attack, repeat. for Guadalcanal. Attack' had been his signal which had launched Admiral Kinkaid into the costly carrier battle of the Santa

Cruz Islands. Task Force 38 (Mitscher) decimates

Ozawa's force, sinking four

two destroyers

carriers and

BATTLE OF CAPE ENGANO Oct 25,1944

1930 HRS

OZAWA TURNS BACK TO ASSIST HATSUZUKI

HATSUZUKI SUNK BY

DUBOSES SQUADRON

2000

1414

ZUIKAKU SUNK

1655

CHIYODA SUNK BY DU BOSE'S SQUADRON 0937

CHITOSE SUNK

IN FIRST

STRIKE

OZAWA'S FORCE

[\

AKITSUKI SUNK IN FIRST STRIKE

t&2

)^—

—^

1900

^ 1800 OZAWA & MATSUDA

.0600

RENDEZVOUS

.--' MATSUDA'S BATTLE GROUP


f
|

0235.

OCT 25 1115

1115 HRS TASK FORCE

rr

HRS

TF 34 TURNS SOUTH TO INTERCEPT KURITA

38.2

TURNS SOUTH

I

'

I

I

/

I

I

I

r

f/ 0822

/

0822

/

TASK FORCE 38

U.S. air strikes

(Mitscher) 0845/0930 HRS 1000/1030

TASK FORCE 34 1622 HRS TASK GROUP

/-/ 34.5

/ /

If

^

(Lee)

I

1310/1500 1710/1740

Nautical miles

60

Though Halsey's orders from Nimitz were to support the 7th Fleet and MacArthur's landing operations, they contained the over-riding clause that 'In case opportunity for destruction of a major portion of the enemy fleet is offered or can be created, such destruction becomes the primary task'.

Believing

Kurita's force

to

have been virtually eliminated, it would take powerful persuasion to distract him now from engaging those Japanese carriers which, ever since Pearl Harbor, had been the main target of the Pacific Fleet and which he could not know were now but empty shells, toothless tigers. For the time being no cloud broke the clear horizon of Halsey's bright prospects of a triumphal day. Kurita, far to the south, was still advancing undiscovered towards that startling

denouement off Samar. At 0710, just as Clifton Sprague's escort carriers there were gaining temporary respite from the guns of Kurita's heavy ships under cover of the rain squall, contact with Ozawa's force was regained by Mitscher's scout planes. Like skeins of flighting geese, the American strike formations swung round and flew towards their target. At 0810 they came in sight of the Japanese, who increased speed to twentyfour knots and prepared to sell their lives dearly. From the Japanese carriers rose a pathetic handful of Zeros to join the dozen or so which had been sent up at dawn as Combat Air Patrol. The aerobatics their pilots indulged in as they attempted interception betrayed their inexperience. More than half were shot down; the fate of the

remainder is unknown though some no doubt made for shore bases on

Luzon when their ammunition ran out. From then on, the Americans had no aerial opposition to face, thus allowing them to maintain a continuously co-ordinator overhead to track and report results. As in the Sibuyan Sea action, Japanese anti-aircraft fire was spectacular with its pyrotechnic display of tracers and coloured bursts and target

Japanese light carrier Zu/'/io hit by a bomb from Helldivers of the USS Essex of Task Force 58 131

impressive in its sheer intensity. It opened with long-range fire by the big guns of the battleships, Ise and Hyuga. Again, however, it was to prove only moderately effective, only ten American planes being shot down by it during the day. Target co-ordinator for the first

was David McCampbell, commander of the Essex Air Group 15 who had achieved such success leadstrike

ing his Hellcats on the previous day. He ordered a concentration on the carrier Chitose, but so successful were the Helldivers which brought her to a standstill with several hits, that he ordered the Avengers to seek other targets. The Zuiho dodged two torpedoes and the one bomb which hit her did no vital damage. The Zuikaku, Ozawa's flagship, was hit by one torpedo aft, had her steering engines disabled and her radio communications put out of action, forcing the Admiral to shift two and a half hours later to the light cruiser Oyoda. The destroyer Akitsuki, struck by a torpedo meant, no doubt, for her betters, blew up and sank. The lightcruiser Ismu attempted to take the Chitose in tow but before she could do so it became clear the carrier was sinking. The destroyer Shitnotsuki took off her survivors; at 0937 Ihe Chitose sank. The radioed reports from McCampbell of this satisfactory start to the long hoped-for final destruction of the Japanese carrier strength had not begun to reach Halsey when at 0822 the first of the series of desperate cries for help from the 7th Fleet was handed to him, a plain-language message sent more than an hour earlier by Kinkaid with the incredible news that battleships and cruisers were attacking Clifton Sprague's CVEs off Samar, 'Request Lee proceed top speed to cover Leyte; request immediate strike by fast carriers'. This brought Halsey the first intimation that Kinkaid thought that Lee's Task Force 34 had been left to guard the exit from the San Bernadino Strait - Lee, whose ships including Halsey's "own flagship, were at that

which survived repeated bomb and torpedo attacks before succumbing Light carrier Zuiho

132

moment

far in advance of the carrier groups, racing ahead in eager anticipation of turning their guns on Ozawa's cripples. Further signals followed, increasingly urgent in tone. Halsey's immediate reaction was one of incredulity that Kurita's 'remnants' could he so mortal a threat and of exasperation that he should be expected to send back his battleships and part of his carrier force just as they were poised to overwhelm Ozawa. As noted earlier, he limited himself to directing McCain's TG 38.1 to go to Sprague's assistance. Admiral Lee, on the contrary, he ordered to increase speed to twenty-five knots and press on northwards. And meanwhile a second air strike had been launched from Task Group 4 joined by a few

Bomb attack by carrier planes during pursuit of Japanese Forces after the battle fails to sink destroyer

planes from Group 3 to a total of sixteen torpedo planes, six bombers and fourteen fighters. From out of the scattered and wildly

manoeuvring ships

it

was another

light-carrier Chiyoda that bore the brunt of this attack, bomb hits setting her ablaze and causing flooding and finally disabling her engines. The Hyuga and the light-cruiser Tama, giving gunfire cover to the carrier, were also attacked, the Tama taking a torpedo hit which left her trailing behind the main body at a ten knot crawl. When the strike planes retired after completing their attacks, the fighter squadron from the Belleau Wood, having met no opposition, remained over the area. From Lieutenant C O Roberts USNR, its leader, who had acted as target co-ordinator, came a description of the scene. Ozawa's main body in the lead and again steering northwest at eighteen

;

knots comprised the Zuikaku and Zuiho with the Oyoda and a screen of three destroyers and the battleship Ise astern. Twenty miles behind was the crippled Tama leaving a long trail of oil. Further in the rear the Hyuga and a destroyer were circling the stationary Chiyoda, preparing to try to take her in tow. The light cruiser, Isuzu, and a destroyer were ten miles astern of them; another ten miles behind was a solitary, crippled destroyer.

Such was the scattered target for which a third strike of more than 200 aircraft was being ranged on the decks of TGs 3 and 4, many of them to make their second sortie of the day. The carriers of TG 2 would not take part for at last the infuriated Halsey had been goaded into action by the stream of signalled appeals from Kinkaid and more decisively by a significant demand from Nimitz. 'Where is Task Force 34. The world wonders'. The second sentence, seeming to imply sharp criticism, was in fact not inserted by Nimitz but was a piece of padding added by the cryptographers to disguise the nature of the message. But it stung Halsey into a fury - and to belated, grudging action. At 1115, at his orders, Lee's Battle Line of six battleships, including Halsey's flagship,

which had been streaming north

at full speed expecting to see the mastheads of Ozawa's stragglers on the horizon at any moment, swung round and reversed course southwards. At the same time. Rear Admiral

Bogan's Task Force

38.2,

centred on

the carriers Intrepid, Cabot and Independence, also turned south with the task of giving the battle fleet air cover. It was already too late for these forces to intervene in the battle off Samar or to intercept the retreating Kurita before he reached the San Bernadino Strait. In years to come the unrepentant Halsey was to say that it was the only move in the Battle for Leyte Gulf that he regretted. It was perhaps too much to expect that

the thrusting little airman-admiral, a critic, with the majority of senior officers of the Pacific Fleet, of Spruance's cautious tactics in the Philippine Sea Battle, should have responded at once to Kinkaid's appeals

by dividing his force and so perhaps jeopardising his chance to annihilate Ozawa's carriers.

Had Spruance, the cool, brilliant strategic thinker been in command at Leyte, he would surely not have exposed himself to Halsey's dilemma, but would have left an adequate portion of his fieet to guard the exit from the San Bernadino Strait just as Kinkaid

had

assumed Halsey

had

done. Yet, in spite of Halsey's impetuous dash northwards, he could still

have trapped Kurita and brought him to action by night with an almost certainty of annihilating him had he detached Lee's Battle Line immediately on receipt of the first alarm from Samar, though it would have meant sending them without their destroyer screen, fuelling of which, in the event, made a further two and a half hours delay. When this was finally completed at 1622, Halsey formed a Task

Group 34.5 centred on Rear-Admiral Badger's Battleship Division 7, the two fastest ships. Badger's flagship Iowa and his own New Jersey, and ordered them to push on at full speed which would get them to the entrance to the San Bernadino Strait by 0100 the following morning. Thus Halsey, whose tactics up to this time had been governed by the strictly orthodox doctrine of keeping his fleet concentrated, now divided his force in such a way as to risk bringing about an encounter between Kurita's four battleships and Badger's two; furthermore this would have been a night encounter in which the American ships were not adequately pracwhereas the Japanese had tised already proved themselves pastmasters of the art. American radar control of gunfire was greatly superior to that of the Japanese but a similar encounter in the night Battle of Guadalcanal in November 1942, when the Japanese had no radar at all. had come near to catastrophe for the

Americans before turning

in

their

favour in the nick of time. It must be judged a mercy, therefore, that Badger arrived off the Strait three hours after Kurita had entered it, leaving only a solitary, straggling destroyer, the Nowake, to be sunk by gunfire at 0110. As Halsey, his heart heavy with 135

:t.A'^-V-T^P. ^^iJ^nmH

and shaped course southward, on the decks of the carriers of Task Groups 3 and 4 a massive strike of more than 200 planes was being ranged. This, the third and largest strike of the day, took off between 1145 and 1200 with orders to concentrate mainly on the enemy's Main Body so as at least to slow down more of the main units which could then be dealt with at leisure. Arriving over the target at 1310 they attacked over a period of one hour. Directed by Commander T Hugh Winters of the Lexington who had taken over the duties of co-ordinator, the Lexington group and planes from struck at the Zuikaku, Langley smothering her with bomb hits, which set her ablaze, finishing her off with

frustration, turned

Below: Destroyer Akitsuki blown up by torpedo. Below right: Fleet carrier Zuikaku, heavily damaged, with a destroyer in the foreground

three torpedo hits which sent the last survivor of the Pearl Harbor raid to the bottom at 1414. The Essex group, joined also by planes from the Langley, were less successful. Bomb hits set the Zuiho burning, but the fire was controlled and the carrier sped on at high speed. Forty more planes from the Franklin, Enterprise and San Jacinto of Group 4 had been held above the cloud layer by the co-ordinator until the results of the first attacks were known. Seeing the Zuikaku in her death throes. Winters directed them on to the Zuiho. They claimed further hits and certainly her fires blazed up again yet still she steamed on and survived until bombers from the small fourth strike of the day finally slaughtered her, sending her to the bottom at 1526. Others of this strike swooped on the Ise, but twisting and turning at high speed, the battleship avoided direct hits while the many near misses had no serious ;

effect

on her stout

hull.

The need to stop and pick up survivors from the two carriers halted the flight of Ozawa's diminished Main Body, which was now overtaken and passed by the damaged Tama as well as the Hyuga which had been forced by planes of the third Strike to give up attempts to take the crippled Chiyoda in tow. The light cruiser Isuzu and a destroyer had then been ordered to rescue her crew only to be driven off" and forced to leave them to their fate. This was now to come to them as the last of Ozawa's carriers afloat succumbed to the guns of cruisers. Rear-Admiral Laurance T Du Bose, the senior American cruiser admiral remaining after the detachment of Task Force 34, had been ordered around 1300 to take charge of a special striking force composed of his flagship, the light-cruiser Santa Fe, her sister ship Mobile, the heavy-cruisers

Wichita and

New

Orleans and twelve

When at about 1330, Mitscher decided that his carrier groups, by that time only some sixty miles from Ozawa's nearest units, should not be hazarded by advancing destroyers.

any further, the commander of TG38.3. fire-eating

'Fighting-Freddie'

Sher-

man, suggested that this force be sent away to deal with Ozawa's

Though Mitscher, remembering the two undamaged Japanese demi-battleships, anxiously weighed the risk of having on his hands damaged cruisers requiring to be towed as a result, a cautious attitude shared by Du Bose also, he finally ordered this group forward at 1415. The cruisers' scout planes were catapulted off" at the same time and fanned out in search of 'splashed' aviators, several of whom were located and picked up by destoyers. Two hours later, with the help of Commander Winters who, as he was returning to land on the Lexington. cripples.

r

-^A

sighted the advancing cruisers and, after reassuring them that no enemy battleships were about, gave them a direction to steer, the stationary Chiyoda was sighted on the horizon. Starting with the 8-inch guns of the two heavies at 1624, and joined seven minutes later by the 6-inch of the others, the cruisers smothered the luckless carrier with a storm of shells for fifteen minutes during which the light-cruisers fired nearly 300 rounds of 6-inch each. Destroyers were ordered in to finish her with their torpedoes but, before they could do so, the 140

Chiyoda sank at

1655.

Two final air strikes from Mitscher's which took off at 1610 and 1710 concentrated on the Ise and Hyuga, but carriers

combat fatigue was by now

aff"ecting

the pilots, majiy of whom were making their third sortie of the day. They failed to achieve anything but near misses which did no damage. Reports of stragglers continued to come in while the cruisers were recovering their aircraft, however, and at about 1800, as the sun was setting, Du Bose resumed the chase with his destroyers organised in attack groups stationed



Curtiss SB2C-1 Helldiver level. Armament: two 20mm cannon and machine guns plus one 1,000 lb bomb. Maximum speed: 281 mph at 12,400 feet. Range: 1,110 miles with 1,000 lb bomb. Ceiling: 24,700 feet. Weight empty I loaded: 10,104/16,607 lbs. Span: 49 feet 9 inches.

Engine: Wright R-2600, 1,700 hp at sea

two

.3-inch

Length: 36 feet 8 inches

astern of the cruisers. Guided by two night fighter planes from the Essex, they soon made contact with three destroyers engaged in rescuing survivors from the Zuikaku and Zuiho. Using radar-controlled blind fire, the cruisers engaged at about 1900 at a range of more than nine miles. The two enemy ships furthest away were able to make off" to the northward. The third ship, later identified as the destroyer Hatsuzuki, carrying the commander of Destroyer Division 61,

Captain S Amano, was handled with such skill, weaving at high speed and

manoeuvring into positions of torpedo advantage to force the cruisers to take evasive action, that after a quarter of an hour during which a stupendous number of shells had been hurled at her (the Santa Fe alone, for instance, fired 892), she was still under way at twenty knots though her crew were fighting a fire. Destroyers sent after her were unable to reach a torpedo firing position and were recalled. Though the cruisers were by now steadily overhauling the elusive enemy and beginning to fire with greater deliberation, the Hatsuzuki was still 141

X

half an hour the beginning of the action. Three destroyers again moved out to attempt a torpedo attack and at 2012 fired half their outfit and exchanged gunfire. This achieved nothing; but the Hatsuzuki's speed was steadilyfalling away and by 2043 the cruisers had got within 6,000 yards; by the light of starshell they smashed her at pointblank range. At 2056, nearly two hours since the action began, the gallant and remarkably tough little

making seventeen knots after

Japanese ship, burning furiously, sank to the

accompaniment of heavy under-

water explosions as she

slid

below the

surface.

Captain Amano's two hours of skilhad come near to involving Du Bose's squadron in what could well have been, to say the least, an awkward situation. For since 1930

ful defiance

Ozawa in the light cruiser Oyodo and accompanied by the Ise and Hyuga and a destroyer had been steering to bring help to the Hatsuzuki. He was too late, however, and by the time he reached the scene of battle all was over and Du Bose was returning to rejoin the carriers. Task Force 38 had claimed their last

victim from the Main Body. But US submarines were to reduce Ozawa's survivors by one more ship. A wolfpack composed of the Haddock, Tuna

and Halibut had earlier intercepted the fleeing Main Body and at 1884 the Halibut had attacked the Ise, firing six torpedoes. Five were heard to explode; noises as from a ship breaking up had followed; an hour later the submarine had surfaced to see in the moonlight what appeared to be the upturned hull of a ship. No clue as to what the torpedoes hit has ever emerged; it was certainly no warship on either side and Ozawa steamed away into the night unharmed. There was no doubt later however, when the submarine Jallao, of another wolf-pack patrolling to the eastward of the position of the Halibut's strange experience, made radar contact with the damaged Tama, limping along at sixteen knots. Three bow torpedoes from the Jallao missed, but four more from her stern tubes. fired at a range of 700 yards obtained three hits and the cruiser was seen to sink.

142

With this final destruction the Battle of Cape Engano, as this phase of the wide-spread operations came to be known, was over. Of the Main Body, the Ise, Hyuga, Oyoda, Isuzu and five destroyers survived to the undying disappointment of Halsey who always maintained that he should not have given way to the pressure exerted on him to detach his Battle Line. Four aircraft carriers, a light cruiser and two destroyers had been sacrificed by Ozawa to enable the last symbols of Japanese sea power, Kurita's proud battleships, to achieve a final samurai act of glory. The sacrifice was in vain. Kurita was perhaps not of the stuff of which the ancient samurai or the modern kamikaze pilots were made, though no-one would doubt his personal courage. Or it may be that, disillusioned with the tenets of bushido, he could see no glory in immolating thousands of his country-

men

in a hopeless fight in support of a war that was already inevitably lost. In interrogation after the war, Kurita, not surprisingly, made no such excuses, but gave various unconvincing reasons for heading back for the San Bernadino Strait. He was steering to engage a force reported entrance; he was intending ofi" the to co-operate with Ozawa; anything except the straightforward reason that he had had enough and was retreating while the going was good. Even so, he was lucky to escape as lightly as he did, partly owing to Halsey's fatal decision of the evening of the 24th. On the other hand, given Halsey's curious decision the following morning to include only two battleships in Task Group 34.5 ordered away in advance of the remainder of the Battle Line, Kurita's luck can be said to have evened itself out; owing to the lateness of Halsey's decision, the Japanese Centre Force re-entered the San Bernadino Strait at 2140 on the 25th, three and a half hours before Badger's inadequate force arrived to bar the way. As noted earlier, the only opposition left for TG 34.5 was the luckless destroyer Nowaki which had been rescuing survivors from the cruiser Chikuma and had been unable to catch up. Otherwise, it is possible that Kurita

5i---^

-

nm

might indeed have struck a resounding final blow for the Imperial Navy. While Badger swept fruitlessly along the coast of Samar during the night, McCain's carrier Task Group 38.1 was speeding westwards to a rendezvous with Bogan's 38.2 at 0500 on the morning of the 26th. At first light,

from

strikes

launched.

By

groups were had Kurita in

both

0810 they

sight under a heavy layer of cloud, fleeing through the Strait between the islands of Tablas and Mindoro. On receipt of the strike leader's report, a second strike was immediately launched. In the Japanese ships weary men prepared to defend themselves against massed air attack for the third successive day. Undaunted, they acquitted themselves well and, fortunately for them, the thick cloud

cover

made a co-ordinated attack

difficult

to

achieve.

Many

of

the

American airmen were combat weary too, after the intensive strike operations of the last few weeks. Perform-

ance

fell off

noticeably.

The group

of

Japanese hermaphrodite battleship under one of the many bomb attacks

which these ships survived Helldivers, seven Avenger torpedo planes and twelve Hellcats from the Intrepid and three Avengers from the Cabot of Bogan's TG 38.2 were the first to swoop on the Main Body of the enemy which comprised the four battleships, two of his three surviving heavy cruisers (Haguro and Tone), the light cruisers Yahagi and Noshiro and seven destroyers. As seems inevitable on such occasions, numerous claims of bomb and torpedo hits were made; but it seems likely that one of the two bombs which hit the Yarnato that morning without doing serious damage to that heavily armoured ship, was the only concrete achievement of this group. The larger air group, eighty-three planes from McCain's TG 38.1. first sighted the heav.y cruiser Kumano, which, since having her bows blown off by a torpedo the previous day, had

sixteen

143

# tit

'i;-t.'(10--i-.

'•'^"•''tisr?^-'*.

^m^'

-^^^gj^^

r

i

ll

plKt^

Left: Hermaphrodite battleship. Above: Ise hits back at bombers. deck aft. Below: Carrier Zuikaku's end approaches

Note

^ ^

flight

been slowly retiring independently. Dive-bombers from the group were d'etached and hit her with a bomb, further reducing her slow speed to a crawl. The stout ship was still not stopped, however, and she reached Manila to make temporary repairs. Another group unsuccessfully attacked a destroyer. Thus only thirteen torpedo planes, three bombers and four fighters were available to attack the Main Body a little later. The second bomb to hit the Yamato probably came from this group, while the light cruiser Noshiro took a torpedo, no doubt aimed at the battleships, and was brought to a halt. By the time the two next strikes launched from the carriers reached the area the Main Body had steamed beyond their range. The attacks were limited therefore, to the cripples, of which the Noshiro, finished oflF by a bomb, was the only further casualty. The ordeal of the Main Body was not yet over however; for the US Army Air Force now joined the attack with forty-seven Liberators from the air base on Morotai Island. As with high bombing of a fleet at sea on many other occasions in various theatres during the war, claims of numerous hits

with their 1,000 pound bombs were not borne out by the facts, though many near misses severely shook the battleships and splinters caused many casualties including Kurita's Chief of Staff", Rear-Admiral Koyanagi, who was seriously wounded on board the Yamato. Kurita thus escaped for the time being with the loss of only one light cruiser from all the efforts of two carrier groups and forty-seven heavy bombers. His battleships and cruisers, except for the Kumano, reached Brunei Bay and subsequently returned to Japan for repairs. During the next few days, however, mopping up operations by Task Force 38 secured the destruction of the destroyer Hayashimo, of Kurita's Force, on the 27th, which was beached on Semirara Island south of Mindoro after being hit by a bomb. Other Japanese units caught by the American air forces, which now ranged freely over the Philippine waters.

The mighty Yamato meets her end

were the light cruiser Abukuma of Shima's Force, previously crippled by a torpedo in the Surigao Strait and now sunk by Army Ijiberators on the 26th and the destroyers Shiranuhi of the same force and Fujinami of Kurita's Force carrying survivors from the Chokai, both sunk by carrier planes off Mindoro on 27th October. A seaborne operation to carry Japanese troop reinforcements to Leyte also met disaster. Arriving in Manila Bay to take over the escort of

four

destroyer-transports,

the

heavy cruiser Aoba had been torpedoed by a submarine and forced to limp home to Japan. Other escorts were the light cruiser Kinu and destroyer Uranami; they were caught on

the 26th as they were returning from their mission through the Visayan Sea by planes from the 7th Fleet escort carriers which attacked them repeatedly until both were sunk together with two of the transports. The same planes discovered the seaplane tender Akitsushima and she, too, was bombed to destruction during that day. Though the wide-spread, complex set of operations known as the Battle for Leyte Gulf can be said to have ended on 27th October, two more Japanese units which had taken part were to meet their end in the next few days as they tried to make their way home. The cruiser Nachi, Vice-

Admiral Shima's flagship which he

"ffr-^fstiik:

so narrowly extricated from the trap waiting in the Surigao Strait, was located in Manila harbour and sunk on 5th November by a force of Helldivers and Avengers from the Lexington. The Kumano set out hopefully for Japan on 6th November only to be waylaid by a pack of four American submarines and again torpedoed. Still refusing to sink she succeeded in reaching shelter in Dasol Bay near Lingayen Gulf. It would be ungenerous not to think she deserved to survive after so dogged a resistance to the repeated blows of the enemy. But the fates did not relent. On 25th November planes from the new carrier Ticonderoga discovered her put an end at last to her career.

and

Epilogue

As the huge cast engaged

in the Battle for Leyte Gulf left the stage, the curtain came down not merely on a dramatic episode of naval history but also on the effective existence of the Imperial Navy which had pursued so meteoric a career since its foundation seventy years earlier. For a little while yet, the Rising Sun flag and the chrysanthemum emblem would be seen on imposing looking men-of-war, four fast battleships headed by the monstrous Yamato, the two carrier-battleships, and half a dozen carriers including the huge Shinano being constructed on the hull intended originally for a sister to the Yamato. But they were 'paper tigers', the battleships immobilised for lack of fuel, the carriers additionally ineffective for lack of trained aviators. The Shinano was to be sent to the bottom less than a month after the battle by torpedoes from the US submarine Archerfish, as the carrier sortied from Tokyo Bay en route to Kure to train for the role of launching platform for 'Oka' piloted bombs - an extension of the kamikaze concept. Of the battleships, only the Ise, Hyuga and Yamato were to go to sea

again. The first two completed a transport mission from gasoline Singapore to Japan in February 1945; the Yamato sortied on a suicide mission against the US 5th Fleet off Okinawa in April 1945 with fuel enough for a one way trip only, to be sent to the bottom by carrier torpedoplanes before she could bring her huge 18.1-inch guns into action. That the battle was a clear victory for the US Navy is evident from a comparison of losses on either side. The Japanese lost three battleships, one fleet carrier, three light carriers, six heavy and four light cruisers, and nine destroyers, against a US loss of one light carrier, two escort carriers, two destroyers and one destroyer-escort. Furthermore almost every major Japanese unit was damaged to a greater or lesser degree and the Navy was henceforth reduced to an auxiliary role. The fate of the Philippines, too, was sealed by the battle. Nevertheless, as the tumult died away and the US Pacific Fleet settled down to reap the benefits of undisputed sea-power, the voices of 150

the critics began to be heard. On the Japanese side, where the kamikaze spirit had beeij the inspiration of the SHO-plan, criticism naturally centred on the one admiral who had refused to accept the validity of the suicide concept without any assurance that it would achieve something of concrete value. To destroy the comparatively small number of US transports which he correctly assessed to be in the Gulf of Leyte, without information as to

whether Ozawa's decoy role had been successful or not, Kurita feared that he would be trapped between the 7th Fleet battleships and cruisers backed by shore-based air power and the 3rd Fleet which he believed to be closing in on him. Thus Japan's last battle fleet would be sacrificed to no purpose.

ifc"

That he had had his flagship sunk under him by underwater attack, had been without sleep for three days and had sufl'ered a day and a half of almost incessant massed air attack, losing the splendid Musashi and two heavy cruisers in the process, must inevitably have coloured his judgment and played its part in bringing him to a decision to retire at 1230 on 25th October. An un-Japanese distaste for useless immolation can also be attributed to him and is borne out by his supersession in command and relegation to the post of president of the

Japanese Naval Academy.

More

valid

is

the

criticism

of

Toyoda, the Japanese C-in-C, for his

commitment of the last carrier air groups, nearing completion of their training, to destruction in the air battles over Formosa. The result was

the launching of the fleet on the SHO operation virtually bereft of any air support, a situation which the kamikaze tactics initiated by Ohnishi and taken up by Fukudome came too late to rectify.

At the headquarters of the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor and in Washington, allocation of blame for the calamitous surprise of the 7th Fleet Escort Carrier Force was, of course, the object of discussion and criticism. Admirals Nimitz and King both blamed Halsey to some degree for his impetuous acceptance of Ozawa's bait and failure to cover the San Bernadino Strait, an opinion with which most naval historians have since agreed. Halsey continued to The battleship Musashi under attack in the Sibuyan Sea

Above: Cartoon describing the Leyte naval battle's results. Below: Tacloban on Leyte where the main landing by MacArthur's forces was made on 20th October

.,-ii^'-«i

.''-^^^.

-JS^

w

^^*rnf' right, commander of 'Taffy 3' receives Navy Cross Fanshaw Bay. Below: Helldiver takes off on strike mission

Above: Clifton Sprague, aboard

his flagship

'^

r--*-

with Spruance in comof tlie fleet and, at the end of the war, was promoted to the five-star which rank of Fleet Admiral, Spruance was not given. It is generally agreed, however, that this honour was due more to his earlier war exploits and to his place in the hearts of press and public than to his performance in high sea command. There were some, nevertheless, of

alternate

mand

the aviator was one, who placed

whom Admiral Towers

Deputy CINCPAC the principal blame on Kinkaid

for failure to order adequate air searches to cover the northern approaches to Leyte. Kinkaid's basic mistake, however, was his assump-

his

tion, based on an intercepted signal not addressed to him, that Halsey had detached Willis Lee with the Battle Line. For this the signal organisation was responsible in Halsey's flagship for permitting the ;

154

relevant wireless signal to be ambiguiously drafted, with a clarifying message put out only on short-range voice-radio in Kinkaid's for a failure to point out that, as the signal was headed 'Battle Plan' it did not indicate that TF 34 had actually been formed or detached. On the principle that admirals must take responsibility for the actions of their staffs, ;

however, both Halsey and Kinkaid must accept a share of the blame. Neither of these crucial errors could have been committed, however, if the operations round Leyte had been conducted by a single Supreme Commander. Whether Nimitz or MacArthur, the responsibility for security of the amphibious forces in

and around Leyte Gulf would have been his and Halsey could not have acted as he did without his concurrence, and Kinkaid would certainly have been included in the address of

^

relevant signals. Inter-service jealousies prevented such an arrangement; they led to a lack of co-operation and were to continue to do so during subsequent operations. To sum up, bearing in mind the state of Japanese naval aviation following the massacre of their carrier air groups in the 'Marianas Turkey Shoot', as the Battle of the Philipthe

pine Sea was exultingly dubbed by the Hellcat pilots, there was never any possibility of the SHO plan resulting in a Japanese naval victory. Had Toyoda withheld the 300 partly trained carrier planes from the air battles over Formosa early in October, however, their intervention during the Battle for Leyte Gulf could have made the Sibuyan Sea action a much more costly affair for Halsey's car-

and might have encouraged Kurita to persist in his advance into the Gulf at a heavy cost to the 7th

riers

Fleet in escort carriers and transports.

On the other hand, had Halsey refused Ozawa's bait and remained to confront Kurita as he emerged from the San Bernadino Strait on the morning of 25th October, one US escort carrier, two destroyers and a destroyer-escort would have been saved and there must have resulted a spectacular massacre of the Japanese battle fleet - much more humiliating than the loss of Ozawa's four empty even though battleships carriers, no longer occupied the paramount position in naval warfare. The various possibilities and mighthave-beens of the last great naval battle will thus always provide material for discussion amongst students of naval strategy and tactics. On either side, deeds of heroism were performed which must ever be a source of pride. 156

First American flag raised on Philippine soil since Japanese occupation

.i^^

¥

Appendix

OPPOSING FLEETS AT THE BATTLE OF LEYTE GULF

Iowa, New Jersey Vincennes, Biloxi,

Battleships

Light cruisers

Miami

23-26 October, 1944 16 destroyers

United States Navy - Third Fleet Commander-in-Chief, Admiral F Halsey, Jr, New Jersey

TASK GROUP Carriers

Essex, Lexington

TASK FORCE

Light carriers Battleships

Langley, Princeton Massachusetts,

South Dakota Santa Fe, Mobile,

W

First Carrier

38

Task Force

Pacific Fleet

38.3

Rear-Admiral F C Sherman

Commander, Vice-Admiral

M A Mitscher,

Lexington

Light cruisers

TASK GROUP

38.1

Light cruiser (AA)

Vice-Admiral J S McCain Carriers Wasp, Hornet,

15

Birmingham Reno

destroyers

Hancock Light carriers

Monterey, Cowpens

Cruisers

Chester, Salt

Light cruisers (AA)

Lake

TASK GROUP Rear-Admiral

38.4

RE

Carriers

Oakland, San Diego

Franklin, Enterprise

Light carriers

San

Cruisers

Belleau Wood New Orleans, Wichita

13 destroyers

TASK GROUP Rear-Admiral Carrier Light carriers

Davison

City, Pensacola

38.2

G F Bogan

Jacinto,

13 destroyers

Intrepid Cabot,

TASK FORCE

Independence

Heavy Striking Force:

34

167

:

:

: : ::

Formed 0430 25tli October Commander,

Left Flank Force Rear-Admiral J B Oldendorf

Vice-Admiral

Heavy

W A Lee, Jr, Washington

TASK GROUP

34.1

cruisers

Louisville (flagship),

Battle Line;

Portland,

W A Lee

Vice-Admiral Task Unit 34.1.1

Minneapolis

Iowa,

New

Jersey

Light cruisers

Denver (flagship), Columbia Newcomb, Leutze, Bennion, Hey wood L Edwards, Richard P Leary,

(Bat. Div. 7)

Task Unit

Massachusetts,

34.1.2

Task Unit

34.1.3

(Bat. Div. 9)

Destroyers

Washington South Dakota,

(Bat. Div. 8)

Alabama

-

Robinson, Albert Grant, Bryant, Halford

TASK GROUP 34.2 Right

W

Flank; Whiting

Rear-Admiral F E M Task Unit 34.2.2 Vincennes (Cru. Div. 14)

(flagship),

Miami, Biloxi

Task Units 8 destroyers

34.2.3, 34.2.4

TASK GROUP 77.3 Close Covering Group Rear-Admiral R S Berkey, Phoenix Right Flank Force Light cruisers Phoenix (flagship),

TASK GROUP 34.3 Centre; Rear-Admiral C Task Unit 34.3.1

T Joy Wichita

(Cru. Div. 6

Destroyers

Hutchins, Bache, Daly, Beale,

Orleans

Killen,

HMAS Arunta

4 destroyers

34.3.3

TASK GROUP 34.4 Left Rear-Admiral L Task Unit 34.4.2

HMAS Shropshire

cruiser

(flagship).

New Task Unit

Boise

Heavy

Flank;

T Du Bose Santa Fe

(Cru. Div. 13)

(flagship)

Task Unit

Mobile 6 destroyers

34.4.3

United States Navy - Seventh Fleet Commander-in-Chief, Vice-Admiral T C Kinkaid, Wasatch

SPECIAL ATTACK GROUP

TASK GROUP 77.4 Escort-carrier Group

Rear-Admiral T

L

TASK FORCE 77

Sangamon

Covering Force Commander, Vice-Admiral T C Kinkaid

CARRIER GROUP

TASK GROUP 77.2 Fire Support and

Bombardment

Group: Rear-Admiral J B Oldendorf, Louisville Battle Line Rear-Admiral G L Weyler Battleships

1)

77.4.11

Escort

77.4.1

Sangamon

carriers

(flagship),

77.4.12

Suwannee, Santee, Chenango Saginaw Bay (flagship of

Rear-Admiral

Maryland, West Virginia,

Petrof

Tennessee,

158

(Taffy

Sprague,

Mississippi (flagship),

California,

Destroyers

79.11

Eastern Attack Group Destroyers Remey, McGowan, Melvin Western Attack Group Destroyers Monssen, McDermut Patrol Destroyers McNair, Mertz

Pennsylvania Aulick, Cony, Sigourney, Claxton Thorn, Welles

G R Henderson), Bay

Screen McCord, Trathen, Destroyers Hazelwood, Destroyer escorts Richard S Bull, 77.4.13

Eversole

CARRIER GROUP 77.4.2 (Taffy 2)

Rear-Admiral F B Stump Natoma Bay (flagEscort ship of Rearcarriers Admiral F B Stump, Manila Bay Marcus Island 77.4.22

77.4.21

Battleshipcarriers Light cruisers

Hyuga,

Destroyers

Hatsuzuki, Wakatsuki, AJcitsuki,

Rear-Admiral

Maki, Sugi, Kiri

Kadashan Bay,

FORCE A

Savo Island,

Battleships

W

Haruna Atago, Takao,

Cruisers

Maya, Chokai, Myoko, Haguro, Kumano, Suzuya, Chikuma, Tone

Abercrombie,

Leray Wilson, Walter

C Wann Light cruisers Destroyers

77.4.3

Sprague

Fanshaw Bay (flagship of Rear-

Admiral C

AF

Hamanami, Fujinami,

Kitkun Bay

Shimakaze, Isokaze, Urakaze,

(flagship of Rear-

Hamakaze,

Admiral RAOfstie),

Yukikaze, Kiyoshimo, Nowaki

Gambier Bay 77.4.33 Screen Hoel, Heerman, Johnston Destroyers Destroyer escorts Dennis, John C Imperial Japanese

Hayashimo,

Naganami,

Sprague), St. Lo, White Plains, Kalinin Bay 77.4.32

Noshiro, Yahagi

Akishimo, Asashimo, Kishinami, Okinami,

(Taff-y 3)

AF

T Kurita Yamato, Musashi, Nagato, Kongo,

Vice-Admiral

Ommaney Bay Haggard, Franks, Screen Hailey Destroyers Suesens, Destroyer escorts Richard

carriers

Kuwa,

Shimotsuki.

77.4.23

Rear-Admiral C 77.4.31 Escort

Tama, Oyoda, Isuzu

(flagship of

W T Sample),

CARRIER GROUP

Ise

Butler,

Raymond,

Samuel

B Roberts

FORCE C

Vice-Admiral S Nishimura Yamashiro, Fuso

Battleships Cruiser Destroyers

Navy

Mogami Michishio,

Yamagumo, Asagumo, Shigure

Commander-in-Chief, Vice-Admiral S Toyoda

2nd STRIKING FCJRCE Vice-Admiral K Shima

CARRIER FORCE Vice-Admiral J Ozawa Aircraft carrier Zuikaku Fighters 52 Fighter-bombers

Cruisers

Nachi, Ashigara

Light cruiser Destroyers

Shiranuhi, Kasumi,

Abukuma Ushio, Akebono

28

Light carriers

Chitose

Torpedo-bombers 25

Chiyoda

Bombers

7

Zuiho Attack-torpedoaircraft

4

Float reconnaissance aircraft

2

im

Bibliography

W

Norton & Co New The End of the Imperial Japanese Navy Masanori Ito (W York. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London) The Divine Wind Rikihei Inoguchi and Tadashi Nakajima and Roger Pineau (US Naval Institute, Annapolis) US Naval Operations in World War II Samuel E Morison (Little, Brown and Co, Boston. Oxford University Press, London) The Battle for Leyte Gulf C Vann Woodward (Macmillan Company, New York) The Japanese at Leyte James A Field Junior (Princeton University Press)

160

llantine's Illustrated History of World War 11 is an entirely new and exciting venture in jjaperback publishing. Never before has the attempt been made to explore in depth so gigantic |ind world-shaking an event as World War II, and then to present the results to the public in form of short, crisply but authentically-written narratives, richly illustrated throughout the with photographs, maps and diagrams.

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The Battle

for Leyte Gulf

-a

desperate gainble

by Imperial japan when she risked the rpndhts of her Fleet in

an

all-out effort to retain fier^i

conquests and safeguard her supply routes against the mighty American Pacific forces.

Here

is

battle, in

use

the bacl(ground story to this great sea

which saw the suicidal Kamikaze for the first time.

llJIijTO

units/

_^

,„„.,