Battle of Leyte Gulf

Battle of Surigao Strait

Nishimura's "Southern Force" consisted of the battleships Yamashiro and Fuso, the cruiser Mogami, and four destroyers. They were attacked by bombers on October 24 but sustained only minor damage.

Because of the strict radio silence imposed on the Central and Southern Forces, Nishimura was unable to synchronise his movements with Shima and Kurita. When he entered the narrow Surigao Strait at about 02:00 Shima was 40 km behind him, and Kurita was still in the Sibuyan Sea, several hours from the beaches at Leyte.

As they passed the cape of Panaon Island they ran into a deadly trap set for them by the 7th Fleet Support Force. Rear Admiral Jesse Oldendorf had six battleships (Mississippi, Maryland, West Virginia, Tennessee, California, and Pennsylvania), eight cruisers (heavy cruisers USS Louisville (Flagship), Portland, Minneapolis and HMAS Shropshire, light cruisers USS Denver, Columbia, Phoenix, Boise), 29 destroyers and 39 PT boats. To pass the strait and reach the landings, Nishimura would have to run the gauntlet of torpedoes from the PT boats, evade two groups of destroyers, proceed up the strait under the concentrated fire of six battleships in line across the far mouth of the strait, and then break through the screen of cruisers and destroyers.

At about 03:00 Fuso and the destroyers Asagumo, Yamagumo, and Mishishio were hit by torpedoes. Fuso was broken in two, but did not sink. Then at 03:50 the battleships opened fire. Radar fire control meant that American battleships could hit targets at distance at which the Japanese could not reply. Yamashiro and Mogami were crippled by 16-inch (406 mm) armour-piercing shells. Shigure turned and fled but lost steering and stopped dead. Yamashiro sank at 04:19.

At 04:25 Shima's force of two cruisers (Nachi and Ashigara) and eight destroyers reached the battle. Seeing what they thought were the wrecks of both Nishimura's battleships (actually the two halves of Fuso), he realized the hopelessness of passing the strait and ordered a retreat. His flagship Nachi collided with Mogami, flooding the latter's steering-room. Mogami fell behind in the retreat and was sunk by aircraft the next morning. The bow half of Fuso was destroyed by Louisville and the stern half sank off Kanihaan Island. Of Nishimura's force of seven ships only Shigure survived.

Yamashiro was the last battleship to engage another in combat, and one of very few to have been sunk by another battleship. The battle itself was the last in naval history to take place solely between all-gun warships. This was also the last battle in which one force (the Americans, in this case) were able to cross the T of their opponents, enabling the US ships to bring all their firepower to bear on the Japanese ships.

Battle off Cape Engaño

Ozawa's "Northern Force" had four aircraft carriers (Zuikaku — the last surviving carrier of the Attack on Pearl Harbor — Zuiho, Chitose, and Chiyoda), two World War I battleships partially converted to carriers (Hyuga and Ise — the aft turrets had been replaced by hangar, deck and catapult, but neither carried any planes in this battle), three cruisers (Oyodo, Tama, and Isuzu), and nine destroyers. He had only 108 planes.

On October 24, Ozawa's force was not spotted until 16:40. The Americans were too busy attacking Kurita and dealing with the air strikes from Luzon. On the evening of October 24, Ozawa intercepted a (mistaken) American communication of Kurita's withdrawal, and began to withdraw as well. But at 20:00 Toyoda Soemu ordered all forces to attack.

Halsey saw that he had an opportunity to destroy the last Japanese carrier forces in the Pacific, a blow that would completely destroy Japanese sea power and allow the U.S. Navy to attack the Japanese homelands. Believing that Kurita had been defeated by the airstrikes in the Sibuyan Sea, and was retiring to Brunei, Halsey set out in pursuit of Ozawa just after midnight with all three carrier groups and Admiral Willis A. Lee's "Task Force 34" of battleships. In so doing, Halsey or members of his staff ignored reports from scout planes from the USS Independence that Kurita had turned back towards San Bernardo Strait and that the navigation lights in the strait had been turned on. When Admiral G.F. Bogan, commanding TF 38.2, radioed this information to Halsey's flagship he was rebuffed by a staff officer, who replied "Yes, yes, we have that information." Admiral Willis A. Lee, who had correctly estimated that Ozawa's force was a decoy and indicated the same in a blinker message to Halsey's ship, was similarly rebuffed.

The U.S. Third Fleet was formidable and completely outgunned the Japanese Northern Force. Halsey had nine fleet carriers (Intrepid, Hornet, Franklin, Lexington, Bunker Hill, Wasp, Hancock, Enterprise, and Essex), eight light carriers (Independence, Princeton, Belleau Wood, Cowpens, Monterey, Langley, Cabot, and San Jacinto), six battleships (Alabama, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Jersey, South Dakota, and Washington), seventeen cruisers and sixty-three destroyers. He could put more than 1,000 planes in the air. But it left the landings on Leyte covered only by a handful of escort carriers and destroyers.

Halsey had taken the bait so temptingly dangled in front of him by Ozawa; fittingly, the engagement was to take place off a cape whose name means "deceit" in Spanish.

On the morning of October 25, Ozawa launched 75 planes to attack the Americans, doing little damage. Most of the planes were shot down by the American covering patrols. A handful of survivors made it to Luzon.

The American carriers launched their first attack group of 180 aircraft at dawn, before the Northern Force had been located, and the search aircraft made contact at 7:10 a.m. At 8:00. the American fighters destroyed the screen of 30 defensive aircraft, and the air strikes began and continued until the evening, by which time the American aircraft had flown 527 sorties against the Northern Force, and sunk three of Ozawa's carriers (Zuikaku, Zuiho and Chiyoda) and the destroyer Akitsuki. The fourth carrier, Chitose, was disabled, as was the cruiser Tama. Ozawa transferred his flag to Oyodo.

With all the Japanese carriers sunk or disabled, the main targets remaining were the converted battleships Ise and Hyuga. Their massive construction proved resistant to the air strikes, and Halsey sent Task Force 34 forward to engage them directly. But then news reached Halsey of the engagement off Samar and that disaster was facing Sprague's Task Group 77.4. He abandoned the pursuit and turned south, detaching only a small force of cruisers and destroyers under Laurence T. DuBose to sink the disabled Japanese ships. Ise and Hyuga returned to Japan, where they were sunk at their moorings in 1945.

Battle off Samar

Kurita passed through San Bernardino Strait at 03:00 on 25 October 1944 and steamed south along the coast of Samar.

To stop them were three groups of the Seventh Fleet commanded by Admiral Thomas Kinkaid, each with six escort carriers, and seven or eight destroyers and/or destroyer escorts. Admiral Thomas Sprague's Task Unit 77.4.1 ("Taffy 1") consisted of Sangamon, Suwannee, Chenango, Santee, Saginaw Bay, and Petrof Bay. Admiral Felix Stump's Task Unit 77.4.2 ("Taffy 2") consisted of Natoma Bay, Manila Bay, Marcus Island, Kadashan Bay, Savo Island, and Ommaney Bay. Admiral Clifton Sprague's Task Unit 77.4.3 ("Taffy 3") consisted of Fanshaw Bay, St Lo, White Plains, Kalinin Bay, Kitkun Bay, and Gambier Bay. Each escort carrier carried about 30 planes, making more than 500 planes in all. Escort carriers were slow and lightly armoured and stood little chance in an encounter with a battleship.

A mix-up in communications led Kinkaid to believe that Willis A. Lee's Task Force 34 of battleships was guarding the San Bernardino Strait to the north and that there would be no danger from that direction. But Lee had gone with Halsey in pursuit of Ozawa. The Japanese came upon Taffy 3 at 06:45, taking the Americans completely by surprise. Kurita mistook the escort carriers for fleet carriers and thought that he had the whole of the American Third Fleet under the 18 inch (457 mm) guns of his battleships.

Clifton Sprague directed his carriers of Taffy 3 to turn and flee towards a squall to the east, hoping that bad visibility would reduce the accuracy of Japanese gunfire, and sent his destroyers in to distract the Japanese battleships and buy time. The destroyers attacked the Japanese line with suicidal determination, drawing fire and scattering the Japanese formations as ships turned to avoid torpedoes. Yamato found herself between two torpedoes on parallel courses and for ten minutes she headed away from the action, unable to turn back for fear of being hit. The American destroyers Hoel and Johnston, and destroyer escort Samuel B. Roberts were sunk and four others were damaged, but they had bought enough time for Sprague to get his planes from all three Taffy groups into the air. There was no time to reload with armour-piercing bombs, so the planes attacked with whatever they happened to have on board, (in some cases with depth charges). Taffy 3 turned and fled south, with shells falling around his carriers. Gambier Bay, bringing up the rear, was sunk, and most of the others were hit and damaged. The small carriers bravely returned fire with the only guns they had, their single stern-mounted five-inch (127mm) anti-aircraft guns. The weapons, loaded solely with anti-aircraft shells, they had little chance of inflicting any damage on even unarmored surface ships.

It seemed impossible for Taffy 3 to escape total destruction, and the Japanese force also began firing on the other two Taffy groups as they were able to close the range with their superior speed, but at 09:20 Kurita suddenly turned and retreated north. The destroyer attacks had broken up his formations, he had lost tactical control, and the heavy cruisers (Chokai, Suzuya, Chikuma) had been sunk by concentrated sea and air attack. Signals from Ozawa had disabused him of the notion that he was attacking the whole of the 3rd Fleet, which meant that the longer he continued to engage, the more likely it was that he would suffer devastating air strikes from Halsey's carriers. He retreated north and then west through the San Bernardino Strait under continuous air attack. Nagato, Haruna and Kongo were severely damaged. He had begun the battle with five battleships; when he returned to Japan, only Yamato was combat-worthy.