by John Prados
CLOSE ENCOUNTER
Admiral Kurita expected to have to fight his way through the San Bernardino Strait. That morning, even before the Sibuyan Sea battle, Kurita had warned his fleet to have all its torpedo crews prepared for action in the evening. He sought to anticipate transiting the strait and ordered the fleet to abandon its ring formation before the waters narrowed. The current flowed at eight knots.
Shortly after 9:00 p.m., Kurita ordered vessels to be ready for twenty-eight knots immediately and full power within fifteen minutes. In the narrows, the warships should show recognition lights. Beginning around 9:30 Kurita’s ships formed a single line ahead for passage. At 10:24, the admiral issued instructions for course and heading to be followed once debouching into the Pacific.
Accounts differ on the light situation. Despite Allied scouts’ reports, some Japanese accounts insist the transit took place in darkness. But the action report of battleship Yamato records a bearing taken on the San Bernardino Island lighthouse. Kurita told interrogators there had been bright moonlight. In his diary, Ugaki Matome recorded dim moonlight through a cloudy sky. Contemporary sources note a quarter moon, setting during predawn hours, with overcast moving in, and a light wind from the northeast. The light lay just two miles from the Yamato.
Orders to prepare for sudden battle had been issued at 10:48. The fleet still felt jittery. At 11:40 Vice Admiral Ugaki suddenly ordered his battleship division to maneuver to evade torpedoes. At half past midnight the column emerged on the Pacific side of the Philippines.
This marked the moment that sailors either dream of or fear. An Allied fleet—say, Ching Lee’s Task Force 34—could be there set to pounce, already in battle line, astride Kurita’s course so that his T was crossed. Admirals Kinkaid, Nimitz, and quite a few others thought this precisely the situation. Had it been so, there would have been a sea fight to rival Jutland. Unlike the torpedoman Kurita, Vice Admiral Lee was a gunner. As the supervisor of the American fast battleships even when they were not gathered in Task Force 34, Lee had been a stickler for keeping the gun batteries aligned and calibrated, and all these U.S. ships had the latest, Mark-8 fire control radars. Commander Lloyd M. Mustin, Lee’s staff gunnery officer, attests that on numerous practice shoots the fast battleships landed nine-gun salvos at 40,000 yards with the shells clustered within 300 yards of each other.
Lee led six battleships to Kurita’s four. The Yamato had slightly greater range, more armor, and a heavier weight of shell. Nagato was also well armored but had fewer guns. Her 16-inch weapons were outperformed by the 16-inch armament of the U.S. fast battleships. The Kongo and Haruna possessed inferior 14-inch guns and less armor and were significantly older. All the American battleships had a speed advantage over the Japanese. In a night battle, radar represented a decisive advantage for Lee, who could have stood off and shelled Kurita until the Japanese were weakened and then finished off by lighter forces. After the war, however, Allied technical experts were astonished at the sophistication of the Imperial Navy’s specially developed night optics. And, in this battle for the first time, the Japanese had radar, too—not so advanced as the U.S. Mark-8, but worth something. Plus, Kurita had been assiduously training his fleet in night surface tactics for months, whereas Lee’s task force had been concerned primarily with protecting aircraft carriers.
Kurita was well supplied with fast, heavily armed cruisers, which, unlike the American ones, had torpedoes. Their Long Lance tin fish had the speed and explosive power to seriously impact Lee’s battle line, while the Japanese heavy cruisers had the endurance, power, and armor to last long enough to put those torpedoes in the water. On the other hand, Admiral Lee’s light cruisers could pump out such a volume of fire that the Japanese might be blinded by shell splashes if not actually blown to bits. In short, this would have been a battle royal, its outcome difficult to predict.
But the San Bernardino Strait would not be the place or the time. There were no defenders when the Japanese fleet spilled into the Pacific. Vice Admiral Hashimoto Shintaro led the formation with his Cruiser Division 5. The other heavy cruisers were next, with the battleships bringing up the rear. Flagship Yamato sailed in seventh position among ten heavy ships. A few minutes after midnight, Kurita received Mikawa’s report on the latest conditions at Leyte Island. Upon exiting the strait, Admiral Kurita directed a change of course to the east. At 12:40 a.m., he ordered radar ranging. The Nagato soon reported a contact, but ten minutes later Rear Admiral Kobe Yuji, her skipper, sheepishly retracted—with news his radar had spotted an island.
After about an hour, Kurita altered two points to starboard to parallel the Samar coast. Less than a dozen miles from shore they passed in the darkness. At 1:55 a.m., the admiral had his fleet assume a surface search formation. By three o’clock the Kurita fleet, heading southeast, felt ready for anything.
A few minutes later Captain Shiraishi Nagayoshi’s Division 2 destroyer Akishimo collided with another, the Shimakaze. Fortunately the warships merely bumped each other. Akishimo skipper Lieutenant Commander Nakao Kotarou reported her fighting ability unimpaired. The admiral paced the bridge of Yamato. Still suspicious that Ching Lee or another Allied officer lurked just beyond the horizon, Kurita permitted himself no rest. Half an hour before dawn, the Japanese were eighty miles from the lighthouse on Suluan Island, which was now almost directly south of them. Approaching daylight meant a renewed Allied aircraft threat. Kurita ordered his ships back to ring formation.
Then something happened. When the news reached Combined Fleet headquarters, Admiral Kusaka records that the staff were so overjoyed they “almost stood on [their] head[s].”
• • •
ADMIRAL KINKAID’S JEEP carriers had orders to conduct three air searches at dawn. One of them, he intended to overfly the San Bernardino Strait. Kinkaid had also instructed the leader of his escort carrier force, Rear Admiral Thomas L. Sprague, to have a strike force ready to fly out of the Surigao Strait in search of the ships fleeing Nishimura’s debacle. Collectively, the eighteen jeep carriers in Admiral Kinkaid’s Seventh Fleet were armed with 235 fighters and 143 torpedo bombers, about the strength of one of Halsey’s carrier groups. Sprague’s airmen began preparations at about 4:15 a.m.
The jeeps, or “escort” carriers, were arrayed in several elements. In the system the U.S. Navy had developed, each bunch of ships was called a “task unit,” and an assortment of task units made up a “task group”—equivalent to the Third Fleet carrier groups. A collection of task groups made up a fleet. Kinkaid’s fleet had task groups for his battleships and cruisers, the invasion forces, and the escort carriers. The Navy’s abbreviation for an escort carrier was “CVE” for “Carrier (CV), Escort,” which, old swabbies would explain, stood for “Combustible, Vulnerable, Expendable.” Admiral Sprague’s agglomeration of CVEs formed Task Group 77.4. He also led one of the CVE groups, Task Unit 77.4.1. It was nicknamed “Taffy 1.”
Sprague’s Taffies were located in a line off of Leyte Gulf, roughly southeast to northwest, each ten to twenty miles from its neighbor and all about the same distance from the Leyte land battle they supported. There were three Taffies, with Sprague’s own being the southernmost. Taffy 2 under Rear Admiral Felix B. Stump steamed at the center. To the north lay Rear Admiral Clifton A. F. Sprague—amazingly, no relation to his commanding officer—with Taffy 3. The Taffies were generally aware of the Surigao battle, but they captured only snippets from the low-frequency radios of the TBS system. For example, just before 3:00 a.m. Taffy 2 overheard Admiral Oldendorf discuss engaging Nishimura. Destroyer escort Roberts of Taffy 3 overheard a report that the Japanese in Surigao Strait were retreating in disarray.
Flight operations began before dawn. The CVE Gambier Bay, of Taffy 3, started to launch fighters at 4:57 a.m. Scheduled missions began soon after. Taffy 3 had to maintain the combat air patrol over Leyte Gulf itself. The St. Lo, a Taffy 3 ship, put up the day’s first antisubmarine patrol at 5:30. Taffy 1 sent o
ut the strike mission against the Japanese remnants of the Surigao battle. Taffy 3 sent out a second patrol for subs plus a support group for all her flights, and a combat air patrol for her own safety. At 6:30, Rear Admiral Clifton “Ziggy” Sprague ordered Taffy 3 ships to secure from general quarters, beginning a routine day. He set a cruising disposition and sat back. At 6:37, the CVE Fanshaw Bay heard Japanese voices on the Taffy air defense net. Ziggy Sprague had no idea a Japanese fleet already had him almost on the ropes.
SUDDENLY, A LOT OF THINGS HAPPENED
NEARLY ALL AT ONCE
Kobe Yuji of the Nagato ordered his crew to prepare for daytime battle. Japanese practice was for ship captains to decide when to order action stations, and Kobe’s battleship appears to have been the first to do so. That took place at 6:17 a.m.
Barely five minutes later—still before sunrise—Yamato’s radar detected American warplanes. While the Taffies were standing down from general quarters, the Japanese were clearing for battle. By 6:35, airplanes could be seen from the Nagato. After that, more and more ships chimed in—cruisers Chokai and Noshiro had planes on radar at 6:39, heavy cruiser Haguro at 6:40. One minute later, Captain Sugiura Kaju of the Haguro ordered flak action. On the Yamato, two TBM Avengers were visible. Light antiaircraft opened fire but quickly ceased.
That was the moment an enemy fleet appeared. The development was the most dramatic on the heavy cruiser Kumano of Cruiser Division 7. Commander Hirayama Shigeo, the gunnery officer, dozed at his post on the control tower. The days of frantic action, by this point, had taken their toll on the crews, all of whom had been at their posts longer than twenty-four hours. Hirayama, as it happened, felt chagrined because he had also been dozing at the moment Kurita’s cruisers were slaughtered in the Palawan Passage. He’d been determined not to succumb again, but there it was, and here he was.
Commander Hirayama woke up with the dawn. Suddenly he saw movement and looked up—a carrier-based torpedo bomber, a Grumman, as the Japanese often called the sturdy Avengers, coming from the west. Hirayama wondered what the Grumman was doing there and ordered machine-gun crews to shoot. The plane lumbered away. A Japanese lookout watched it go, then, on that heading, suddenly saw a mast against the horizon. Hirayama also looked, with his much less powerful binoculars. He could see the mast too. Hirayama hastened to report to the skipper, Captain Hitomi Soichiro, and the commander of Cruiser Division 7, Vice Admiral Shiraishi Kazutaka, who wore his flag in the Kumano. At 6:52 a.m., the cruiser reported to Admiral Kurita, “ENEMY STRENGTH SEVEN SHIPS.”
Though maneuvering to execute a change of formation, the Kurita fleet had yet to shift away from its arrangement in ship divisions across a line of bearing. The admiral ordered his ships to prepare for sixteen knots on twenty minutes’ notice. Even as planes began popping out all over, Kurita held to his intention, changing course to nearly due south. At that moment, chief of staff Koyanagi reckoned the fleet had reached a point only sixty miles from Suluan Light. The fleet commander ordered readiness for maximum speed.
The Kumano’s report actually came a bit late, among a flood of similar sightings. The reports almost make sport of who saw the Allies first, much like fighter pilots with their “Tallyhos.” The Yamato carefully puts her first sighting at 6:44.5 a.m., with that being about the only time anything is logged at a half-minute interval. Perhaps that was because battleship Kongo puts her glimpse of masts at 6:45, and Nagato has this at 6:41, possibly making up for her mistaking an island on radar for the enemy fleet the night before. Battleship Haruna saw masts at 6:50, heavy cruiser Haguro at 6:44, Tone at 6:47, and light cruiser Noshiro at 6:49. Several of the ships reported multiple masts. Range estimates were more than sixteen miles.
The first sighting aboard Yamato came from a lookout high in the crow’s nest. Fleet operations officer Otani Tonosuke climbed up there to see for himself. The staff gunnery officer went to gunnery control to check what the high-power optics might reveal. Admiral Kurita and other senior officers mulled over whether the masts might be the Nishimura or Shima fleets exiting Leyte Gulf for their anticipated rendezvous. But officers were doubtful—and presently Commander Otani reported flight decks. That could only mean aircraft carriers. Not only did the lookouts spot them; Otani saw two himself.
• • •
THOSE FIRST MINUTES on the bridge of the Yamato must have been amazing. With the war nearing the end of a third year, with every advantage of combat power, intelligence, resources, and military technology in Allied hands, Japan was nearly exhausted. Under these conditions the Japanese could hardly expect to compel battle much less obtain favorable conditions. Yet here, off Samar, by dint of incredible sacrifice and not a little sleight of hand, the Imperial Navy had overturned the strategic balance. Not only had the Japanese forced a surface engagement; they had contrived to have one in which they had the superiority, against the very kinds of vessels the Japanese had the greatest interest in eliminating.
News of warships galvanized Admiral Kurita. Chief of staff Koyanagi saw some officers literally crying with joy. Kurita’s report notes, “It was definitely established that the masts belonged to ships of a gigantic enemy task force including six or seven carriers accompanied by many cruisers and destroyers.” Imperial Navy practice, unlike the American, had been to mix admirals and staffs with ship commanders and their crewmen. Though large, the bridge on the ersatz Japanese flagship filled with bodies: the ship’s skipper, Rear Admiral Morishita Nobuei, his helmsman, navigators, lookouts, and orderlies; Vice Admiral Ugaki and his staff; and Admiral Kurita and his. All their voices competed for attention. The Sho mission loomed before them. But now, here, an enemy surface fleet lay open to attack. Koyanagi immediately thought of Kurita’s “miracle” speech, recording, “We moved to take advantage of this heaven-sent opportunity.”
The admiral had to make a quick decision. Ugaki, standing right there, writes his diary stiffly in the third person. He supplies the snide remark “Actions of the fleet headquarters were also apt to lack promptness.” The admiral writes this after noting the weather was poor, there had been no news of Allied forces—reports from JNAF floatplanes and from Mikawa at Manila had been held up by slow communications—and, of course, that the fleet had expected to break into Leyte. (Ugaki’s notation that the JNAF scouting report was seriously delayed conflicts with Yamato’s action report, which logs that message arriving before 5:00 a.m.)
But Admiral Kurita found himself faced with discrepant information. On the one hand, there were masts on the horizon. On the other, no reports suggested the presence of Allied warships there. Despite that, Koyanagi writes that Kurita’s orders came “instantly.” Actually thirteen minutes elapsed between the sighting and Kurita’s order “CLOSE AND ATTACK ENEMY CARRIERS,” and one minute later, the execute, “ATTACK!” It is a judgment call whether this is slow.
Ugaki’s recollections continue in this vein—the fleet orders called for battleship and cruiser divisions to attack with destroyers to follow. Ugaki felt this conflicting, and Kurita’s reasoning is unknown. In thirteen minutes the fleet commander can hardly be expected to write a detailed directive (orders to the destroyers were issued at the twenty-minute mark, still too little to expect extensive instructions).
About the only new information Kurita received, at 6:52 a.m., came from heavy cruiser Tone. Captain Mayuzumi Haruo reported the enemy attempting to retreat. Admiral Kurita could see that himself. He did not know the course of the American force, but that hardly mattered since they soon turned. Kurita believed it a starboard turn because when the aircraft carriers heeled, their flight decks became visible, full of planes. The wind blew from the northeast. Kurita set a fleet course of 110 degrees in order to come upwind of the Americans, reducing the range while keeping to their windward.
As for fleet deployment, the Second Fleet could have maneuvered into column with the battleships behind its starboard wing, the heavy cruisers of Cruiser Division 7; or to port behind t
he two ships of Cruiser Division 5. Either would have consumed time, and that would mean that the Americans could be expected to get farther away. Kurita was already at long range from his adversaries, but any line-ahead battle formation would sacrifice one of Japan’s best advantages in this action—the speed of Kurita’s cruisers. All of them except the Haguro were designed to sustain speeds of thirty-four or thirty-five knots (and the Haguro, thirty-three). In a stern chase, that speed would be an important consideration.
Conversely, to have maneuvered into fleet formation would have meant restricting the overall speed to that of the ships that were wounded in the Sibuyan Sea. Yamato had damage from three bombs, forward. Down at the bow, she could make only twenty-six knots. The Nagato’s damage knocked her down a knot from design speed, to twenty-four. The Haruna, too, had significant restrictions. Admiral Koyanagi refers to propeller-shaft damage from near misses at Midway that were never quite repaired. (But there are instances of near design speed recorded after the Midway battle.) Perhaps the violent evasive maneuvers in the Sibuyan Sea somehow jarred her repair loose, cutting thirty and a half knots to just twenty-five or twenty-six. Either way, this impediment explains why Vice Admiral Suzuki Yoshio, leader of Battleship Division 3, made no effort to keep the Haruna in formation, instead taking off in the Kongo on an easterly heading, seeking to fulfill Kurita’s intention to stay upwind of the U.S. carriers.
The Kurita fleet had encountered a worthy opponent, they thought. Here, to make for Leyte without fighting would leave those carriers to fling endless bolts from the sky at Kurita’s fleet. Having just endured what he had in the Sibuyan Sea, Kurita’s desire to strike back dovetailed with his interest in preventing unfettered air attacks and his secret plan to engage task forces if at all possible. As Koyanagi put it, they could potentially put a net around four or five carriers, two fast battleships, and at least ten heavy cruisers. The admiral informed Combined Fleet and Southwest Area Fleet, “BY HEAVEN-SENT OPPORTUNITY WE ARE DASHING TO ATTACK THE ENEMY CARRIERS. OUR FIRST OBJECTIVE IS TO DESTROY THE FLIGHT DECKS, THEN THE TASK FORCE.”
