The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945 (Modern Library War)

by Toland, John

  Through the stationary telescope Shima watched destroyers dart in and out of a smoke screen. His own ships closed on another destroyer to starboard, dead in the water—a Japanese flag on its mast. It flashed out a blue signal: “I am destroyer Shigure. Rudder is damaged and under repair.”

  Nachi plunged into the smoke. In the distance came the deep, slow crump of big guns; the remnants of Nishimura must be ahead and still fighting. The column emerged through the smoke screen, only to face another. To the right was a large ship in flames, but Shima couldn’t tell if it was American or Japanese. It was Mogami. Shima’s radar detected an enemy fleet due north almost six miles. “All ships attack!” he ordered by radiotelephone.

  The torpedo officer, Commander Kokichi Mori, suggested that the two heavy cruisers also launch torpedoes from the port. Shima approved, and Nachi, followed by Ashigara, turned sharply to starboard as the destroyers, which could only fire upon sighting the enemy, spurted straight ahead. Just to the left was Mogami, and she appeared to be dead in the water. Nachi launched her eight torpedoes, and moved up to hide behind the glare of Mogami. But as he approached, Shima saw to his surprise that Mogami’s prow had a wake. She was bearing down at almost 8 knots on a collision course. “Hard starboard!” he shouted, but the blazing Mogami moved straight at Nachi and there was a jarring crunch.

  “This is Mogami!” someone called from the bridge through a megaphone “Captain and executive officer killed. Gunnery officer in charge. Steering destroyed. Steering by engine. Sorry.”

  The two ships drifted slowly as if locked together, then Nachi cautiously turned left and the two ships parted, Mogami continuing south. The port side of Nachi’s prow was gone and engineers reported top speed would be reduced to 20 knots. Shima still wanted to follow his destroyers and attack. “Up ahead the enemy must be waiting for us with open arms,” Mori objected. “Nishimura’s force is almost totally destroyed. It is obvious that the Second Striking Force will fall into a trap. We may die any time.” Besides, they didn’t even know what Kurita was doing. “In any case, it’s foolish to go ahead now.”

  There were still two hours left of darkness to hide their withdrawal. Shima’s immediate task was to collect the remnants of Nishimura’s force as well as his own. The fleeing ships were again harassed by PT boats near the south entrance of the strait. The persistent little craft were fought off, but to the rear a pursuing force of two light cruisers and three destroyers picked off the crippled destroyer Asagumo. This ended the surface pursuit, but Shima was not yet out of range of American aircraft. A wave of Avengers found the straggling Mogami, and a bomb in the engine room forced her abandonment. (Now only Shigure remained of Nishimura’s fleet.) Within an hour Shima saw a second wave of Avengers on the horizon. In the radio room Lieutenant (j.g.) Kameda, born in Honolulu, adjusted to the enemy cycle and began broadcasting in English: “Hello, Charley One, hello Charley One. Jap carrier planes attacking us. Abandon your present mission and return to base immediately.”

  On the bridge Shima watched as the oncoming planes abruptly wheeled and headed back north.†

  4.

  At almost the same moment that Nishimura prepared to make his foray into Surigao Strait, Kurita edged into San Bernardino Strait two hundred miles to the north. The passage, narrower than Surigao Strait, was difficult for a single ship to navigate even in the daytime because of a stiff 8-knot current. Kurita had to bring a ten-mile column of twenty-two ships through in pitch-dark; all the navigation lights had been turned off.

  As Kurita debouched into the Philippine Sea, he expected to encounter attacks from submarines and a sizable surface force. There was not a ship in sight. Expecting discovery momentarily, he placed his ships in night-scouting formation as they skirted the east coast of Samar and headed south for Leyte Gulf.

  At 6:27 A.M. the sun rose in a dreary sky, and the order went out to re-form in a circle around Yamato. Clouds hung low, occasional gusts of rain swept the ships, and the water was choppy. High in the observation tower of the cruiser Kumano, Lieutenant (s. g.) Shigeo Hirayama was dozing at his battle station. Like everyone else in the First Striking Force, he had had almost no sleep in seventy-two hours. He rubbed his eyes hard and searched the horizon. An enemy plane was approaching from the east. It looked like a carrier-based torpedo plane. What was it doing coming straight on?

  Its pilot, an ensign named Jensen, on antisubmarine patrol, was as surprised as Hirayama. He started down toward the cruiser in a glide-bomb approach.

  Simultaneously observers on Yamato sighted four “masts” on the horizon twenty miles to the southeast. They were soon identified as the island structures of carriers. God has come to our assistance! thought Koyanagi. This was a target worthy of their big guns. The younger officers cheered, their cheeks glistening with tears.

  It had to be one of Mitscher’s four powerful carrier groups. There was no alternative but to attack and Kurita wanted none. His one hope was that this task group was isolated. He closed in, altering his course slightly to 110 degrees, and radioed Combined Fleet:

  BY HEAVEN-SENT OPPORTUNITY, WE ARE DASHING TO ATTACK ENEMY CARRIERS. OUR FIRST OBJECTIVE IS TO DESTROY THE FLIGHT DECKS, THEN THE TASK FORCE.

  Mitscher’s big carriers were far to the north—at Halsey’s command—chasing the decoy, Ozawa, and what the Japanese saw was one of the Seventh Fleet’s subsidiary forces, Taffy 3, whose function was to provide air cover for the amphibious shipping at Leyte. Commanded by Rear Admiral Clifton A. F. Sprague, it comprised three destroyers and four destroyer escorts, as well as six escort carriers (nicknamed “baby flattops” or “jeeps”) holding no more than twenty-eight planes each and with a top speed of 19 knots. Sprague had been caught by surprise; his radar had just detected the enemy.

  At 6:58 A.M. the main batteries of Yamato bellowed. For the first time the monstrous 3,220-lb. shells were hurled at an enemy surface target from the 70-foot-long barrels. Other ships joined in, as enthusiastic crews, on attack at last, worked their guns in a thundering chorus. Enemy destroyers tried to screen the carriers with smoke, but tiny planes could still be seen taking off from their flight decks “like bees.” Kurita ordered General Attack. Breaking formation, all ships closed at optimum speed, and the chase became an unorganized scramble.

  Sprague’s carriers moved away sluggishly to the east, hastily launching fighters and Avengers armed with bombs. Salvos from the oncoming enemy ships fell closer and closer, sending up pink, green, red, yellow and purple geysers—the projectiles had been loaded with various dyes for identification. Their explosions had “a kind of horrid beauty” for Sprague. At 7:01 A.M. he radioed an appeal in the clear for help. To the south were two similar forces of baby flattops, Taffy 1 and Taffy 2. “Don’t be alarmed,” shouted the commander of Taffy 2, only thirty miles away. “Remember we’re back of you. Don’t get excited! Don’t do anything rash!”

  But these reassurances were meaningless. Sprague knew his ships could not “survive another five minutes of the heavy-caliber fire being received.” Just then Taffy 3 was swallowed by a rain squall. It was a brief respite but it gave Sprague time enough to make a hard decision: he would not scatter his force but “pull the enemy out where somebody else could smack him.” He turned to the south toward Taffy 2 and its planes; then, at 7:16 A.M., he ordered his three destroyers—Hoel, Heermann and Johnston—to counterattack. Possibly their sacrifice could buy time. Johnston (her captain was a Cherokee, Ernest E. Evans) closed to within 10,000 yards of Kumano and launched ten torpedoes. One hit the heavy cruiser, slowing her to 20 knots and putting her out of the battle. But Johnston paid for her daring as a trio each of 14- and 6-inch shells tore into her. It was, her senior surviving officer recalled, “like a puppy being smacked by a truck.” She somehow remained afloat, her decks and bridge covered with dead.

  Hoel was within range of two enemy columns, battleships on the left, cruisers on the right. Her captain, Commander Leon S. Kintberger, started for the big ones. Columns of green-dyed water show
ered Hoel. A shell smashed into the bridge. But the destroyer kept moving in and at 9,000 yards loosed a spread of torpedoes at the leading battleship. Kintberger swung his ship toward the cruisers, but shells knocked out the main engine and jammed the rudder hard right. He could still maneuver the ship by one engine and worked his way broadside of the cruiser column. At 7:35 A.M. his remaining five torpedoes began churning toward Haguro, the foremost cruiser.

  In the dense smoke Heermann, the third destroyer, almost rammed a friendly destroyer escort and barely missed swiping Hoel. Heermann turned north, and while firing seven torpedoes at Haguro, sighted a battleship on the left. It was Kongo, which began to concentrate fire on Heermann. So did Haguro as soon as she had evaded the torpedoes. Two more Japanese battleships bore down on the destroyer, but Heermann, outdoing David, pressed the attack on still another adversary, the battleship Haruna, which was little more than two miles away. She peppered Haruna with 5-inch shells, and after launching her last three torpedoes, scampered away at 8:03 A.M.—miraculously still not hit by anything except shell fragments.

  But the damaged Hoel was hemmed in by Kongo and several heavy cruisers. Hit at least forty times, Hoel continued to throw some five hundred shells at the enemy before her remaining engine was knocked out. At 8:30 A.M. she came to a stop, listing to port with one magazine on fire. Only then did Kintberger give the word to abandon ship.

  Sprague’s six jeep carriers had emerged from the squall in circular formation. Ten miles to the north lay the Japanese battleships, and a little closer to the northeast were four enemy cruisers. These blanketed Gambier Bay and Kalinin Bay with heavy fire, but the clumsy little carriers managed to evade every salvo. Kalinin Bay, however, could not escape the battleships’ barrage and was hit fifteen times. Still, damage-control teams working waist-deep in oil and water kept her in formation.

  Fighting back with her single 5-inch gun, Gambier Bay weaved around, managing to escape any damage for almost half an hour, but at last a shell struck the flight deck. Then a salvo plummeted into the water just off the carrier’s port. One shell hit below the water line, flooding the forward engine room. Gambier Bay slowed to 11 knots, dropping out of formation.

  At 8:30 A.M. Commander Evans, the Cherokee skipper of the already battered destroyer Johnston, saw the heavy cruiser Chikuma move in for the kill. “Commence firing on the cruiser, Hagen,” he told his gunnery officer. “Draw her fire away from Gambier Bay.”

  Johnston limped at 17 knots to within 6,000 yards of Chikuma and pumped five shells into her, but she ignored the destroyer. Heermann, still sound, joined the attack and forced Chikuma to turn some of her guns away from Gambier Bay. But it was too late. The carrier began to sink at 8:45 A.M.

  Now Evans turned Johnston to face the light cruiser Yahagi and four destroyers which were converging on the remaining carriers. Evans closed in on Yahagi, which was moving into position to torpedo one of the carriers, and discharged such harassing fire with Johnston’s 5-inch guns—she made a dozen hits—that the light cruiser was forced to launch her torpedoes prematurely. Yahagi’s accompanying destroyers followed suit. Not a carrier was hit, but the Japanese jubilantly reported that “three enemy carriers and one cruiser were enveloped in black smoke and observed to sink, one after another.”

  Evans, who had pressured the enemy into launching their attack too soon, strutted across the bridge exclaiming, “Now I’ve seen everything!” But the Japanese had their measure of revenge. Cruisers and destroyers hemmed in Johnston. Her crew fought back until the ship was dead in the water and Evans reluctantly had to give the order to abandon her. Of the complement of 327, only 141 were picked up alive. The Cherokee skipper was not among them.

  While Sprague’s destroyers, aided by the four equally aggressive destroyer escorts, were blunting Kurita’s surface attack, carrier planes from Taffy 2 and 3 hit the First Striking Force time and again. Three heavy cruisers—Suzuya, Chikuma and Chokai—sustained such damage that they were forced to retire.

  Kurita was unaware that his advance force had been so frustrated; Yamato’s last two scout planes had been knocked down and her radiotelephone was out of order. Moreover, it looked from a distance through the smoke as if the advance guard had lost sight of the enemy. “Let’s discontinue this chase,” Koyanagi advised. “There’s still Leyte Gulf to attack.” Kurita concurred, and at 9:11 A.M. a message was radioed: RENDEZVOUS, MY COURSE NORTH, SPEED 20.

  On the bridge of Fanshaw Bay, Sprague heard a signalman yell at 9:25 A.M., “Goddamit, boys, they’re getting away!” The surface battle—the last of World War II—was over. Taffy 3 had not only withstood attack from the greatest array of guns afloat as well as a massive torpedo assault but inflicted serious damage on a superior force. For over an hour all was quiet. Then, at 10:50, General Quarters was again sounded on the five surviving jeep carriers. Nine enemy planes were approaching at mast level, so low that radar had failed to pick them up. They climbed to several thousand feet as American fighters tried to intercept them. Five Zero fighters with bombs lashed to their wings emerged from the milling mass and slanted down toward the jeeps. They were led by a recently married lieutenant commander, Yukio Seki. One Zero headed for the bridge of Kitkun Bay, its machine guns winking. Onlookers expected it to pull up; instead it drove into the port catwalk, exploded and tumbled on into the sea. Two others roared straight at Fanshaw Bay, also with obvious intent to crash into her, only to disintegrate at the last moment. The final two veered off from the heavy fire thrown up by White Plains. One, trailing smoke, banked toward St. Lo in a right turn as if intending to land, but the pilot pushed the little plane over, slamming it into the flight deck. Fires spread throughout the hangar deck, setting off a chain of violent internal explosions. After having survived the running battle unscathed, St. Lo sank.

  Her survivors nicknamed the Japanese pilot “devil diver.” He was a kamikaze. The idea for suicide attacks had recently risen spontaneously among groups of Army and Navy fliers, and several isolated efforts had been made before that day.‡ But it was not until Vice Admiral Takijiro Onishi arrived in Luzon—just before the American landing at Leyte—to take command of Fifth Base Air Force and learned he had fewer than a hundred operable planes that the Kamikaze Special Attack Corps was officially organized.

  “In my opinion,” he told his commanders, “there is only one way of channeling our meager strength into maximum efficiency, and that is to organize suicide attack units composed of Zero fighters equipped with 250-kilogram bombs, with each plane to crash-dive into an enemy carrier.”

  Onishi’s proposal was explained to the pilots. “Their eyes shone feverishly in the dimly lit room,” reported one commander named Tamai. “Each must have been thinking of this as a chance to avenge comrades who had fallen recently in the fierce Marianas fighting, and at Palau and Yap. Theirs was an enthusiasm that flames naturally in the hearts of youthful men.”

  Onishi’s kamikaze group was created specifically to support Kurita’s raid on Leyte Gulf, and the first attack had come earlier that morning. Six suicide planes and four escorts took off from Mindanao at 6:30 A.M. and went north. While Taffy 3 was fighting off Kurita, the Special Attack planes came upon Taffy 1. One Zero crashed into Santee and another into Suwannee, but both of these jeep carriers were soon back in action. Nevertheless, all those who had seen the Japanese boring in with such fatalism were still shaken by the experience. It was a preview of things to come.

  5.

  It took Kurita almost two hours to collect his scattered forces—reduced from thirty-two ships to fifteen within three days—and again head south in ring formation for Leyte Gulf. The admiral and most of his staff hadn’t slept since leaving Brunei and stayed alert by sheer will power. Koyanagi had difficulty moving around the bridge even with the help of a cane; he had been hit in the thigh by shrapnel the day before.

  Kurita was more certain than ever that he had just encountered one of Halsey’s carrier groups (Ozawa’s message that he had lured Halsey north ne
ver reached First Striking Force). In addition, a report was intercepted—probably from a land-based plane—that a fleet of enemy carriers lay 113 miles north of the mouth of Leyte Gulf. Could these be Halsey’s remaining task groups? In any case, Kurita would get no help from Nishimura’s detached fleet that was supposed to invade Leyte Gulf from the south; Nishino, on the destroyer Shigure, had radioed that his was the only ship left afloat.

  About 11:40 A.M. a lookout reported sighting an enemy battleship and several destroyers on the horizon. Kurita gave chase but could find nothing; perhaps the lookout had suffered from a delusion. Then a radio message to the effect that part of Kinkaid’s force was making a sortie from Leyte Gulf was intercepted. It appeared likely that most of the transports had escaped. Even those which remained would have had five days to unload.

  If Kurita charged into the narrow confines of the gulf to sink these transports, his own ships would be at the mercy of enemy land- and carrier-based planes. The First Striking Force might be wiped out—and for what? A few practically empty transports. This, Kurita reasoned, would be absurd. He decided instead—and he was seconded by Koyanagi and the rest of the staff—to turn north, and with the help of Japanese land-based planes, attack the enemy task force which was located less than a hundred miles away.§

  The entire bridge was electrified by the decision. Forgotten was the ordeal of the past few days, which had left them bone-tired and depressed; it was as if they were going into battle for the first time.

  At 12:35 P.M. Kurita sent out a fleet order to reverse course and “engage in decisive battle with the enemy task force which is in position bearing 5 degrees, distant 113 miles from Suluan lighthouse.”

  The news was greeted on every ship with shouts of “Banzai!” The First Striking Force headed north to wage its final battle.