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By Root 1109 0

the blips on the screen indicating Nishimura’s ships. Soon, however, he became distracted by incessant voices echoing through the broadcast system, and returned to the flag bridge. The battleships fired their first rounds at 26,000 yards, the cruisers at 15,600. By an exquisite chance, four of the six capital ships under Oldendorf’s command had been salvaged from the bottom of Pearl Harbor in the years following the “Day of Infamy.” They were now deemed too old and slow to sail with Halsey, but three—Tennessee, California and West Virginia—were equipped with the latest fire-control radar, infinitely superior to anything the Japanese possessed. These monsters, taking their last bow in a contest between “ships of the line,” fired sixty-nine, sixty-three and ninety-three rounds respectively from their main armament. The Japanese Vice-Admiral Ugaki281 once enquired sourly why, if battleships had become redundant as some people claimed, the Americans used so many. This night, they wreaked havoc. Yamashiro, flying Nishimura’s flag, was soon blazing brilliantly. The heavy cruiser Mogami turned to flee. At 0402 a hit on the bridge killed all her senior officers. She continued to steam, heavily on fire. Seven minutes later Yamashiro capsized and sank, with the loss of the admiral and almost her entire crew. A cruiser and a destroyer, both badly hit, thus became the only survivors to escape. By contrast, three U.S. cruisers were straddled by Japanese fire, but no American heavy unit was hit. At 0405, after just fourteen minutes, Oldendorf ordered his battleships to cease firing. He knew that the Japanese squadron was devastated, and was alarmed by reports of American destroyers in the target zone.

The night actions were not yet ended, however. Twenty miles behind the main Japanese force, Vice-Admiral Kiyohide Shima led a further squadron of three heavy cruisers and escorts. Its first casualty was the light cruiser Akubuma, hit by a PT-boat torpedo aimed at a destroyer. At 0420, Japanese radar detected enemy ships, and Shima ordered his own captains to launch torpedoes. These were fired against the nearby Hibuson Islands, which survived undamaged, a nonsense that highlighted the pitiful limitations of Japanese radar. Shima then approached the two blazing parts of Fuso, and mistook them for separate ships. He was in no doubt, however, that disaster had befallen Nishimura. Turning south once more, he signalled naval headquarters: “This force has concluded its attack and is retiring from the battle area to plan subsequent action.” Retreat merely presaged further humiliations. The cruiser Nachi collided with a fugitive from Nishimura’s squadron, the burning Mogami. The two somehow limped away southwards. Mogami later suffered an American air attack, and was finished off with a Japanese torpedo. Another Japanese destroyer was sunk by land-based U.S. aircraft.

As Oldendorf’s force advanced slowly down the Surigao Strait, the Americans saw only two burning Japanese ships, together with survivors in the water, most of whom declined rescue. By dawn, the stem of Fuso was the sole visible relic of Nishimura’s squadron. Louisville catapulted a floatplane aloft, which reported no sign of enemy activity. It had been a ruthless slaughter, but this did not trouble Oldendorf. “Never give a sucker282 an even break,” he said laconically. Hiroshi Tanaka, a bedraggled aircraft mechanic from Yamashiro who fell into American hands, observed bitterly that Nishimura had handled his squadron “more like a petty officer283 than an admiral.” It is hard to disagree, and even harder to conceive of any other outcome of such an ill-matched encounter. Oldendorf made no attempt to pursue the surviving Japanese, urging Kinkaid to put carrier aircraft on the case. He had fulfilled his own executioner’s role. Just one Japanese heavy cruiser, together with five destroyers, reached home. The Leyte anchorage seemed safe. American casualties from the Surigao Strait action numbered 39 killed and 114 wounded, almost all of these inflicted by “friendly fire” on the destroyer