Retribution_ The Battle for Japan, 1944-45 - Max Hastings [110]
Amid smoke and shifting squalls, even now Hathaway knew little of what was happening, nor that Heermann’s sister ships Hoel and Johnston were damaged. He simply fired seven torpedoes at the heavy cruiser Chikuma from a range of 9,000 yards, as Japanese shells began to straddle Heermann: “You could hear the express-train roar of the fourteen-inchers going over us.” Then a Japanese eight-inch shell exploded on the bridge, leaving a shambles of fallen antennae, twisted steel and bloodied men. The helmsman, together with an aviator rescued the previous night and three other men, lay dead. Hathaway survived only because he had climbed to the higher fire-control position to get a better view of the battle. Quartermaster Jack Woolworth was badly hit in the buttocks, but said nothing and kept his post. Heermann suffered eight-inch hits in the engine uptakes, sonar dome and keel—and survived. Red, yellow, green splashes continued to land all around her. Hathaway marvelled that so many could miss: “Why they didn’t get more hits than they did I don’t understand.” The Americans were also bemused that the Japanese ships seemed to be advancing so slowly, some making as little as ten knots.
Heermann’s five-inch guns fired at the battleship Kongo’s fire-control tower, but as soon as the ship’s last three torpedoes were spent, Hathaway ducked into the pilothouse and radioed Sprague in plain language: “Exercise completed.” He said later: “I don’t know why I used these words. I had an idea the Japanese might be listening on the circuit, and I didn’t want them to know I didn’t have any more torpedoes.” Heermann retired in such haste that Hathaway avoided ramming the carrier Fanshaw Bay only by giving an emergency full astern order. The destroyer likewise missed by inches the damaged Johnston. “As we cleared each other296, a spontaneous cheer went up from each ship.” When Commander Evans perceived that Hoel was hit, though his own ship was crippled, men were throwing body parts over the side and just two guns remained operational, he swung Johnston back into the fray. The destroyer could make only fifteen knots: “We were weaving back and forth297,” said gunnery officer Robert Hagen, “taking on whatever ship seemed to be closing the carriers the fastest, and we still stayed up with the Japanese cruisers, destroyers, while the Japanese battleships dropped aft…The captain fought that ship as no other man has ever fought a ship.”
The American destroyers’ attacks were uncoordinated, indeed chaotic. Almost all their torpedoes were launched from ranges too long to be effective. But Yamato chose to swing away sharply to avoid them, and so wide was the vast ship’s turning radius that it fell far behind the rest of Kurita’s line. The Japanese were alarmed by American aggression, even if Sprague’s warship guns inflicted little damage. Hoel, hit repeatedly just before 0800, stayed afloat for a further hour, until sunk by Japanese battleships as they passed the hulk at close range. The destroyer escort Samuel B. Roberts lost 3 officers and 86 men, out of a crew of 178. Her captain told his men as they steamed into battle that the ship could not expect to survive, and he was right. By 0820 the Americans had expended all their torpedoes, and the survivors retired towards Sprague’s carriers. Except one. The Johnston continued to fire on the enemy at close range until at 0945 its crew abandoned ship under a hail of Japanese shells. Of 327 men only 141 were saved, not including Evans, its fine captain.
Kurita dispatched four heavy cruisers to move fast around the Americans and cut them off. Sprague, perceiving this force, ordered that every plane should concentrate against it. It was a day for rhetoric and wisecracks which passed into legend, such as the chief’s cry from his quad mount on White Plains: “Hold on a little longer, boys! We’re sucking them into 40mm range!” White Plains