Retribution_ The Battle for Japan, 1944-45 - Max Hastings [113]
THE BADLY BOMBED CRUISER Suzuya sank at 1322 on the twenty-fifth. At about the same time, operating at extreme range, 335 miles, one of Halsey’s carrier groups at last reached Kurita’s ships. Of 147 aircraft which attacked, 14 were lost. Neither this mission nor another strike from Taffy 2 inflicted significant damage. Early on the morning of the twenty-sixth, three more American aircraft sorties sunk a light cruiser, Noshiro, and damaged the heavy cruiser Kumano, which limped into Manila. The crews of forty-seven USAAF Liberators which attacked Kurita’s units claimed much, but accomplished nothing. The battered, forlorn, humiliated Japanese fleet regained Brunei Bay at 2130 on 28 October, most of its ships leaking oil and taking in water from near misses. Survival was its only significant achievement.
HALSEY began his dash north, after the sighting of Ozawa’s carriers, at 2022 on the night of 24 October. Commander Dahl, the popular executive officer of the carrier Belleau Wood, broadcast to its crew: “Attention all hands306. We are steaming north to intercept the Jap fleet which is coming out to fight. When the gong rings, move in a hurry. Be prepared for anything. That is all.” Yet twenty-two minutes earlier, Ozawa had himself turned away north, on hearing of Kurita’s retirement from the San Bernardino Strait. He assumed that Shogo was aborted. Only when naval high command insisted upon resuming the operation did Ozawa again set course towards the Americans who he was so eager should find him.
Most of Halsey’s subordinates were amazed by his decision to take north every element of Third Fleet, leaving not a single destroyer to watch San Bernardino. Admiral “Ching” Lee in the battleship Washington signalled Halsey that he believed Ozawa’s force to be a decoy. He received in response a perfunctory “Roger” from the flagship. Lee later sent another message to Halsey, asserting his conviction that Kurita would reappear. This was unanswered. More extraordinary yet, during the night Halsey ignored a new sighting report of Kurita’s ships, heading east once more. Third Fleet’s carrier commander, the famously taciturn Marc Mitscher, was woken with the news by staff officers, who urged him to speak to the fleet commander. Mitscher demanded briefly:
“Does Admiral Halsey have that report?”
“Yes.”
“If he wants my advice, he’ll ask for it.”
Mitscher went back to sleep, and thus sixty-five American ships continued steaming north at sixteen knots, to engage just seventeen Japanese vessels of Ozawa’s command. Halsey’s task forces rendezvoused just before midnight: four Essex-class carriers and the old Enterprise, five light carriers, six battleships, two heavy cruisers, six light cruisers, forty-one destroyers. Halsey even recalled aircraft which had been shadowing Kurita’s force. Not surprisingly, in view of Japanese contrariness, Third Fleet lost Ozawa for some hours during the night, then located his ships again at 0710 on the twenty-fifth, when Sprague’s escort carriers were already in flight from Kurita, hundreds of miles to the south.
Around 0800, American Avengers which were orbiting a holding position some seventy miles from Ozawa were vectored onto their first attack of the day. With negligible interference from Japanese fighters, they launched torpedoes at point-blank range. Chitose was hit by a succession of bombs, three of which caused damage below the waterline, and sank at 0937. Zuikaku was crippled by a torpedo; a destroyer was sunk; nine Japanese aircraft shot down. The next wave of Americans arrived at 0945 to behold “a picture