Short History of World War II - James L. Stokesbury [186]
All of these plans resulted in a series of interconnected but separate engagements that combined to form the Battle of Leyte Gulf. There were six encounters in sequence.
In the earliest of them, and well ahead of the Japanese schedule, two American submarines, Darter and Dace, intercepted Kurita’s Central Force while it was still west of the island of Palawan in the South China Sea. Pressing home their torpedo attacks, they sank two cruisers, including Kurita’s flagship, the Atago, and crippled a third. Still possessing five battleships, including the superbattleship Musashi (the largest in the world), nine undamaged cruisers, and fifteen destroyers, Kurita pressed on. The second attack came next day, the 24th, when planes from the 3rd Fleet caught Kurita in the Sibuyan Sea. The Japanese had no air cover; their weakened carriers were all up north, so the Americans attacked at will; in five strikes they hit all the battleships and disabled the Musashi, so that she began to flee back westward. The Americans then came back for one last time and finished her off; flooded bow and stern, she went down with 1,100 of her crew still aboard. Kurita, complaining he was doing all the work and suffering all the consequences, turned back during the night, but then he subsequently changed his mind and resumed his track toward San Bernardino Strait.
Meanwhile, in the third preliminary bout, planes from Ozawa’s Main Body attacked units of Halsey’s 3rd Fleet, sinking the small carrier Princeton for a loss of two thirds their own number. Halsey now knew there were Japanese carrier units to the north of him, and he also had the reports of his own returning pilots that Kurita was stopped and retreating. He therefore led 3rd Fleet off northward after the Japanese Main Body, unaware that Kurita had now had third thoughts and had once again turned back to fight. By dark on the night of the 24th, the stage was set for the three main battles.
Shima’s Second Striking Force, plus Nishimura’s Third Section had made their way through the Sulu and the Mindanao Sea, and entered the confined waters of Surigao Strait. Nishimura led, with two battleships, a cruiser, and four destroyers. Shima, two hours behind him, had three cruisers and four destroyers. They hoped to surprise the soft-skinned American transport vessels, and if they were lucky, wipe them out. Once more, however, the Americans were ready for them. Kincaid had given Admiral Jesse Oldendorf the bulk of his shore bombardment vessels; these were ranged across the top of Surigao Strait, and the Japanese were sailing right into a trap. Emotionally, it could hardly have been a more satisfying trap, manned as it was by the ghosts of Pearl Harbor, the old prewar battleships raised from the mud and rebuilt. As the war went on and newer ships came into service, these slower vessels had been relegated to supporting amphibious landings. Now they, plus their attendant cruisers, destroyers, and torpedo boats, were to get their innings at last.
Nishimura, in the lead, was attacked first by the torpedo boats, and he ran a gauntlet of them for twenty-five miles; at the end, waiting front and flank, were the bigger ships. The destroyers darted out and launched their own torpedo attacks, then the cruisers and battleships spoke up. The old battleships paraded back and forth across the mouth of the strait at a stately five knots, firing full broadsides as they went. The Japanese forces, already in confusion, were deluged by hits and the splashes of near misses. In a hectic hour’s action, Nishimura, his two battleships, his cruisers, and three of his four destroyers all went down. In the midst of the gunflashes, the splashes, the cries of thousands of men drowning for their Emperor, one destroyer survived and turned back down the strait. Meeting Shima’s force