Chapter 88 Chapter 87

From: Commander of the Third Fleet From: "Flying Fish" Several ships were found, three of which appeared to be battleships.in the track. "Kick-off!" thought Pag. The telegram was sent from a scout-submarine far out to the west in the Palawan Strait, about halfway between Borneo and Leyte Gulf; Shot, it reported the position, course, and speed of the group of enemy ships. Pug immediately inked the information in orange ink on the chart in his office. It was October 23rd, just after dawn. In this way, it seems that the battle is finally going to be fought.The battleships were heading for the Sibuyan Sea and the San Bernardino Strait.Halsey gave the order without hesitation, which excited Pug even more.Halsey was canceling an order for an aircraft carrier group to go to Ulyssey for rest.great!The three existing aircraft carrier groups would be stationed 250 nautical miles off the east coast of the Philippines for aerial searches and sortie early the next morning if the Japanese battleships came within range by then.Halsey's own special group, which included Victor.Henry's Battleship Squadron 7 would line up outside the San Bernardino Strait to meet approaching enemy ships.

The ships discovered by the submarine were the main fleet of Vice Admiral Kurita. They were coming from Borneo at this time, preparing to break into Wright Gulf and destroy MacArthur's beachhead.Thus, Halsey and Kurita, the two chief adversaries in this pitched battle, would face off in an ocean about six hundred miles apart.There may be as many admirals in Wright Gulf as there are blackberries, but whoever wins this battle depends solely on how these two generals show off when they confront each other. Takeo Kurita was fifty-five years old, a strong-willed and experienced naval veteran.His fleet, including five battleships and ten cruisers, in addition to several light cruisers and destroyers, formed a mighty fleet and advanced through the blue waves of the Palawan Strait.Two of his battleships, the 70,000-ton colossal battleships Musashi and Yamato, were armed with eighteen-inch cannons that were built secretly in violation of the Arms Limitation Treaty but had not yet fired at the enemy. .Pug.Henry's Iowa and New Jersey were armed only with sixteen-inch guns.No American warship has a gun bigger than this.Because of the two-inch difference in caliber, Kurita was able to stand farther away and bombard Henry out of range with a shell that might have been twice as destructive as the shell Henry fired back at.These warships were designed in 1934, and it took fifteen years to waste the manpower and money of the whole country. They are the most powerful gunboats in the world.If only the Seventh Squadron of the Battleship had to be dealt with, they might have been invulnerable, but tactics had advanced ahead of them.Submarines and planes on aircraft carriers posed a threat that those guns couldn't handle.

Therefore, in General Kurita's view, everything still depends on those aircraft carriers that lure the enemy.If only they lured Halsey away, he might be able to storm through the San Bernardino Channel and use his giant guns to wipe out the forces on MacArthur's beachhead.Under the command of Vice Admiral Ozawa, those aircraft carriers that lure the enemy have already gone to sea, heading south from Japan to Luzon Island.This was probably all Kurita knew, for the two fleets were sailing with thirty degrees of latitude between them. Kurita also had one big deciding factor on his mind.Those strategists in Tokyo were very obsessed with the tactics of bluffing and slamming east and west, so they temporarily called out a third fleet-including several battleships and cruisers, protected by destroyers, sailed far south, and then took another passable The sea route, through the Surigao Strait, north into Wright Gulf.On the chessboard of the confrontation, it seemed that the "No. 1" combat plan had an advantage at the time: Li Ri led his powerful and huge fleet to break through the Central Philippine Islands, sailing from the north to Leyte Gulf; Attack with a pincer attack; while Ozawa waited far away in the sea north of Luzon, teasing the impatient and aggressive Halsey away from the troops he was going to defend.

However, in such a ballet performed by many warships, moving slowly and separated by thousands of nautical miles, the precise choice of timing becomes decisive.Kurita must arrive at Leyte Gulf in the early morning of the 25th, and Surigao's fleet must also arrive at the same time.Long before that morning, the decoy aircraft carriers had to bow Halsey north.It appears that for any part of the military operation to work, a high price must be paid.But the question now is: If it suffers losses from the very beginning, will the "No. 1" combat plan be abandoned halfway, or will the battle be able to be carried forward heroically to the end.

On the 23rd, Buddha dawned, and we had some clues to the answer to this question.Without hearing the alarm in advance, four torpedoes hit Kurita's flagship in succession.At that time the whole fleet was just beginning to sail in daylight zigzags.The bridge of the flagship heavy cruiser "Atago" suddenly vibrated under Kurita's feet. At that time, he only saw that a cruiser next to him was also hit in the tail, shrouded in thick smoke, flames and large jets of fire that rose upward and then fell one after another. in white foam.In less than a few minutes, the "Atago" was already surrounded by flames, shaken by the explosion, and gradually sank.Kurita only cared about running for his life.Several destroyers approached the bombed and ablaze ship to rescue him, but it was too late.The lieutenant general and his staff had to swim to escape in the turbulent warm salt water.

A destroyer salvaged Kurita aboard.But at this moment, his salt-soaked eyes saw another tragic scene: Not far away, the third heavy cruiser exploded like a firecracker, spreading light-colored flames and dense black clouds. Smoke, the shattered hull sank, and he stood there like a drowned rat.It was not half an hour before dawn that day, and two of his ten heavy cruisers had been sunk by submarines, and the third had caught fire and was paralyzed in the water; and he was still two full days away from Wright Gulf. The two reconnaissance submarines "Flying Fish" and "Whale" discovered Kurita's fleet in the dark, followed them on the surface, and then dived into the bottom of the sea to launch this dawn attack.The depth charges launched by the destroyer landed in dense layers, stirring up a huge water column on the vast sea. The submarine avoided them, but when it was chasing the cruiser that had lost its combat effectiveness, the "Flying Fish" ran aground. The "Whale" rescued the crew on board.This time it was the "Flying Fish" that sounded the alarm and made the first contribution, but its glorious days ended with it.

For much of that day, Kurita's fleet was plagued by false alarms about the discovery of the periscope, and finally he and his staff managed to transfer to the Yamato.He boarded the world's most powerful gunboat and sat in that spacious and beautiful command room, only then did he regain his confidence in the battle situation.On the whole, his vast fleet was largely intact.He did not expect to go on a march without losses.Night would soon be falling, which would conceal his movements.The decoy fleet had not yet come into contact with Halsey, he had radioed from Tokyo, saying that it would be attacked by planes tomorrow and threatened by submarines.It now appeared that the day after tomorrow he would ram Halsey's fleet head-on at the mouth of the San Bernardino Strait.But this time Kurita Takeo was sent to command because he was a man who went forward bravely, regardless of all dangers.As the sun went down, he sailed at full speed.

That night there were twelve hours in which he could sail quickly and without incident.As soon as the sun rose on October 24, the carrier attack began and has not stopped since.There had been five massive raids, hundreds of raids, repeated bombings and torpedoes, and a constant buzzing over the capital fleet all day long.Kurita had been assured that Luzon and Formosa would provide him with air cover.But at this time there is nothing. However, his fleet still advanced boldly, zigzagging past those islands with peaks and peaks competing for beauty, forming an anti-aircraft fire network with hundreds of guns along the way, and the main column of artillery bombarded the swarming planes desperately.On October 24th, one of the fiercest battles between aircraft and surface warships, which we now call the Battle of the Sibuyan Sea, Kurita commanded brilliantly.But the super giant "Musashi" was hit by a torpedo first, which attracted indiscriminate bombing by American planes like wasps.Although she was considered unsinkable, after being hit by nineteen torpedoes and countless bombs in five air raids, she began to sink, falling behind the rest of the fleet, leaning more and more to one side, Hour after hour passed, and she continued to take the beating; toward sunset, she capsized and sank with half her crew on the bottom of the sea, and except once for a fight with some small planes, she never into battle.

It sucks.It was a heavy loss, but the main fleet, having weathered stormy seas before, remained strong enough to accomplish its task.It's just that there has been no news of Ozawa's fleet to lure the enemy.Will it just sail all the way to Leyte Bay without his support?It was clear that Halsey hadn't caught the trick; the plane that came to bombard him that day took off from the aircraft carrier.Kurita radioed for air cover, but was ignored. The Musashi died in agony, another cruiser was crippled, and other battleships suffered many bullet wounds: so far the losses of the day have been withstood, but this single pair of How long can it survive an air strike against a defenseless fleet against fifteen or twenty aircraft carriers?

At about four o'clock, Kurita ordered his ships to turn around and retreat westward, so that they would be farther away from Halsey's aircraft carrier, while remaining in the open ocean, where his captains could at least be able to maneuver in a slow and devious manner. They can dodge freely when traveling, but if they sail into the strait, they will lose their flexible maneuvering ability and become easy targets for attack.At this point he called again to Tokyo and Manila to report his damage.Manila did not reply.The air commander there had made up his mind to send his planes to attack the enemy's aircraft carriers, not to use them to cover Kurita's fleet.

Kurita's ship sailed aimlessly in a calm sea surrounded by towering emerald islands, the bombed-out Musashi out of sight but still counting on being able to run aground on the beach , "Become a land fort", and at this time Kurita felt that the "No. 1" combat plan had begun to fail.Attacks by planes and submarines disrupted the scheduled time.Besides, there was a lack of air cover.The strategy of luring the enemy will not work.However, he postponed entering the narrow waters until late in the evening, turned his course again, and headed for the San Bernardino Channel.While the fleet was advancing, he informed the southern fleet and ordered them to slow down and postpone the start of the attack on the strait for a few more hours.At this time, the Tokyo base camp seemed to be taking good care of him, and sent this order: "With the blessing of the gods, the whole army will make a sudden assault." Night once again shrouded the main fleet.Even in this situation, however, Kurita faced mounting dangers.Ahead is a narrow sea area densely covered with mines.Through the San Bernardino Straits, he had to line up his ships in column.Halsey's battleships and cruisers would surely be patrolling the entrance, waiting there to T-tactic and sink them one by one as his ships pulled out.In the Battle of the Tsushima Strait in 1905, the Japanese Navy used this tactic to defeat the Tsar's fleet and win the battle.Now Kurita was playing the part of the Russians in the campaign he had studied all his life, but he was cornered and had no other choice but to decide his own fate "by the grace of the gods". In the rear of the fleet, a crescent crescent gradually lowered in the dark Sibuyan Sea.Ahead, the Japanese command at Manila turned on the navigation lights for the San Bernardino Strait.The night sky is clear.On the bridge of the huge battleship "Yamato", Takeo Kurita issued a candid final emergency order to his officers and soldiers: At the risk of total annihilation, our fleet decided to break through to the berth and annihilate the enemy in one fell swoop .Fleets lined up in column, sailed into the narrow waters, and the whole army entered the battle position.Although after a day of hard work, the haggard-looking sailors boarded their gun positions at this time.They are handpicked sailors, all rigorously trained for night combat.Kurita believed they could beat the American troops ahead and would die in the service of the Emperor if the situation forced them to. At midnight, the moon went down.Half an hour later, in the starry darkness, the main fleet began sneaking out, ship by ship, between the capes of Luzon and Samar, into the silent expanse of the Philippine Sea.General Kurita could not see any movement ahead.The lookout posts on all his other ships were also out of sight.The radar scanned the sea fifty miles around, but found no enemy. Nothing happened!Not even a scout destroyer guarding the San Bernardino Strait! Surprised, Kurita rekindled hope, began to consider how to fight, and headed south along the coast of Samar Island to Leyte Gulf at full speed.He had to admit what he had witnessed.Due to some bizarre accident in the battle situation, Halsey left there, so that MacArthur had to be bombarded by the emperor's biggest guns.