Storm Over Leyte

by John Prados

  During that time, periodic gatherings of staff and skippers on the flagship had been devoted to sharpening naval skills practiced across the board. On August 16 Rear Admiral Koyanagi returned from Manila with directives for the Sho venture. A new senior staff officer accompanied him. Captain Yamamoto Yuji had survived Admiral Fukudome’s plane crash, which had wiped out many of the Combined Fleet staff. Now Yamamoto had been sent to the front, to the very unit sure to be the tip of the spear in the next sea fight. Revenge wafted on the air.

  Vice Admiral Ugaki, for one, felt relieved to have a plan, or, rather, a concrete operational policy. “Now we have something to study,” Ugaki told his diary. “It’s hard to ask us merely to keep on training when we have nothing to depend on as its basis. It’s essential still to hope for victory, whatever difficulty one may be in.”

  The most controversial aspect of the scheme continued to be the substitution of the Allies’ invasion forces—their transports—for their warships as targets. Kurita made the argument that if the Imperial Navy managed to destroy a convoy, the Allies would simply try again. But if Japan sank their fleet—in particular, their “task forces” (language Japanese officers used to refer to aircraft carriers)—the Allied offensive must halt at least long enough to replace the destroyed ships and planes.

  Before long, Admiral Ugaki expressed concern at the Sho plan’s contents. Ugaki had not liked the Z Plan, even with the modifications Toyoda and Ozawa had made for Marianas combat, and he felt the same way about Sho. A week after seeing the plan, he began to complain. Struck by the fact that the Second Fleet would not fight as part of a carrier unit, but act independently as a surface force, Ugaki felt the fleet commander took matters too lightly. He objected that Admiral Kurita had yet to craft any operational plan, or solve any ongoing problems, such as the transition to radar-controlled gunnery. Fleet war games aboard the Yamato early in September, followed by a September 6 review on flagship Atago, cemented all of Ugaki’s doubts. Ugaki’s was a simplistic view. The Sho plans fashioned a template to be applied against the Allied offensive wherever it came—anywhere along a perimeter of thousands of sea miles from the Philippines in the south to the Kuriles off northern Japan, not to mention the Home Islands themselves. Kurita felt it premature to lay down detailed operational plans before the Navy had a better idea of the precise Allied intentions.

  The admiral happened to be just one of those who expressed concern. When a Musashi officer said much the same thing, the behemoth’s skipper, Captain Inoguchi, reflected on the importance of engaging the Allies. Admiral Kurita himself, according to a chronicler of the battleship’s career, spoke up to provide an explanation. “The war is in its last stages,” Kurita declared. “Imperial Headquarters has decided that the Navy is not strong enough to fight a decisive battle with the enemy. That is why, as a last resort, they have opted for a surprise attack. Once the order has been given, all we can do is proceed as planned.”

  In the meantime, Admiral Kurita did work steadily to fix the myriad problems facing his fleet. At the very beginning of his sojourn around Singapore, he had bomb damage to battleship Haruna repaired, along with servicing the fleet flagship and other Second Fleet cruisers. The Imperial Navy had sent electronic technicians with radars, radios, and other new equipment to Singapore, and Kurita shuttled his units through that port and the Singapore naval base, where there were dry docks and specialists to install the new gizmos. That work went on until the very eve of battle.

  In addition, he was committed to keeping his officers happy. When the NGS ordered battleship Nagato shifted from Ugaki’s division to another, Ugaki begged Kurita to intercede. The division commander had served aboard that ship four times in his career, most recently just that spring when taking up the reins of Division 1. Admiral Kurita went to bat for him. The NGS reversed its decision.

  The fleet commander also paid careful attention to his sailors. When an outbreak of dysentery occurred aboard battleships Musashi and Haruna, Admiral Kurita was on top of that. During September, sumo wrestlers competed for best in the fleet. A Yamato petty officer won, beating five men in a row. Kurita gave the sailors liberty, too, with a bit of carousing in Singapore. The Nagato was detailed to transport groups of Ugaki’s men to Singapore for the shore leave. The last transit of the shuttle, returning just a couple of days before battle, brought back a contingent of very happy sailors.

  Aboard the Yamato, Ensign Kojima Kiyofumi, a newly minted communications officer, had his station on the ship’s bridge where a Talk Between Ships (TBS) radio was located. The Japanese adopted communications security measures similar to what Americans did with their Navajo code talkers. For the Imperial Navy this was a secret language, ingo, in which radiomen mixed com-room slang with predetermined words and phrases standing for naval terms, plus plain language. Ensign Kojima sent orders and passed reports from the other warships to Admiral Ugaki. He soon found himself able to identify every battleship and cruiser in Kurita’s armada.

  On September 9, Halsey’s carrier raids electrified, particularly on Mindanao and the Visayas. The following afternoon Admiral Ugaki was meeting staff and officers to plan a division maneuver when a Sho alert order arrived. Admiral Toyoda reported that U.S. carriers were striking and troops landing in the Philippines. Toyoda ordered Sho contingency 1. He directed the Fifth Fleet to assemble at Kure to operate with Ozawa’s carriers. Submarines were sent to the area. Admiral Teraoka, too important at the head of the First Air Fleet, had to withdraw to Manila, handing over to Rear Admiral Arima Masafumi of the 26th Air Flotilla.

  The emergency would be solved before dinner, but there were consequences. Reports of an invasion were false, the Japanese discovered, and the carrier raid was no more than that. Toyoda canceled his Sho 1 alert the next morning. But the C-in-C also decided to send his last available heavy unit, Vice Admiral Nishimura Shoji’s Battleship Division 2, from Empire waters to join the Kurita fleet, and he kept the Fifth Fleet concentrated in support of Ozawa’s carriers. As the Allies moved to invade Palau and Morotai, the orders to Japanese submarines were kept in place. Five subs headed toward the landing areas. Two were sunk.

  Meanwhile, at Lingga and Singapore, Admiral Kurita dropped plans for the usual exercises and practices. His fleet would stage a war game for the next battle and concentrate on preparing the ships for sea. The war game, held aboard the Yamato on September 14, featured the scenario of an Allied landing on Mindanao, and during the afternoon of September 18, there was a detailed briefing to senior officers on the Sho plan. Once again fleet commander Kurita was properly turning his sailors’ attention to final preparations for battle when this seemed to impend. Kurita was not taking it easy.

  That’s not Admiral Ugaki’s view, however. After the Sho briefing, Ugaki privately wrote, “How is it that the headquarters attack force, which is going to fight a decisive battle actually commanding the surface force, has no definite idea about answers to basic questions?” A couple of days later, Admiral Koyanagi and Captain Yamamoto of Kurita’s staff came aboard Yamato for a ceremony to honor recently deceased sailors. Afterward, Ugaki sat with the Second Fleet staff officers for a long talk. The battleship boss advocated an alternative to the single decisive battle, a policy of whittling down Allied strength. If there had to be a battle, Ugaki remonstrated, the object should be the Allied fleet itself, not its transports. On September 29, with senior staff officer Yamamoto at the point of leaving for Manila for another confab with Admiral Toyoda and the Combined Fleet crowd, Ugaki insisted on seeing the staff officer before he departed. The admiral repeated his litany. Captain Yamamoto agreed. After their previous conversation the captain had studied the matter. Now, Yamamoto said, he would make these points to Combined Fleet, but Ugaki was doubtful about whether Toyoda’s staff would change their views.

  In actuality, there was little space between Ugaki Matome and Kurita Takeo—much less than Ugaki thought. And that went for Kurita’s staff too. Koyanagi, who su
rvived the battle and lived to write about it, records, “Our one big goal was to strike the U.S. Fleet and destroy it.” Kurita’s staff felt that “the primary objective of our force should be the annihilation of the enemy carrier force and that the destruction of enemy convoys should be a side issue.” Koyanagi was the one who had posed the question of what to do if the fleet came upon carriers, from the very first high-level meeting, weeks before. Kami Shigenori had advised attacking carriers before going after transports. Indeed, Combined Fleet chief of staff Admiral Kusaka also expressed that he was in support of attacking carriers instead of transports, and the same is the case with Admiral Kurita. Nor was the fleet staff ignorant of concrete conditions in the battle zone. Koyanagi records that they had identified the most likely invasion locales in the southern, central, and northern Philippines—including Leyte Gulf—and “diligently” studied the approaches, navigational conditions, and topographical data for each one. The truth is that everyone on the Japanese side wanted to engage warships, not amphibious shipping. Kurita bore no responsibility here, nor did he fail to work out relevant details. The dictum came from on high from the IGHQ directives.

  Perhaps it reflected the price Japanese Army leaders exacted for agreeing to Sho. Not to have accompanied the targeting shift with a program to convince everyone of its military desirability remained a glaring weakness in Tokyo’s arrangements. For decades, the Imperial Navy had designed its warships and doctrines for a decisive battle against an enemy fleet, strategized for that, and practiced to destroy naval vessels. When they heard the words “decisive battle,” officers thought of enemy warships. To have that concept suddenly apply to transports, merchant ships, and landing craft was jarring—if not unthinkable.

  Thus, shifting the target to amphibious shipping meant asking sailors to rise above their training and experience. Admiral Ugaki’s expressions of dismay can be taken to stand for those of the entire naval officer corps.

  • • •

  ONE MAY LEGITIMATELY question what the Japanese were thinking when they calculated that targeting amphibious shipping would obtain superior results. After the war Admiral Toyoda told interrogators forthrightly that shipping had been the designated target. But the former C-in-C articulated no rationale for this tactical move.

  In the years since, participants have taken both sides of the question of which target offered the better damage potential. Back at the time of Guadalcanal, when Admiral Mikawa Gunichi had won the Savo Island battle, Allied resources had been so thin that eliminating the amphibious shipping—which Mikawa had failed to do—would indeed have set back Allied offensive action. But by late 1944, there were so many Allied ships that the loss of some of them in Leyte Gulf would hardly seem to matter. Not only that, but with the Allied forces successfully landed in Europe, there were now spare amphibious ships for the Pacific campaigns. Plus the shipbuilders were turning out new craft with incredible speed. Liberty ships, the main type of general cargomen, were coming off the ways in an average of twenty-four days. One had been built in just four (2,700 of these would be launched in the United States alone). The Landing Ship Tank (LST), the most versatile amphibious craft in the Allied armadas, was being built in little more than two months.

  The situation with respect to warships would be quite similar. Output from the American shipyards was staggering. During the last half of 1944, four new fast carriers and ten of the little “jeep” aircraft carriers joined the fleet. Newly commissioned destroyers amounted to nearly four-fifths of the total number of these craft in the Imperial Navy at that time. Three heavy and nine light cruisers sailed to war too. Only in battleships and battle cruisers were completions lacking.

  While Japanese intelligence did not have these exact numbers, they did have projections that showed anticipated increases in Allied warships. It is true that in these categories it took time to complete new vessels. And a decisive victory that wiped out the battleships with the U.S. fleet, along with perhaps some aircraft carriers, seemed more helpful to Tokyo’s cause, exactly as Imperial Navy officers believed. But the other side of the coin was that the Allied fleets could afford to trade that many ships against the Japanese and still win the war.

  Admiral Ugaki’s suggested recipe, “whittling” operations, seemed completely impractical. Whittling could be done only by pinprick attacks, either from ships or from planes. The experience in the Solomons had been that small units of Japanese ships were at a serious disadvantage. Given shrinkage of JNAF offensive capability, whittling appears unlikely from the air force side too. The idea works only if the exchanges are asymmetrical, such as a plane or two for a destroyer or aircraft carrier. One-for-one trades in types would merely lead to the annihilation of Japanese forces—and with the Imperial Navy already weaker, that simply led to defeat. Ugaki’s interest in whittling prefigured the suicide attack, or kamikaze, tactics already being advocated.

  But the fundamental point is that neither the formula that Admiral Ugaki and other officers favored, nor the one enshrined in the Sho directives, held much potential for an actual decisive victory. That did not stop Ugaki Matome from streaming stern criticisms, privately recorded. Ugaki had a reputation for humorlessness, and he was nicknamed the “Gold Mask” (ogon kamen). His diaries show someone who was obsessively critical. Indeed, this had been his tone throughout the war. Perhaps the dyspeptic attitude had something to do with the death of Ugaki’s wife, Tomoko, in April 1940. Perhaps he was simply cold by nature.

  • • •

  AT LINGGA, THE preparations continued, independent of any strategic doubts. The supply ship Kitakami Maru plied a regular route between Singapore and Lingga, provisioning the bigger warships. There were so many vessels that she was able to get to each only at roughly two-week intervals.

  In addition, work on the sinews of war continued apace. Cruiser Division 16, a mixed unit, headed to Singapore in order to be outfitted with modern electronics. Its flagship, heavy cruiser Aoba, needed her bottom scraped. The scout seaplanes belonging to battleships and cruisers were also going to be given radars, and Second Fleet staff arranged a rotation for groups of the floatplanes. Light cruiser Noshiro went into dry dock right after the arrival of Admiral Nishimura’s battleships.

  Late September brought a practice exercise with the battleships shooting better. Gunner Ugaki recorded himself as pleased. Admiral Kurita ordered a round of shore leave for the crews. Ugaki went along.

  On October 3, there was a brief moment of panic. The Musashi, entering Lingga anchorage, had a near-death experience—coming within inches of grounding on a drifted sandbar. She scraped bottom, sustaining minor damage. Sailors’ perturbation at the incident would be relieved by the arrival of Battleship Division 2 from Japan the next day. The captain of the Fuso dropped by and told Ugaki of conditions at home. Then Vice Admiral Nishimura Shoji showed up too and filled Ugaki in on the downfall of Prime Minister Tojo. Nishimura described Tokyo as plunged into gloom and the NGS as impotent.

  A couple of days later the destroyers Kishinami, Shimakaze, Okinami, Hamanami, and Fujinami of Destroyer Flotilla 2 left the roads. They worked with submarine RO-23 on an antisubmarine exercise. Crews aboard Yamato and Musashi took soot from the stack and made it the base for a camouflage coating they swabbed on the main deck.

  None of the sailors knew that the waiting had ended.

  WILL THEY OR WON’T THEY?

  Anchoring the fleet at Lingga put it very close to the oil that was produced at the Palembang fields on Sumatra. The location at Lingga was important, since Japanese authorities were experiencing tremendous difficulties moving oil. The situation with respect to fleet oilers and tankers directly affected the distance from its bases at which the Imperial Navy could engage. In 1941, the Pearl Harbor attack had been mounted—with some difficulty—at a range of more than 5,000 miles from Tokyo—nearly 4,000 from where the fleet actually sailed. The Midway operation took place 4,000 miles away too. But by the time of the Z
Plan, Combined Fleet calculated its operating range at about 2,500 nautical miles. The radius at which the fleet could engage diminished steadily.

  Critical fleet oilers sank in growing numbers. When the Big Blue Fleet struck the Japanese base at Truk early in 1944, several oilers went down. The carrier strike at the Palau base some weeks later blasted another five. Two oilers were smashed in the Marianas sea battle. Seven more tankers, including ones that Halsey’s carriers caught at Coron Bay during the late September strike, sank beneath the waves over the summer and into that fall.

  Allied intelligence was aware of the Kurita fleet’s location and speculated about its intentions. In the era before spy satellites and full-time global overhead coverage, one could be fooled. At anchor, Imperial Navy officers got their orders by word of mouth, on paper, or face-to-face—no radio communications were necessary. The Allies had less to work with. The radio spies possessed a marvelous array of instruments, but without photography as a check, their job was more or less a role of assumptions. A glaring example occurred early in October, when Vice Admiral Nishimura Shoji brought his Battleship Division 2 down from Japan to join the Kurita fleet. Nishimura sent a message informing the Second Fleet of his arrival. When the Allies deciphered this dispatch from a unit they knew to be part of the First Mobile Fleet, the Ozawa fleet, they briefly thought the Imperial Navy was reconstituting that formation. Within a day, skilled analysts had corrected the error, but the episode showed what could go wrong.

  Watching the Japanese merchant fleet—and Tokyo’s tanker situation more particularly—had become an important preoccupation for Allied intelligence. The Zoo at Pearl Harbor, OP-20-G in Washington, and the Seventh Fleet Intelligence Center with MacArthur all kept a close eye on shipping developments, and each of them produced periodic lists of Japanese shipping and losses. In Washington, a joint committee of Navy and Army experts assayed all reports of damage to enemy warships and merchant vessels and kept a running tally of the causes of enemy losses. At JICPOA, Jasper Holmes prodded the organization to create a “Maru center” (Japanese cargo ships, commercial or military, all had Maru in their names) to follow merchant shipping questions full-time. At both Pearl Harbor and Fremantle (in Australia), where MacArthur’s submarines were based, close coordination resulted in a broad flow of intel to the marauding pigboats, as the undersea craft were nicknamed. The intelligence authorities eventually convinced themselves they had exaggerated the losses among Japanese tankers. The code breakers noticed ships listed as sunk that were showing up in the message traffic. Mavens produced revised, higher estimates of Tokyo’s tanker tonnage.