by John Prados
Predictably, the move to new quarters ended up happening at exactly the moment of the big battle. Fishburn spent the first day in the back of a Marine mobile radio truck FRUPAC used to keep the intercept work going even with the regular receivers unplugged. Then he settled into a chair at a new receiver table. The petty officer stayed glued to the 7,910-kilocycle frequency the Imperial Navy employed. “It just operated all day long,” he recalled. “It was just one ship after another.” The spooks were fond of comparing notes on traffic volume and urgency—and this day was right up at the top.
The Japanese were up to something, and the indications mounted steadily. On October 18, it became clear from transmissions of Japanese intelligence reports that the enemy were aware of the move against Tacloban on Leyte. JNAF plane movements converged on Kanoya Air Base, the first link in the chain from the Empire to the Philippines. In a message the morning of the nineteenth, Combined Fleet’s Kusaka revealed tanker movements toward Coron Bay and others with a convoy from Hong Kong to Mako, the latter specifically linked to fuel for the Shima fleet. The next night came a message from Ozawa, sent so as to disguise the originator, and it took the form of an operation order and went for information to all the Imperial Navy commands participating in Sho.
By the time JICPOA assembled its Ultra summary for the day, the radio spies reported “good indications” that Ozawa was at sea and headed for the Philippines. Around 10:30 p.m. on the twentieth, a radio fix—which was admittedly “poor”—located one of the Mobile Fleet units at a specific location. In fact, the Mobile Fleet had steamed out of base in the Empire only three hours earlier. Submarine Trigger saw Admiral Shima’s 2nd Diversion Attack Force in the Taiwan Strait, as FRUPAC reported at 5:15 p.m. on the twentieth. The size of his Fifth Fleet force would be slightly exaggerated, but the radio spies clearly linked the move with the tanker convoy approaching Mako, concluding that Shima would refuel there. When the Japanese base at Mako sent extra escorts to help bring in the tankers, the radio spies were on top of that too, and a FRUPAC dispatch just after 1:00 a.m. on October 22 alerted the Allies that the tankers were under submarine attack.
The radio spies missed some key events of October 22, however, while they were recording others. That morning, for instance, the Zoo warned that the Second Air Fleet and the T Air Attack Force had been ordered to the Philippines. That evening JICPOA reported a dispatch from a detached element of Kurita’s fleet—without doubt Nishimura’s battleships headed for Surigao—regarding where their floatplanes should shelter. The following day the Zoo noted that submarine and aircraft had, for the moment, supplanted Ultra in furnishing the best picture of Japanese locations and intentions, making an example of the Ozawa fleet, which kept radio silence and had not shown up in the day’s traffic. By then, Kurita Takeo could have said volumes about subs.
TORPEDOES IN THE NIGHT
The Kurita fleet sailed from Brunei at eight o’clock in the morning on October 22—one event FRUPAC missed. The admiral appreciated the clouds that hampered Allied scout planes. Slightly after noon Kurita turned the fleet to a course just west of north to make the track off Palawan, and he altered at 6:00 p.m. to his final course. The fleet varied speed between sixteen and eighteen knots, alternating zigzag patterns, and for part of the day avoided zigzagging. Kurita’s course took him near where an Allied submarine, based on radio observations, was believed to be located. Several more were overheard on the radio. The sequence suggested a sub might actually be trailing Kurita. Jumpy lookouts reported periscopes. Around 9:00 p.m. light cruiser Yahagi made an emergency turn and fired a red flare, signaling a sub contact. Admiral Kurita considered these imponderables. The truth, about to blast the hull of his flagship, lay submerged right ahead.
Commander David H. McClintock skippered the American sub Darter. He led a mini-unit with another boat, Commander Bladen D. Claggett’s Dace, which clever sailors dubbed the “Double D’s.” They were on patrol between Palawan and the shoal area known as the “Dangerous Ground.” The boats, based in Australia, had been at sea for several weeks, and Claggett had already claimed two merchantmen from a Japanese convoy. McClintock had detected and chased Admiral Sakonju’s cruiser division but had not been able to get a good attack position. This night, McClintock had both boats riding on the surface, barely under way, signaling by lamp and megaphone to preserve radio silence. He contemplated heading home. But then, at 1:16 a.m., McClintock’s radar detected a gaggle of large ships, which resolved into two (actually three) columns of the Kurita fleet. The senior skipper passed the word to Claggett and both pursued the quarry.
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Admiral Kurita’s warships were making sixteen knots, zigzagging. McClintock’s subs dashed from their port side, doing nineteen on the surface on a straight course, scrambling to get out in front. The chase went on for hours since McClintock wanted to strike from ahead—and from underwater. He sent a contact report, then two more, estimating at least eleven heavy ships (there were actually fifteen).
Aboard the Yamato radio operators overheard an urgent submarine report at 1:50 a.m. At about 4:30, Darter’s crew went for coffee; then Commander McClintock sent them to battle stations. He dived the boat, taking the Darter deep to check depth and water density, then brought her back to periscope depth. Bearing down on him, flagship Atago led the closest column of Japanese ships. Right behind her steamed heavy cruiser Takao. McClintock took quick glances through his periscope, describing what he saw to the sub’s exec, Lieutenant Commander Ernest L. Schwab. They set up torpedo firing solutions. The skipper planned to fire all six bow torpedo tubes, then swing the boat around to unleash the four tin fish in his stern tubes. He estimated the distance to target to be about 3,000 yards. Clocks registered about 5:30 a.m.
Suddenly the Japanese warships turned in a zig. The Darter needed to establish the new course and recalculate the solution. McClintock realized the enemy had turned toward him. He would be able to use torpedoes at point-blank range, less than 1,000 yards. The submariner could see a signal lamp blinking from the Atago’s bridge as he loosed his first fish. McClintock went through his sequence, then turned and emptied the stern tubes.
The sound of explosions was unmistakable, but crewmen were uncertain whether they were depth charges or torpedoes. McClintock thought torpedoes. He would never forget what he saw when he turned the periscope back to look at the Atago. “She was a mass of billowing black smoke from the number one turret to the stern. No superstructure could be seen. Bright orange flames shot out from the side along the main deck from the bow to the after turret. Cruiser was already down by the bow, which was dipping under. . . . She was definitely finished.”
From the Japanese perspective, disaster immediately overwhelmed the flagship. Rear Admiral Araki Tsutau, noticing his heavy cruiser had begun listing to starboard, ordered counterflooding of the port engine and boiler rooms, accepting that would mean a shipwide loss of power. Araki ordered full right rudder, but without electricity the rudder could not function. Then telephones died, and engineer officer Commander Domen Keizo could do nothing.
Four of the Darter’s torpedoes had struck home. One, near the bow, merely damaged storerooms, but the second strike hit the number one boiler room, broke steam lines, started fires, and opened the vessel’s seams. Junior officers’ quarters began to flood. The number six boiler room caught the third hit, with such force that the bulkhead buckled between it and the adjacent boiler room and the flames roared through. Above it lay one of the cruiser’s torpedo mounts. Its own fish had to be jettisoned, save for one that stuck and threatened to ignite from the heat. The last torpedo hit with the ship’s list already increased to thirty-two degrees, flooding the aft generator room, shorting out transformers, filling a propeller shaft, and sending a muck of seawater and oil through the crew’s quarters.
There could be no question of saving the Atago. She sank in just eighteen minutes. Commanders ba
rely had time to summon destroyers Kishinami and Asashimo to take off the crew. Radiomen did have the time necessary to destroy Atago’s code machines and lock most secret material securely in spaces beneath the waterline. Remaining communications material would be sealed in weighted sacks and thrown overboard.
When sailors were summoned topside, water had begun pouring into the number five turret, killing crewmen there, and the list increased to fifty-four degrees, more than halfway toward leaving the cruiser on her beam ends. Admiral Kurita and his staff decamped amid this disaster, swimming to the Kishinami. Kurita was among the first over the side. Amazingly, skipper Araki managed to save 43 officers, 667 petty officers and sailors, and 2 civilians. Commander Domen was not among them, nor were 18 other officers and 340 men. Kurita later sent a destroyer back to ensure that none of those sacks of classified documents had survived. None were found.
Behind the flagship, heavy cruiser Takao suffered two torpedo hits. These opened large gashes in the ship’s hull, but the wounds were less grievous and Captain Onoda Sutejiro’s damage-control efforts were more successful. Though the engines stopped, the steering was lost, and the ship listed to the starboard side, Onoda was able to right the vessel, and the crew restored power and steerage. Only 33 sailors were killed and another 30 injured. Destroyers Asashimo and Naganami stood by, mounting depth-charge attacks on the Darter. The Asashimo rescued 5 sailors who were thrown overboard by the explosions. Combined Fleet sent the Mitsu Maru and torpedo boat Hiyodori from Brunei to assist.
Meanwhile, on the other flank Commander Claggett’s Dace got in her own knocks. The boat had used up the fish in her stern torpedo room in previous operations. Claggett listened to the sounds of the Darter’s battle with the enemy until 5:54 a.m., when the opposite flank column of warships entered his danger zone. Claggett thought he had a Kongo-class battleship; she was actually Captain Oe Ranji’s heavy cruiser Maya. The Dace loosed half a dozen torpedoes. Four of them hit, and the Maya began to break up almost immediately, capsizing in just seven minutes. Under the circumstances, it is astonishing that 769 sailors—more than 70 percent of the crew—were saved. Much of that had to do with destroyer Shimakaze, which reacted immediately and closed with the hapless cruiser, so that sailors could begin evacuating down makeshift gangways. The 29 seriously wounded men were sheathed in bamboo carriers. Fortunately the sea was calm.
At a certain point, the Darter, convinced the Japanese counterattacks were only going through the motions, returned to periscope depth. Commander McClintock found the Takao immobile, with assisting ships around her. Late in the day she seemed to come to life. If he got another crack, the submariner thought, he might finish her off. Bladen Claggett was of the same mind. In daylight, Japanese destroyers fended off their attempts to maneuver. The next night McClintock, seeing Takao had gotten under way, still slowly, decided to run in on the surface. The Dangerous Ground lived up to its name. Darter suddenly stuck fast on a reef known as Bombay Shoal. Hours of efforts failed to dislodge the boat. Commander Claggett abandoned his pursuit of the Takao to come to the rescue of McClintock and his crew.
After dawn, a JNAF scout found the two subs and identified one as hard aground. At that point the Dace, full with two crews, had to flee. Once the Takao neared Brunei, Captain Onoda sent Naganami and Hiyodori back to see what they could find. The intelligence taken from the boat included blueprints, instruction books, ordnance items, communications procedures, and radio and radar material. American sailors had destroyed their code materials, so the take lacked the dimension of the equivalent Japanese loss of sub I-1 off Guadalcanal in 1943, but it still amounted to a windfall for the Imperial Navy.
Tokyo paid a stiff price for the intel, however.
• • •
IT WOULD TAKE hours for Admiral Kurita to transfer to another warship after the Atago debacle. During the transfer, command was entrusted to the outspoken, strident Ugaki Matome.
At the moment of the torpedo attack Ugaki had been standing on Yamato’s bridge, in the column behind the Chokai. The fleet had been making a simultaneous turn. Off the port bow, against the lightening horizon of dawn, Ugaki suddenly saw flames, explosions, and a waterspout. At first, he thought a destroyer had been hit. “They’ve done it!” was his unthinking response. A lookout asked if Cruiser Division 4 had been attacked—that brought Ugaki back to reality. Both the victims were from that unit. Admiral Ugaki went outside on the port wing of the bridge structure. He saw the Takao dead in the water belching white smoke, and—horrors—the fleet flagship listing, heavily damaged, and suddenly afflicted by what seemed an internal explosion.
Ugaki heaved a sigh of relief once he learned that Admiral Kurita had made it to destroyer Kiyoshimo, but in the meantime, he took charge of the Second Fleet. That was a simple matter—he outranked the senior officers present and received orders to that effect at 8:30 a.m. Admiral Ugaki immediately ordered the Second Fleet to battle speed—twenty-four knots—even though Kurita had been maintaining a fleet speed of eighteen. It meant considerable strain on machinery and high fuel expenditure. The fleet had to clear submarine waters, Ugaki thought; it could not be helped. Later he would reduce the speed slightly.
Torpedoed, the Maya disappeared. When the smoke cleared, the warship had already gone. That stunned Ugaki. He believed he could see where the torpedoes had originated and thought if Yamato had been situated just a little differently, the superbattleship would have taken three or four torpedoes. That kind of thinking soon had grave repercussions. Ugaki thought there were four enemy submarines—he, too, was prone to exaggeration—and that he saw a periscope in the minutes after the torpedo strikes.
The admiral informed Combined Fleet, Mikawa at Manila, and Admiral Ozawa at sea of the disaster that had befallen the 1st Diversion Attack Force. Ugaki indicated that he would continue the operation. Destroyers Shimakaze and Naganami had meanwhile rescued many crewmen. At midafternoon the rescue destroyers discharged their passengers. Shimakaze and Naganami sent surviving sailors of the Maya to superbattleship Musashi.
Before sailing, Kurita had wanted to wear his flag in one of the superbattleships, but Admiral Toyoda forbade it. Senior staffer Yamamoto Yuji and Ugaki’s top staff officer, Captain Noda Rokuro, had made a study of the best vessel for fleet flagship, and both had agreed that would be the Yamato. Ugaki hated the idea. But Combined Fleet anticipated a night surface battle, according to Kurita’s chief of staff, and the Imperial Navy had always considered the heavy cruiser the key ship for that sort of action. So Kurita stayed on the Atago.
Now he had to move. Survivors included Vice Admiral Kurita and his staff. The Kishinami deposited them aboard Yamato. Kurita resumed fleet command, also supervising Battleship Division 1. Ugaki Matome complained to his diary that Kurita had had a secret desire to lead the big ships—a wish that would now come true under the worst imaginable circumstances. It appears that battleship leader Ugaki permitted his resentment of Kurita Takeo to run wild. That would have consequences.
Discharging her cargo of hapless survivors, the Shimakaze rushed to catch up. She was a big destroyer, at 3,600 tons the biggest in the fleet, but at forty knots Shimakaze was also the fastest. She bent on speed now. Commander Doi Hiroshi’s vessel rejoined the formation as the sun set.
By 9:30 p.m. Admiral Kurita had the fleet headed due east, passing Mindoro. It entered the Sibuyan Sea at 6:00 a.m. on October 24. Kurita ordered his Second Fleet into ring formations suited for antiaircraft action. Yamato took the center position in the lead unit. Surrounding her was a ring made up of cruisers, plus the other ships of Battleship Division 1, with a ring of destroyers outside them. The second formation followed about seven miles behind, with battleship Kongo at its center, the Haruna and other cruisers for the inner ring, and destroyers along the outer perimeter.
American scouts soon found the Kurita fleet. The Japanese logged this at 7:30 a.m. Kurita expected action. He would not be disappointed.
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bsp; “FIRST AIR FLEET IS TO PROVIDE
LAND-BASED AIR COVER”
What chance the Japanese had to protect the fleets headed for Leyte resided with their air forces. The action started poorly on October 17, when air fleet commander Teraoka could scrape up just a baker’s dozen of airplanes to harass Leyte Gulf. Only one came back to Clark Field. A few landed elsewhere due to bad weather or mechanical troubles.
On the morning of the invasion, at least one plane would be shot down in front of MacArthur’s staff. That afternoon the 331st Air Group managed to launch a pair of Jill strike aircraft. The Japanese claimed to sink a transport when actually the light cruiser Honolulu received a torpedo hit, and the Louisville a couple of near misses. The sixty sailors lost aboard the “Blue Goose,” as crewmen knew the Honolulu, astonishingly were the first casualties the ship had suffered in the whole war, even though she had been at Pearl Harbor and in countless battles, and even torpedoed in one of those fierce naval scraps in the Solomons.
The JNAF turned its focus the next day, October 21, to the escort carriers. The Sangamon suffered slight damage from a partially detonating bomb. Another “jeep” carrier endured near misses.