Storm Over Leyte

by John Prados

  Shima’s fleet had continued its nomadic life. American submarine Trigger reported it in the Pescadores; the radio spies had tracked Shima to Mako port, then followed the tankers sent to refuel him. OP-20-G reported when Shima finished taking on oil, and that he had asked Kurita to send a tanker to Coron Bay. There is no indication, however, that FRUPAC or SEFIC intercepted or detected any of the sequence of messages exchanged among admirals Toyoda, Mikawa, and Shima about the 2nd Diversion Attack Force’s mission. Japanese naval journalist Ito Masanori wrote in his postwar history of the Imperial Navy that Admiral Shima had led a “stepchild fleet,” and related how it had been repeatedly reassigned until it was finally thrown into battle.

  Because Shima’s warships were designated a regional fleet, the Combined Fleet controlled them directly, and when Shima anchored at Mako, Toyoda first put the Fifth Fleet under Mikawa’s command. However, the fleet’s original assignment, a Tokyo Express–type mission to get Army reinforcements to Leyte, didn’t pan out because the Army had no troops ready to transport. Thus the Mikawa and Toyoda debate over Shima’s mission. Shima took a hand too, proposing that he support the raid into Leyte Gulf. That became their focus. So sure of the outcome was Shima that he summoned captains to confer aboard flagship Nachi, where they drank toasts with sake the emperor had presented to the ship. Meanwhile the transport mission led to Shima losing nearly half his destroyers when a division of three ships went ahead to move JNAF ground crews and maintenance equipment.

  Shima’s force could have been put under Admiral Kurita, but Combined Fleet apparently reasoned that Fifth Fleet represented only a minor augmentation. It would not increase Kurita’s power by much, while at the same time requiring so much radio coordination the Japanese might tip their hand. Rear Admiral Takata Toshitane, senior staff officer, affirms that reasoning, adding that Kurita had finalized his plan. Incorporating Shima into it when Kurita was already preoccupied with sortie preparations might throw the entire scheme into confusion. This seems logical enough, except that Combined Fleet had not hesitated to improvise an air-only Sho or, for that matter, to suggest to Admiral Kurita that he change his operational concept and send Nishimura through the Surigao Strait.

  At midafternoon on October 21 Combined Fleet advised Southwest Area Fleet that it had approved Mikawa’s advice to support the Kurita fleet by means of an attack through Surigao Strait. Shima received instructions to proceed there and to coordinate with Nishimura. The latter, still with Kurita at Brunei, would lead the way into Surigao Strait.

  At the point when OP-20-G reported that Admiral Shima had asked for tankers at Coron Bay, his assignment had finally been settled. At noon on October 22, when Vice Admiral Nishimura had barely set out from Brunei, Shima, because of his abortive Tokyo Express mission, was already halfway to Manila. Nishimura’s anticipated schedule reached Shima only around sunset, with the Fifth Fleet nearing Coron Bay. Once he understood Nishimura’s plan and knew his itinerary, Shima designed his own mission: to follow at about a five-hour interval, in a position to exploit results obtained by both Nishimura and Kurita, whose delays were as yet unknown.

  In the morning, Nishimura received Shima’s dispatch stating his intentions (messages both ways seem to have been delayed by hours). At that point, Admiral Nishimura could have modified his sailing schedule to effect a rendezvous, but he did not. This signal from the Shima fleet is the only one known to have been sent, even though communications were Admiral Shima’s naval specialty. And yet, it is impossible to believe that Shima would have further altered his arrangements without transmitting that fact. By contrast, Nishimura proved to be good at updating colleagues, yet he never prodded Shima for better cooperation.

  Why Admirals Shima and Nishimura did not coordinate their plans better has consumed a great deal of ink over the years. Historian Anthony P. Tully dismisses the argument that Nishimura, the junior admiral, wished to avoid falling under Shima’s command, making the point that both men were subordinate to different chains of command (Nishimura under Kurita and Shima under Mikawa) and therefore not free to set their own rules. While that is a plausible explanation, in 1966, Kusaka Ryunosuke, the Combined Fleet’s chief of staff, told historian John Toland he had expected Shima to send Nishimura an order to wait for him. That would not have been possible unless their ranks did apply.

  Shima Kiyohide was a communications specialist and knew the importance of ample and timely information. Admiral Toyoda, as he had shown in the Taiwan air battle, did not fancy himself a micromanager, and the Sho operation had steadily gained complexities. Toyoda left these matters in the hands of his seagoing admirals. On the other hand, the Surigao Strait tentacle of the Japanese plan, a last-minute improvisation by Combined Fleet—both in Kusaka’s suggestion of a role for Nishimura and in its dickering with Mikawa over Shima’s mission—demanded more central coordination. An error occurred here.

  One possible explanation is that Shima wished to avoid the confusion that a rendezvous in the dark, in the presence of the enemy, could invite. And such confusion could be potentially disastrous. A second alternative emerges from Admiral Ugaki’s diary, where he speaks of Shima’s finally decided role as that of a “reserve” force. This suggests that the separation in space between the Nishimura and Shima flotillas may have been intended, at the time, by the Japanese high command, and not simply something Admiral Shima decided for himself.

  Another possibility, proposed by the noted military historian Hanson Baldwin and favored by other chroniclers of this action, such as Thomas Cutler, is that Shima and Nishimura were competitors who disdained each other. The men were classmates at Etajima, and the way that the Japanese naval academy structured its physical education and certain other technical programs required students to compete (and cooperate) in order to get ahead. Between 1917 and 1923, Nishimura had outranked Shima, but thereafter their positions had been reversed. Kusaka Ryunosuke speculated that that day in the Surigao Strait, Rear Admiral Nishimura reasoned to himself that he had the bigger force, so why put himself under someone else?

  Nishimura certainly did have a fierce streak, as Kusaka attests. The former was a couple of years ahead of Kusaka at the academy, where hazing rituals were commonplace. Freshman duties included weekend cleanups. Upperclassmen had a right to supervise. Nishimura decided Kusaka, who had gone to the bathroom, had been deficient. The upper-classman waited for Kusaka to emerge and then punched him two, perhaps three times. After Etajima, both officers served in the same gun room on the cruiser Yakumo, where they were good friends.

  Nishimura Shoji became an old salt, spending most of his Navy career at sea. Ozawa Jisaburo, who had commanded the younger officer when Nishimura had had a destroyer, and who later taught at the Naval War College when Nishimura arrived there as a special student, thought highly of him. So did the hypercritical Admiral Ugaki. Koyanagi recalled Nishimura as a lively person with a sunshiny face who enjoyed his duties and required little or no help. Kusaka saw him as possessing a one-track mind, inflexible perhaps, and stubborn, but honest. Commander Terauchi Masamichi, skipper of the destroyer Yukikaze, saw much of Nishimura, who trained many destroyermen. Terauchi recalled the admiral as gentle, and a gentleman too—rare in the Imperial Navy. Historian Tully quotes Lieutenant Ezaki Hisato, paymaster aboard Nishimura’s flagship, to the effect that his admiral was every inch a real warrior, with “something dignified and inaccessible in his bearing, but . . . warm-hearted and . . . very attractive.”

  The sunny disposition served Nishimura well, for in this war his lot had been a hard one, merely beginning with his son’s death. In December 1941, during the Japanese conquest of the Philippines, when the world was going another way, Nishimura’s was the only invasion force that suffered losses—in two successive operations. During fighting in Indonesia, when the Japanese took the Netherlands East Indies, Nishimura’s weak handling of his destroyer flotilla permitted American warships to gain a victory at the Battle of Makassar Strait. At
the Battle of the Java Sea, Nishimura’s flotilla had used up its torpedoes too soon and without effect. Not long after that, at Guadalcanal, as he gallantly led a division of heavy cruisers to bombard the Americans’ notorious Henderson Field, Nishimura’s gunners were so ineffective that U.S. planes rose with dawn to strike back, sinking seven transports and a light cruiser. Another Solomons cruise, in the summer of 1943, left him with two destroyers lost plus damage to heavy cruiser Kumano, especially painful to someone who had once commanded her.

  Now, crossing the Sulu Sea, Nishimura seemed to be out of luck again. A scout from carrier Enterprise found him. Battleship Yamashiro detected the planes by radar shortly before 9:00 a.m. Admiral Nishimura had the warning circulated by flag signal. Sister ship Fuso had no hesitation breaking out the special antiaircraft shells for her 14-inch guns. On cruiser Mogami, Captain Toma Ryo called his ship to action stations in the Japanese style by bugle over the PA system. Destroyer Asagumo brought more boilers on line for battle speed. Oddly enough, the lead ship of the escort, Destroyer Division 4’s Michishio, missed the warning and first learned of the threat when the battleships opened fire.

  The circumstances proved odd all around. The scouts were from Rear Admiral Davison’s Task Group 38.4. They had been in tough actions pretty continuously throughout the campaign. Air Group 20 from the Enterprise had had its worst day ever on October 18 over Manila, losing fifteen planes and six pilots. The carriers were headed for Ulithi and some rest when Bull Halsey summoned them, and the searches that morning were at maximum range—375 miles. They were also “heavy”—rather than the usual three or four aircraft, the Big E and the Franklin each put up a pair of scout units composed of half a dozen dive-bombers escorted by eight fighters. Lieutenant Raymond E. Moore led the unit that discovered Nishimura. Another search-strike group led by Commander Robert E. Riera, the Bombing 20 squadron commander, flew a nearby vector. He would join in upon notice. Moore sent the contact report and waited for Riera to come up. Once he did they made an immediate attack.

  The squadron commander had his crews climb to 15,000 feet and roll in from there. To have an Imperial Navy formation like that in his sights was “something you dream about as a dive bomber pilot,” recalled Ensign Robert J. Barnes. “The anti-aircraft was terrific.”

  A scout mission limited ordnance to, at most, 500-pound bombs, which could not seriously injure Nishimura’s big ships, though they could wound a destroyer. Commander Riera dived on flagship Yamashiro, while Lieutenant Moore led the attack on the Fuso. Riera claimed hits on both battleships, which was not quite accurate. The flagship sprang leaks from near misses and twenty sailors were killed. Rear Admiral Ban Masami’s Fuso got the more serious damage. One bomb impacted abaft number two turret, destroying a dual-purpose secondary gun mount. Belowdecks some seams opened and water seeped in, gradually becoming a serious threat. A second hit on the quarterdeck ignited aviation gas, incinerated floatplanes, and destroyed the wardroom just below. Admiral Ban had to put his battleship into a turn so the wind could blow smoke and flames away from the ship. Cruiser Mogami sustained minor damage to her plane-handling deck—her most recent refit had converted her to an aviation-cruiser like the Chikuma. Destroyers were attacked, but none incurred any serious damage. The worst danger for destroyer Shigure came from the Fuso, whose deck fire sent flames flaring toward the smaller warship. One bomb grazed her number one turret but bounced and exploded in the sea.

  The sole American loss was Fred Bakutis, skipper of the Big E’s fighter squadron, who had been leading the escort. His Hellcat, raked by flak, lost gasoline and he had to ditch. But Commander Bakutis would be rescued days later by the submarine Hardhead.

  • • •

  ADMIRAL NISHIMURA PRESSED on, seemingly unconcerned. Soon after the attack he set formation electronic watch patterns. An hour later Nishimura informed Admiral Kurita of the attack, pronouncing his own fighting ability unimpaired. Anthony Tully assesses the damage to the Japanese battleships as “far more than credited” in most accounts. But here Nishimura Shoji experienced a burst of good luck. Having gotten in a solid lick against him, Task Force 38 turned to confront the Kurita fleet. Bill Halsey felt confident that Kinkaid’s Task Force 77 could handle the Nishimura unit, which he believed heavily damaged. But, as per General MacArthur’s plan, Task Force 77 focused on air defense of Leyte Gulf and support for the troops on the ground.

  Early in the morning, even before Nishimura had been spotted, there was a succession of Japanese stabs at Leyte, perhaps 150 sorties in all. None inflicted serious damage, but the hunting that day would be the best of the war for the air groups. Rear Admiral Thomas Sprague headed Task Group 77.4, the escort carrier flotilla, and the pace of the Japanese attacks obliged him to suspend combat air support for MacArthur’s troops on Leyte at one point. But that would be all the Japanese accomplished—except that, contrary to Halsey’s expectations, Sprague had no forces to spare for the Nishimura unit or Shima fleet, now starting to come in behind it.

  The tale of the diverted escort carrier air effort suggests what JNAF might have accomplished to support the Japanese surface fleet had it avoided the Battle of Taiwan.

  Meanwhile Admiral Nishimura passed between Negros and Mindanao islands in the early afternoon and expected to enter the Mindanao Sea, which leads to Surigao Strait, at about 8:00 p.m. His floatplane reconnaissance, launched from Mogami, returned a report from Leyte Gulf that revealed how impossible this mission would be. The report credited the Allies with 4 battleships—twice as many as had Nishimura—a couple of cruisers, 4 destroyers, 15 aircraft carriers, and 14 PT boats. And the aircrew had undercounted wildly—Seventh Fleet’s true strength included 6 battleships, 5 heavy and 3 light cruisers, 26 destroyers (plus several destroyer-escorts), and 39 of the pernicious PT boats. The battleships, cruisers, PT boats, and 20 of the destroyers would deploy with Oldendorf into Surigao Strait.

  During the afternoon, while under way, Nishimura gathered his captains aboard the Yamashiro for a final massaging of plans. The officers affirmed their dedication to the mission. Their admiral worried about a torpedo ambush from PT boats or destroyers as his battleships entered the narrow strait, and to counter that threat, Nishimura decided to have the Mogami plus his own destroyers sweep ahead as his battleships neared the Surigao.

  Vice Admiral Shima, meanwhile, had gained two hours on his schedule and steamed about 100 miles behind the Japanese battleships. Admiral Shima thought he had not been seen, which happened to be untrue, but like Nishimura, in this instance he proved lucky. A long-range 5th Air Force scout from Morotai filed a contact report on Shima just before noon, but the same plane later saw Nishimura, and its follow-up reports seem to have confused the two Japanese units.

  Admiral Thomas Kinkaid received the second report at about 2:15 p.m., shortly before the Seventh Fleet commander confirmed his final arrangements for receiving the Japanese inside the Surigao. His action message half an hour later to Rear Admiral Jesse Oldendorf put Japanese strength at two battlewagons—accurate enough—but went on to enumerate eight cruisers (four heavy, four light) and ten destroyers. Nishimura and Shima combined had half that strength in big ships, and fewer destroyers. Kinkaid also anticipated the Japanese were running a Tokyo Express–type mission, as he revealed in a 3:43 p.m. dispatch informing Halsey of the latest developments, which called the Nishimura force a “PROBABLE ENEMY LANDING FORCE IN CONVOY.”

  So it would be the fifty-seven-year-old Oldendorf who led the slaughter of the Nishimura unit in Surigao Strait. Heavy cruiser Louisville, the flagship, happened to be rearming from an ammunition vessel when the word came down: Deploy a large force in narrow waters to meet an enemy who must transit in column, while you put your battle line across his path. Put cruisers on the flanks and destroyers along the edges to make torpedo attacks. It was a dream assignment, and Oldendorf carried out his orders perfectly, setting the formation to “cross the T” on the oncoming Nishimura. Oldendorf s
tationed PT boats farther down the strait to report the approaching enemy and attack them in passing.

  This night would be the ultimate revenge for the events at Pearl Harbor. Five out of six of Oldendorf’s battleships had been sunk or badly damaged on December 7, 1941. Now every one of them, refloated, repaired, or refurbished, would be in the battle line to smite the Japanese. Late in the day, the warships began moving into position. The only difficulties they had were instrumental ones. For example, Lieutenant Commander J. D. White Jr., navigator of the battleship Maryland, possessed only old charts for the strait—ones that had not been corrected in many years. Whatever recent obstructions there might be, no one knew. The Maryland drew an average of thirty-four feet of water, so there were places she could not go. Similarly, Captain Herbert V. Wiley’s battleship West Virginia actually touched an underwater obstruction with one screw. She would eventually have to go far into the South Pacific, to Espíritu Santo, for repairs.

  Nishimura’s flotilla, still nearly 200 miles away, passed between Negros and Mindanao as the Allied fleet took position. Captain Toma’s Mogami and the Japanese destroyers began speeding up, maneuvering to get ahead of the battleships and slot into their scout mission. The cruiser’s navigator, Commander Murokawa Takeyoshi, rose to the challenge of plotting a course to take the scouts through the dangerous waters off Panaon Island without obscuring the battleships’ fields of fire. This would have been the moment when Admiral Nishimura learned that the Kurita fleet, heavily attacked, had reversed course in the Sibuyan Sea. Paymaster Ezaki—who was on the compass bridge with Nishimura, his chief of staff, Rear Admiral Ando Norihide, and the Yamashiro’s skipper, Rear Admiral Shinoda Katsukiyo—recalls none of the commotion that would surely have followed such news.