by John Prados
Yap Island, 76, 78
Yasukuni Shrine, 347
Yawata, Kyushu, 33
Yeager, Seaman John, 124, 158, 262
Yogata, Commander Tomoe, 263
Yokosuka Air Group, 28, 192
Yokosuka Naval District, 27, 47, 126
Yonai, Admiral Mitsumasa, 30, 32, 33, 65, 69, 126–27, 175, 334
Yukikaze (destroyer), 229, 322
Yura (light cruiser), 126
Z Plan, 23, 35, 36, 97–99, 104, 111, 222–23
Zacharias, Ellis, 95
Zero fighters, 50–52, 56, 78, 79, 88, 89, 92, 135, 136, 140, 157, 158, 161, 191, 193–95, 257
Zero floatplane “Jake,” 54
Zoo, the, (Pearl Harbor), 73, 94, 97, 112–14, 139, 181–83, 255, 260
Zufall, Private Darwin C., 160
Zuiho (aircraft carrier), 56, 247, 265, 267–69
Zuikaku (aircraft carrier), 26, 56, 218, 258, 259, 261, 262, 265, 267–69
*U.S. official historian Samuel Eliot Morison writes the “two battleships” were the severed front and rear of the ship Fuso. Anthony Tully argues convincingly that this was not possible. Morison and Tully agree the ship was Fuso, which is significant because some recent accounts of Surigao Strait have reversed the identities of the two Japanese battleships.
* Lundgren plots Haruna headed almost directly east, with the Ugaki unit converging on a southeast heading. He also locates the Hoel ahead and to the east of both Japanese units, and moving to the southwest. This chart differs from long-standing accounts of these events, including those of Samuel Eliot Morison and James A. Field, who chart these events in the fashion described here. Lundgren uses his analysis to defuse Ugaki’s implicit anger at Kurita. But I believe Ugaki’s anger had the purpose of hiding his own responsibility.
*Only later did Americans begin calling this huge action the Battle of Leyte Gulf. In October 1944, alluding to the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot—aka the Battle of the Philippine Sea—the “second battle” nomenclature prevailed. Japanese commentators persisted much longer in using the Philippine Sea tag.
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