Heroic Effort Paved Way for Victory in the Battle Off Samar

By DAVID F. WINKLER

If the battle for Surigao Strait, fought early on the morning of Oct. 25, 1944, ranks as one of the most decisive in American naval history, the engagement off Samar that occurred shortly thereafter rates as one of the most heroic.

Desperate to disrupt the American amphibious assault on the Philippine island of Leyte, the Japanese executed a complex plan to force many of their remaining surface warships into Leyte Gulf. As the sun rose on the 25th, two major engagements had already exacted a heavy toll on the Japanese fleet. The Americans had successfully parried a southern Japanese thrust through Surigao Strait. On the previous day, in the battle of the Sibuyan Sea, American Third Fleet aircraft ripped into the advancing battleships and cruisers of Vice Adm. Takeo Kurita’s First Striking Force, claiming the super-battleship Musashi.

Thinking that his aircraft had blunted Kurita’s passage toward San Bernardino Strait, the Third Fleet commander, Adm. William F. Halsey, turned his carrier task forces north to attack a Japanese carrier force led by Vice Adm. Jisaburo Ozawa. What Halsey did not realize was that Ozawa, with flight decks carrying few aircraft, aimed to decoy him away from Leyte Gulf. Alas, part of the complex Japanese plan seemed to be working.

Kurita’s force of four battleships, six heavy cruisers and van of destroyers surged forward through an unguarded San Bernardino Strait and then turned south to steam some 125 miles off the east coast of the island of Samar toward Leyte Gulf virtually undetected. At 0645, lookouts on the escort carrier USS Fanshaw Bay detected anti-aircraft fire to the north. An American aircraft finally had spotted the Japanese.

Fanshaw Bay was one of six escort carriers guarded by three destroyers and four destroyer escorts that together formed “Taffy 3,” one of three carrier groups stationed near Leyte Gulf to provide air cover to the landing force and troops ashore.

With the first salvos of heavy-caliber armor-piercing rounds falling around him, Taffy 3’s commander, Rear Adm. Clifton A.F. Sprague, turned his force east and ordered the carriers to their maximum speed of 17.5 knots to launch aircraft. Sprague hoped his pilots could buy time to allow him to get away.

Thinking he had stumbled upon a formation of American fleet carriers, Kurita positioned his ships into a circular formation designed to maximize air defense. Still having a speed advantage, Kurita gained on Sprague. A squall at 0705 shielded Sprague from Kurita’s gun crews, and he took advantage of the respite to turn his carriers southwest toward Leyte Gulf.

To slow the advancing Japanese, Sprague ordered his three destroyers to counter-attack. USS Johnston, commanded by Cmdr. Ernest Evans, engaged an oncoming column of cruisers and fired a torpedo that hit the cruiser Kumano. However, the Japanese punished the fearless tin can, and at about 0730 Johnston began taking hits. Despite serious damage, it continued to fire on the battleship Kongo and interfered with Japanese destroyers chasing after the carriers.

Meanwhile, the destroyer USS Heermann took on four battleships and fired a spread of torpedoes that forced the Yamato to reverse course for 10 minutes. Heermann’s sister ship, USS Hoel, received more than 40 hits and would eventually sink at 0855. Johnston would join her beneath the waves an hour later.

Destroyer escorts were not designed to engage capital ships, but they charged at the Japanese. After battling with several cruisers, USS Samuel B. Roberts was sunk. The heroic efforts of these smallboys, combined with continuous attacks by Navy aircraft, began to wear down Kurita’s force. Still, Japanese shells homed in on the escort carriers, and at 0907, USS Gambier Bay capsized. The escort carrier USS White Plains held its own in a gunfire exchange with the cruiser Chokai, with the enemy cruiser succumbing to air attacks. Other aircraft dispatched the cruiser Chikuma.

With the cruisers Tone and Haguro almost on top of Sprague’s flattops, at 0911 Kurita ordered his ships to regroup and eventually withdraw. His decision remains controversial in Japan to this day.

As the battle off Samar unfolded, the fourth component of what became known as the battle for Leyte Gulf took place to the north. Halsey’s planes eliminated the carriers Chitose, Chiyoda, Zuikaku and Zuiho from the Japanese order of battle. With the culmination of losses accrued during a four-day period, the Imperial Japanese Navy sustained a blow from which it would never recover.

Dr. David F. Winkler is a historian with the Naval Historical Foundation.

Source: Samuel E. Morison, The Two Ocean War, Little, Brown and Co., 1963.