After 14 minutes, Oldendorf replied, "What you just passed on has been approved." In Oldendorf's view, the enthusiasm of his subordinates to take the initiative to ask for war could not be easily extinguished. Moreover, he also believed that with Halsey guarding the San Bernardino Strait, as long as he could blockade the Surigao Strait, he would ensure that the Gulf of Leyte was safe, and that there were more or fewer destroyers there was no big problem.
Merts
After the application for participation in the war was approved, the overjoyed Coward immediately reported his operational concept to the leaders: "I plan to divide the 5 destroyers into two groups, the first group of 2 ships, the second group of 3 ships, separated on the east and west sides, do you accept this plan?" Oldendorf quickly called back in approval. In fact, he did not have much hope for an attack by torpedo boats and destroyers, only that they could accurately find out the location of the enemy ships. As for the end of the enemy fleet, it must eventually be done by the cruisers and battleships behind. Koward, who was in charge of the "Rimi", then led five destroyers, including the "McGowan", "McDermott", "Monson", and "Melvin", to the south at a speed of 30 knots, leaving the "McNeil" and "Mertz" to continue their vigilance missions around The Island of Homonhor and Cape Deselaschen at the north exit of the Strait.
USS Monson
Coward is by no means alone in the fight. MacArthur's choice of the Nashville as its flagship made the ship's captain, Colonel Charles Kony, extremely depressed and stressed. Once MacArthur made a mistake, he Would surely make a name for himself. MacArthur was still disobedient, dangling around the deck every day, signing autographs for sailors who adored him. Seeing that the battle was about to begin in the Surigao Strait, Kony, who was eager to enter the battle, dared to find MacArthur and gently offered to let him take the commander members out of the Nashville so that he could participate in the battle lightly. Old Mai refused, "I don't want to leave your battleship, Mr. Colonel." I haven't seen a naval battle in my life. I thought, this might be my only chance in this life, so I'm not going to leave your battleship. You can go to war whenever you want. ”
Frustrated, Kony had to ask Kincaid for help. Kinkayd also believed that MacArthur should not stay on a light cruiser that was about to enter the war, so he graciously invited him to take Kenny and the members of the command to his flagship, the Vasatcher, because Lieutenant General Kruger's Sixth Army Command had been on the ship before. MacArthur was furious: "What? Transfer me from a battleship to a merchant ship? Don't go! Resolutely not to go! MacArthur is also saying that the command ship Vasatcher was indeed converted from a merchant ship. Although Kincaid, Kony, and MacArthur's staff did not want the Supreme Commander to take unnecessary risks, MacArthur refused to make any concessions and refused to leave. Embarrassed, Kinkade had to order Kony: "Stop there, don't anchor." Then he led the other warships south. Now old Kim's family is solid enough that he doesn't care if he lacks a light cruiser.
Melvin
Off the coast east of Samar, Colonel Fitzhue Lee, captain of the second unit of the Fourth Group of task force Seventy-seventh (codenamed 'Tafi II') and the escort aircraft carrier Using Manila Bay, had been monitoring radio communications for a full day. He knew that a Japanese fleet to the south was trying to cross the Surigao Strait, that General Kincaid had mobilized a large number of battleships, cruisers, destroyers, and torpedo boats to meet them, and that Leyte Gulf was much more empty than ever. He also knew that the Japanese carrier fleet had been spotted in the north, and that General Halsey was leading the powerful Third Fleet north to intercept the approaching threat. But he never imagined that the San Bernardino Strait, not far to the north, would open its doors, and the deadly threat was constantly approaching.
After a round of air raids in the morning, nishimura's fleet continued its journey toward the Surigao Strait, and the afternoon voyage was smooth. It was getting dark, and by 18:15 the Nishimura Fleet had reached the southern tip of Negros Island, about to enter the narrow waters of the large islands to the north and south. At 19:00, Nishimura received the "God Bless" telegram from General Toyota at 18:13. Like Kurita, Nishimura did not need Toyota's urging at all, and resolutely led the fleet forward. Judging from the information he had, it should be difficult for the middle fleet to break into Leyte Gulf in the morning of the agreed 25th. At 20:13, Nishimura called Kurita: "Our department will arrive at the waters of the Dara Valley (a village in the eastern part of Leyte) at 4 a.m. on the 25th. ”
USS McDermott
At 20:20, Kurita received a telegram from Nishimura. With a lot of time wasted during the day dealing with air raids and U-turns, Kurita expected the fleet to arrive in Leyte Gulf about 5 hours later than originally planned. Given the weakness of Nishimura's fleet, Kurita decided to join him and then attack at the same time. At 21:45, Chief of Staff Koyanagi sent a telegram to Nishimura: "Our unit will cross the San Bernardino Strait at 1 o'clock on the 25th, and then go south along the east coast of Samar Island, and break into the anchorage of Leyte Gulf at about 11 o'clock." After breaking into Leyte Gulf as scheduled, your unit joined the main force at 9 o'clock on the 25th at 18 km northeast of SuluAn Island. ”
The original text of The Little Willow Telegram is like this. Lucky enough to survive the war, Koyanagi never gave any explanation for the telegram, did he and Kurita really think that nishimura's fleet would be able to break through the Surigao Strait into Leyte Gulf, where they could wait for hours to join the main force? It is possible that Kurita and Koyanagi had given up the idea of joint operations, and the telegram was merely a briefing on the situation of the main fleet. In other words, the Second Fleet has lost the ability to command the Nishimura Fleet, so let's make a living.
McGowan
To be sure, Nishimura received a telegram from Koyanagi. However, he did not order a slowdown, but resolutely drove his small fleet to rush toward the Surigao Strait, where the American army was heavily ambushed in the north. It is concluded that nishimura received the telegram as evidence that Nishino Shosa, the surviving captain of the "Shiyu" after the war, also listened to Kurita's telegram. He noticed that Nishimura had not ordered a slowdown and was still approaching as planned. As captain of a small destroyer, Nishino didn't know what Nishimura was thinking at the time. He speculated that Nishimura was afraid of american air raids across the strait during the day, and tried to use the cover of the night to carry out a breakthrough. But Nishino knew that the chances of survival of the fleet would continue to decrease. As a famous "Shosui ship" in the Japanese Navy, Nishino hopes that the "Shiyu" will continue its previous good luck in the upcoming test.
There is no doubt that Nishimura's actions have gone against the original plan to attack Leyte Gulf from north to south. As a professional soldier whose vocation was to obey orders, he had no reason to do so. Later, some people tried to defend Nishimura, for example, he may not have known the specific movements of Kurita's fleet and Ozawa's fleet, so he could not make changes based on the actions of large troops; or Nishimura learned that Kurita was fighting in the Sibuyan Sea and decided to break in early to distract the American army. There is some truth to these claims. With such a complex route, such a long distance between the two sides, and constant snippets by the U.S. military, even if Nishimura made adjustments, reaching Leyte Gulf at the same time as Kurita was an almost impossible task. Since this is the case, let's resolutely rush to the place of death.
Rimi
At 22:15, the Japanese fleet began to sail into the relatively narrow waters. Nishimura ordered the formation to be changed to a single column, with the destroyer Manchao as the avant-garde, the Chaoyun 1000 meters behind it, the Shiyu and Shanyun, which were responsible for the vigilance of the two wings, and the rear 1500 meters behind it was nishimura's flagship " Yamashiro " , "Fuso" followed 1000 meters away, and 1000 meters behind the rear was the heavy cruiser "Top" responsible for the rear of the palace. As a veteran of the Guadalcanal series of night battles, Nishimura's above deployment is not too much of a problem. But the search surface that only 4 destroyers could carry out was not enough to cover the entire route.
U.S. Army torpedo boat fleet
At 22:36, Lieutenant Peter Gad, the captain of the torpedo boat PT-131, hiding in the waters near Bohol, noticed that a large surface ship echoed on the radar screen — the expected Japanese fleet had indeed arrived. With a command from Captain Weston Pren, the first squadron of three torpedo boats charged at 24 knots of speed towards the enemy ships. The sight of the Japanese lookout was indeed amazing, and the "Shiyu" soon noticed that there were unidentified objects moving at high speeds on the sea, and immediately sounded the battle alarm, and the Battle of Surigao Strait began.
PT-152 Sailor
Nishimura ordered an attack. Nishino turned on the searchlight for the first time, a bright light pierced the darkness, and the 127 mm main gun of the "Shiyu" immediately roared at the US torpedo boat that had approached to 5500 meters. To avoid Japanese artillery fire, U.S. torpedo boats swerved violently, "as if riding on a column of water," while frequently releasing smoke. A Japanese shell accurately hit the PT-130, but fortunately it was a dud. Another shell exploded on the PT-152, dubbed the "Raqqa Cookies", killing 1 person and injuring 3 people on the spot, and the front of the boat caught fire. Dramatically, the next near-missing bullet of the Shiyu stirred up a column of soaring water, which fell just to extinguish the flames that had just been ignited.
PT-131
The PT-130 quickly stepped forward to try to cover the retreat of the friendly boats, but it was quickly hit by a shell from the Rain. The explosion blew off a large chunk of the warhead of one of the torpedoes in the torpedo tube on board. Fortunately, the torpedo was not detonated, and the "PT-130" was difficult not to die. At 00:26 on the 25th, the report of the Japanese fleet had reached Oldendorf: the enemy had indeed arrived as promised!
PT-130
The level of night combat in the Japanese is really not blown out. The shells of the Rain hit the third torpedo boat, the PT-131, all over the place. The torpedo boats that shuttled through the artillery fire were unable to protect themselves, and had no chance to release the torpedoes, but could only quickly flee into the distance.
The Japanese won the first round of the engagement beautifully. Unfortunately, they can't be the ones who laugh to the end.
MacArthur escaped with the PT-41