Word: samar
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Battle off Samar...
...Seventh Fleet's 16 escort carriers-"baby flattops"-of Rear Admiral Thomas L. Sprague's Task Group 77.4 were operating off Samar without knowing that 1) Halsey had taken off after Ozawa or 2) Kurita had come through unguarded San Bernardino Strait and was only minutes over the horizon. A half-hour later, Kurita's shells began splashing around "Taffy 3," one of Task Group 77-4's three task units, under Rear Admiral Clifton Sprague...
...destroyer and crippled a fourth carrier. U.S. surface ships and submarines sank the crippled carrier, a light cruiser and a destroyer. But Bull Halsey was not around for the slaughter; for hours he had been getting urgent queries as to his whereabouts, desperate requests for help off Samar. At 1055 Halsey gave in to the pressure, ordered a large part of his force to turn back south -and went with them. By the time he got back to Leyte Gulf, the great battle was over. With it died the Japanese navy and any chance that it could protect Japan...
Bill Frazer hopes for more letters. A reply from Admiral Kurita would be particularly valuable; he has been criticized for turning back into San Bernardino Strait, north of Samar when he might have dealt a telling blow to a U.S. force inferior in speed and firepower. But Shima offers the schoolboy historian an understandable summing up of Japanese hesitancy at Leyte: "A further defeat meant to Japan no longer incidental losses but loss of life itself...
...divided into four groups. Two minor groups made up the southern force, which was supposed to steam through Surigao Strait between Leyte and Mindanao. The main striking group was the central force, under Vice Admiral Kurita. which was to steam through San Bernardino Strait north of Leyte between Samar and Luzon. Like two arms of a nutcracker, the two fleets were to converge on Leyte Gulf, wipe out. amphibious and supply craft there, and isolate MacArthur's forces on the island. A third (northern) force under Vice Admiral Ozawa was supposed to act as a decoy to lure...