Word: straits
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Before dawn of the 7th, the 225-mile end run from Leyte Gulf through Surigao Strait and up into the Camotes Sea, had been completed. Almost a hundred craft under Rear Admiral Arthur Dewey Struble, a Normandy veteran, lay off shore. At 6:30 the destroyers opened up on the beaches with 5-inch guns; after 20 minutes, LCIs carrying rocket launchers belched their loads onto a 1,200-yd. beachhead. At 7:07 (because General Bruce likes sevens for his 77th), the first troops sloshed up the beaches, without a casualty. Most of the Japs had been sucked into...
...must to all admirals in battle, the chance came to "Bull" Halsey at a moment when the big decision had to be made quickly and followed fearlessly. At that point the southernmost of the Jap's three prongs was thrusting east through Philippine waters toward Surigao Strait, south of the Leyte beachhead, while another was in a position to attack the beachhead from the north...
...been struck by air attack, was plowing on. Before it stood the heavy firepower of Vice Admiral Thomas Cassin Kinkaid's Seventh Fleet. The Seventh would stop it, and smash it to bits in the twelve-mile-wide gut of Surigao. The northern group, approaching San Bernardino Strait, had also been air-attacked. Airmen reported that it had been turned back...
...destroy the carriers. That was what he did, swiftly and without hesitation. But the enemy still had a play up his sleeve. As Halsey turned north to battle, the center task force of the Japs reversed course and headed out again from the inner waters toward San Bernardino Strait. Seemingly the change was not detected by U.S. reconnaissance. By the time Halsey's aircraft and ships had smashed the Jap carrier group off Luzon, the San Bernardino Strait force had burst out into the open and was steaming south toward Leyte Gulf...
...admiral had his problems, too. To the south the other arm of the pincers (through Surigao Strait) had been broken. Between him and escape in that direction lay Kinkaid's main force, unhurt and full of fight. And toward him from the north steamed Halsey with the most powerful force in the Pacific; Halsey's first planes were already thundering toward Leyte Gulf. The Jap admiral made his own quick decision: he turned and fled into San Bernardino Strait...