Word: surigao
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Part the First. So vast was the armada under Vice Admiral Thomas Cassin Kinkaid that it was divided into four: 1) bombardment and fire-support group, under Vice Admiral Jesse Barrett Oldendorf (victor of Surigao Strait); 2) close cover group, under Rear Admiral Russell S. Berkey; 3) San Fabian Attack Force, with troops for the northern beachhead, under Vice Admiral Daniel E. Barbey; 4) Lingayen Attack Force, with troops for the southern beachhead, under Vice Admiral Theodore S. Wilkinson...
Oldendorf's heavyweights, the armored tip of the spear, were days ahead of the other groups. They included the "ghost ships," veteran battleships raised from the mud of Pearl Harbor, which had fought so well at Surigao. His jeep carriers opened an air umbrella as he bored past Mindoro into the South China...
When the protecting rain clouds parted, the force made a feint toward the open sea, in the hope of throwing the Japanese off the trail if any Japs were looking. Then the task force wheeled and squeezed through Surigao Strait, steaming over the drowned hulks of Jap warships sunk in the great October battle...
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...
...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...