Word: surigao
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Buffoon or not, Shima has a lot to explain. On Oct. 25, 1944, the second day of the historic sea fight, Shima steamed toward Surigao Strait, south of Leyte Gulf, with two heavy cruisers, a light cruiser and four destroyers, still distant from the main battle. He hoped to reach Leyte Gulf in time to harass U.S. landing forces there, but his entire contribution to the battle, as Historian Morison observes, was to ram his flagship into a crippled heavy cruiser of another Japanese force, after firing 16 torpedoes at two islands he mistook for U.S. ships...
...fringes of the vast Leyte engagement after other Japanese naval forces had set out, and the necessity for radio silence, he explains, meant that he could not coordinate his strategy or tactics with theirs. Faced with bad luck, disorganized communications and the blazing evidence that another Japanese force in Surigao Strait had been shattered, all Shima could do was withdraw. The admiral's account: "At that time, things flashed in my head were thus: ... If we continued dashing further north, it was quite clear that we should only fall into a ready trap...
Blameworthy Bull. The bulk of the Japanese navy was 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...
Guts & Gumption. There were three main actions in the Leyte Gulf battle, and each had its special tone, which Historian Morison perfectly captures. The battle of Surigao Strait might be called Operation By-the-Book. The first section of the Japanese southern force sailed into a night slaughter of destroyer torpedoes and heavy fire from cruisers and old battleships, with a single Jap destroyer surviving to join the second section, which simply turned tail...
...Pacific, the destroyers struck with all their weapons-depth charges, torpedoes, guns-and realized all their manifold possibilities as warships. In the night Battle of Surigao Strait, they even had a chance of fighting in the old textbook fashion. Rear Admiral Jesse B. Oldendorf, cruising at the northern end of the strait with the U.S.'s older battleships, learned that a big Japanese force, including two battleships, was headed for the strait from the west to turn the tide in the battle for Leyte. Oldendorf corked up the mouth of the strait with his old battlewagons, sent destroyers...