1944-10-25
Battle off Samar
Off Samar, east of Leyte
On the morning of 25 October 1944 Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita's center force came out of the squall north of Taffy 3, Rear Admiral Clifton Sprague's escort carriers. Kurita had four battleships, Yamato, Nagato, Kongo, and Haruna, six heavy cruisers, the light cruisers Noshiro and Yahagi, and eleven destroyers. Musashi had already gone down in the Sibuyan Sea. Atago, Maya, and Takao were already out of the force. Sprague had six escort carriers, three destroyers, and four destroyer escorts. Taffy 1 and Taffy 2 were farther south. Their aircraft came into the fight. Those ships were not the ones under the guns. Johnston turned in on her own. Hoel and Heermann and the destroyer escorts went in with her. Gambier Bay, Hoel, Johnston, and Samuel B. Roberts were sunk by the Japanese guns. The ships that hit them are not pinned down. Hoel fired all ten torpedoes and is not credited with a hit. The usual account is that one of Johnston's torpedoes tore the bow off Kumano. Kumano left and was not sunk that day. St. Lo got clear of the guns and was sunk later that morning by a kamikaze. Chokai and Chikuma were disabled and lost that day, not pinned to one American ship. Suzuya was sunk by aircraft. Nowaki, standing by Chikuma, was sunk the next day. Hayashimo was lost the next day off Semirara. The rest of the force turned north.
Sunk in this fight
10 ships.
The general plan, 25 October 1944. Naval Staff History, Battle Summary No. 40, The Battle for Leyte Gulf, Plan 7, 1947. Crown copyright expired. North is up. Samar and Leyte are on the left. San Bernardino Strait is marked. The sheet draws the center force coming south out of the strait. Its box for the enemy main body at 0645 counts four battleships, six heavy cruisers, two light cruisers, and the destroyers with them. T.U. 77.4.3 and T.U. 77.4.2 are drawn east of Samar. T.U. 77.4.1 is farther south. The sheet marks a torpedo attack by the escort destroyers at 0716, another at 0800, a rain squall at 0720, Gambier Bay sunk at 0911, three destroyers sunk, and St. Lo sunk by a suicide aircraft at 1050. It marks Santee torpedoed and hit by a suicide aircraft, and Suwannee hit by a suicide aircraft. Bull and Eversole are marked leaving at 1735 to recover survivors of T.U. 77.4.3. Task Group 38.1 is drawn to the northeast, fueling. The sheet does not name Johnston, Hoel, or Samuel B. Roberts. The sinkings are not credited to one ship.
The tracks, 25 October 1944. Naval Staff History, Battle Summary No. 40, The Battle for Leyte Gulf, Plan 8, 1947. Crown copyright expired. The sheet says it was compiled from the track charts of Yamato, Kongo, and Haruna, and from the radar track of Kitkun Bay, and that the co-ordinates are from Yamato's plot. North is up. Longitude runs from 126° to 126°50' along the top, and east is to the right. The solid line is Yamato. The dashed line is Kongo. The dotted line is Haruna. Open marks are U.S. warships. Filled marks are Japanese. A crosshatch is sunk or damaged. The hatched ovals are the U.S. aircraft carriers. The sheet names Yamato, Nagato, Kongo, and Haruna at the start of the track, and later Kumano, Suzuya, Chikuma, Tone, Haguro, and Chokai. It marks Kumano torpedoed, with Suzuya standing by, and does not name the ship that fired. It marks Gambier Bay knocked out, a destroyer sunk at 0819, and a note that Kongo sank a destroyer with a main-battery salvo. This page does not credit that sinking to one ship. It marks the order to reform, and Haguro, Chikuma, and Tone turning away. The sheet does not name Hoel, Johnston, or Samuel B. Roberts. The ranges and times on the tracks are the sheet's.
