Battleship Vs Aircraft Carrier - In the crack of dawn on 25 October 1944, four Tubby TPF Avenger torpedo bombers were on a routine patrol.
. She was one of sixteen small escort carriers of Task Force 74.4 sixty miles east of Samar Island in Leyte Gulf, protecting the invasion fleet which landed 6th Army on Leyte Island to liberate the Philippines after three brutal Japanese occupations.
Battleship Vs Aircraft Carrier
Suddenly at 6:37, Avenger pilot William Brooks reported a terrifying sight: a powerful Japanese fleet - four battleships, eight cruisers and ten destroyers - twenty miles west, heading for the lightly defended carriers.
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, a near miss in her hull and tripping circuit breakers. Shells from other warships, dyed green, pink, and red (to increase range) rained down on the flat, unarmored tops.
For the second time in history, enemy warships were able to come within range of aircraft carriers. But in the Samar War nothing happened as planned on either side.
During the four-day battle in Leyte Gulf, the Imperial Japanese Navy positioned most of its remaining capital ships to counterattack the Philippine landings.
The Japanese planned to sacrifice American surface fighters in pursuit of Northern Force, which consisted mostly of empty carriers, leaving Central and Southern forces to ravage the undefended Leyte coast.
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. However, on 23 October, American submarines relieved the force and sank two ships, including Kurida's flagship. Subsequent air strikes against US Navy aircraft carriers sank them
Believing that Center Force was occupied, Admiral William "Bull" Halsey redeployed the fast battleships of Task Force 34 covering the coast to help his 7th Fleet crush the Japanese Southern Force at the Battle of Surigao Strait in the night between on 24 and 25 October.
But Halsey gambled recklessly. Curita then doubled Union forces through San Bernardino Strait to Leyte Gulf, expecting his capital ships to fall upon the nearly defenseless raiding transport like wolves among sheep.
Standing in the way of Kurida was Task Force 77.4, divided into three squadrons, Taffy 1 to 3.
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Escort-class carriers were mass-produced to protect convoys from aircraft and submarines, freeing up larger fleet carriers for heavier combat duties. "Jeep carriers" employed over 900 people, typically carried 28 aircraft, and could only reach 20 knots (23 mph) at full speed compared to 30-33 knots for aircraft carriers.
Screening the carriers were three 2,000-ton Fletcher-class destroyers and four smaller 1,370-ton Fletcher-class destroyers, anti-submarine warfare vessels in modern parlance. Their radar-guided 5-inch guns fire fast and are accurate, but lack the range and penetration of twin cruisers and battleships. However, their short-range torpedoes,
Sprague quickly appreciated the danger from Daffy 3: the escort carriers were too slow to outrun the Japanese capital ships, and even if they succeeded, they would expose the coast. His superior, Admiral Thomas Kinkaid, sent several requests for reinforcements to Halsey with no response. Chester Nimitz, commander, Pacific Fleet, asked, "Where is Task Force 34?"
Intentionally or accidentally, the message ended with the symbolic hash "Wonders of the World". Hulsey was so strongly reprimanded that he did not dispatch Task Force 34 until 11:15, which was several hours late.
Forces Of Valor
To buy time for his bogey carriers to escape, Sprague had his destroyers spread a thick smoke screen (pictured here) as the carriers turned eastward in the raging sea, temporarily hiding his ships from Japanese gunners.
Meanwhile, every available aircraft was launched to attack the Japanese fighter force. Combined, Task Force 74.4's carriers assembled approximately 250 FM-2 Wildcat fighters and 190 Avenger TBM torpedo bombers. However, these were loaded with high-explosive shells, depth charges and rockets for attacking land and submarine targets, not anti-ship torpedoes and armor-piercing shells.
However, swarms of warbirds did not hesitate to drop anti-submarine depth charges, pound armored bases with machine guns and buzz aloft with spent weapons in an attempt to draw fire from vulnerable escort carriers before landing at Tacloban, Leyte. Reload and refuel.
Meanwhile, Kurita released his ships to pursue the carriers with orders for a "general attack", which misled the Japanese formations against each other.
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However, Taffy 3's eastward course took it further away from promising reinforcements. At 7:30, Sprague reluctantly ordered a difficult turn to the south. Lui instructed the escorts to launch torpedo attacks to prevent Kurida's ships from distracting him.
, and destroyer escorts drove the attack against ships many times their size. Self-Sacrifice "The Responsibility of Tin Can Sailors" is described in an accompanying article.
The destroyer's sacrifice bought time, but by 08:30 the Japanese ships had closed to within ten miles of Taffy 3's trailing vessels. Nearest carrier,
Big towers. Her engines failed, the carrier caught fire and capsized at about 9:00, the only American carrier sunk by naval gunfire during the war.
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The carriers of the class were armed with a single 5-inch gun in the "Stinger" tail. This was perfectly placed to exchange fire with cruisers and destroyers. The peaks were the only means of engaging enemy surface combatants, engaged in a firefight.
She was hit by at least fifteen 8" and 14" shells, many of which sliced through her unarmored hull without exploding. In response, her 5-inch battery struck two pursuing cruisers and a destroyer. After being missed by shells, the Japanese destroyers fired a barrage of torpedoes, but the
She managed to score three hits on the charging cruisers for little damage. 5” shells from
Considered disabled early in the battle, the heavy ship detonated a long spear torpedo on her deck
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By then, the Avengers had reloaded with torpedoes and shells and began returning to the fray. Someone dropped a 500 lb bomb, which exploded
, after she had already lost the rudder to torpedoes. A torpedo hit by another Avenger
, her port spin and rudder disabled. The crippled vessel was then attacked twice. Both vessels were eventually abandoned.
Forced to break formation to avoid incoming torpedoes. Finally, at 9:20, Curita began exiting the San Bernardino Strait. She misidentified Taffy 3's light vessels as full-sized fleet cruisers and aircraft carriers and feared the 3rd Fleet would arrive shortly.
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The Taffy 3 tests are not finished yet. At 1047, ground-based Zero fighters carrying 550 lb bombs scrambled towards the escort carriers in the first kamikaze attack ever attempted. Their leader, the 23-year-old lieutenant. Yukio Seki expressed his disapproval of "dark" kamikasi tactics to a reporter, but insisted he was following orders.
The carriers' 40mm flak guns filled the sky with black smoke, destroying three Zeros before they could strike. But Seki crashed his A6M2 into the bridge
. At first, the carrier appeared to be facing a new hole in her flight deck, but an internal explosion in her fuel- and bomb-filled hangar ripped through the ship, sending her flight elevators spinning a thousand feet into the sky (pictured here).
Struck by two kamikazes, her portside smokestack and airframe were lost. The other three carriers suffered minor damage.
The Battlecarrier Was Part Battleship, Part Aircraft Carrier
Taffy 3's officers and sailors deftly tied up Kurita's faster and more heavily armed vessels in a wild pursuit. The swarms of aircraft from the escort carriers were more effective at range than Yamato's 18-inch guns, and even the carrier "pea seekers" gave a surprisingly good account of themselves.
But that victory was paid for by the extraordinary sacrifices of two carrier escorts, two destroyers, and a destroyer escort that carried them through the deep waters of the Philippine Trench. 1,583 Americans died, mostly aboard destroyers, five times the number of casualties at the Battle of Midway. About 2,000 survivors waited two days for rescue, many succumbing to shark attacks and exposure.
Kurida's fleet, meanwhile, limped home short of three heavy ships. He might have pressed his attack and sunk more ships and ravaged the coast, but lingering in Leyte Gulf may have been the undoing of his strength. The IJN undertook no more major offensive operations for the remainder of the war.
Sebastian Roblin holds a master's degree in conflict resolution from Georgetown University and was a university instructor for the Peace Corps in China. He has also worked in education, corrections and refugee resettlement in France and the United States. He is currently writing War is Boring on defense and military history.
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Sebastian Roblin writes on the technical, historical and political aspects of international conflict and security for publications such as The National Interest, NBC News, Forbes.com and War Boring. He holds a master's degree from Georgetown University and served in the Peace Corps in China. Keynote: Carriers must adapt to changing threats and technology if they are to remain resilient and survive.
How can the US Navy maintain the relevance of its large-scale aircraft carriers in an increasingly threatening environment? Partly, in hindsight. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor abruptly knocked out the dreaded warships at the top of the navy hierarchy. The day of the arrival of the aircraft carrier came. And
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