Controversies over both Kurita’s and Halsey’s conduct during the battle are the topics of military round-tables to this day. It seems that with the passage of time their actions are being treated in a fairer reflection. Kurita didn’t just “turn tail and skedaddle” as had been the popular narrative. As we have seen it was more complicated than that. But perhaps a further explanation for Kurita’s failure might have to do with the overall Japanese military mindset at that time. So geared toward the offensive, they seemed flummoxed when suddenly the tables were turned and they found themselves under merciless assaults, be they from Halsey’s marauding aircraft laying waste to the Sho-Go2 plan to Taffy 3’s ferocious destroyer and jeep carriers and combined Taffy air attacks.
MacArthur, the Allied general who understood the Japanese better than any other, told his officers once: “Never let the Jap attack you. When the Japanese soldier has a co-ordinated plan of attack he works smoothly.” On the other hand, he added, “When he is attacked—when he doesn’t know what’s coming—it is not the same.” Then they were vulnerable because of their very rigidity. Their inability to imagine defeat made them often incapable of coping with setbacks. He compared it to a clenched fist which, once it seizes something and closes, can never re-open. Such a closed fist, he said, “is useless when the fighting turns to catch-as-catch-can wrestling.”
.png)
.png)
