At the same time Kurita’s ships were just appearing over Taffy 3’s rainswept horizon, 400 nautical miles to the northeast a brilliant dawn was breaking over the waters of Cape Engaño. It promised a clear day and good visibility. Which for the Japanese carrier force, now empty of all but a few CAP aircraft, meant the day of reckoning was upon them. Adm. Ozawa had no delusions. “I expected the complete destruction of my fleet,” he later told U.S. interrogators. “But if Kurita’s mission was carried out that was all I wished.” By now the pursuing American fleet was barely 100 miles to the southwest. At 0530 the Zuikaku went to battle stations. The first American scout planes were spotted at 0713. Ozawa knew this meant soon the attack would begin. At 0745 he ordered the fleet to prepare for air attacks.
The first wave of 80 blue U.S. Navy warplanes, led by the cigarette-smoking Dave McCampbell, arrived overhead at 0817. The call went out. “Tally-ho…Carriers!” What few remaining fighter interceptors Ozawa had left were quickly sent flaming into the sea. His only defense would be anti-aircraft and maneuver. At 0827 his batteries opened fire. American fliers recorded that the anti-aircraft was both heavy and disturbingly accurate. The battleships were firing star shells from their main batteries and rockets came up at them as well as the usual small and medium caliber machine gun and cannon fire. Avenger pilot Robert Barnes declared it “The most intense I’d ever seen. All ships were firing everything they had…Every ship you flew by was shooting at you.” Lexington Avenger crewman John Underwood described the enemy gunfire as “awesome.” Somehow, only eleven U.S. planes were knocked down this day. It seems as if God had created the Battle of Leyte Gulf just to demonstrate once and for all the supremacy of air power in the modern naval age.
Over the next seven hours Ozawa and his task force would endure one attack after another, amounting to 527 sorties in five waves. The first vessel to join Davey Jones’ locker was the destroyer Akitsuki when she rolled over at 0857. Light cruiser Tama was hit with a torpedo but survived. Light carrier Chitose was not so lucky. Fliers from Essex sent her to the bottom with 900 hands, including her captain. Light carrier Zuiho was also hit and dead in the water but excellent damage control soon had her running again. The light carrier Chiyoda was crippled by Helldivers from Lexington and Franklin. Then Ozawa’s flagship carrier Zuikaku was descended upon by forty Helldiver and ten Avengers. Several 500-pound bombs and a torpedo ripped into her. Although still alive, her radar was out, and Ozawa’s staff recommended he transfer his flag to the cruiser Oyodo. Ozawa at first refused, saying he expected to lose his ships and so would go down with the carrier. Eventually he was persuaded to come to his senses and made the transfer in between the second and third attack.
It was a fortunate move. The third wave was over 200 aircraft and it overwhelmed Ozawa’s shrinking task force. Zuikaku was pounced on by planes from Lexington and doomed. She sank at 1615 that afternoon with 842 of her crew. Light carrier Zuiho too was set upon by strike planes also flying off Lexington, as well as San Jacinto and Franklin. She went under at 1515 with 215 crew, but 750 managed to get off the ship before she foundered.
The attacks would last until evening. The already crippled light carrier Chiyoda was shelled to pieces when a force of pursuing U.S. surface ships caught up to her at 1615; she slipped beneath the waves a half hour later with all hands. The last Japanese casualty was the destroyer Hatsuzuki, hit by a barrage from U.S. cruisers as the sun set and eventually sinking by 2100. By the time night fell and Mitscher’s pilots and sailors were finished with the day’s work they would sink one carrier, three light carriers and two destroyers while crippling another light carrier and cruiser. Especially satisfying to the Americans was sinking the Zuikaku, making Pearl Harbor’s revenge complete.
Cape Engaño had been another one-sided victory for the U.S. Navy. But this battle was never intended to be anything but a shooting gallery for the Americans. And the Decoy Force had lured Task Force 38 over some 400 nautical miles away from San Bernardino Strait. Of all the Sho-Go1 commanders, one could say that Ozawa Jisaburo was the only one who successfully carried out his assignment. It could have been worse for his now strung-out survivors limping back to Japan, but the last two waves were reduced in size…that was because Bull Halsey was steaming back toward Leyte with Task Force 34 and TG-38.2 in response to Kinkaid’s and finally Nimitz’s calls for help.
Even though the morning reports coming in from Mitscher’s attack planes were announcing what should have been a satisfying result, the mood in New Jersey’s plot room was dour. Due to a backlog of radio messages that were sent out in order received rather than by urgency, Halsey didn’t get the first transmission until over an hour after Kinkaid’s first message went out. But once they started coming in it was clear that something pretty serious was happening off San Bernardino Strait. Kinkaid’s steady stream of ever more insistent pleas made clear that he was being attacked by the very force Halsey had written off the day before. It was hard to believe. Not until Nimitz’s “THE WORLD WONDERS” message was handed to him does it seem to have really sunk in that the Bull had been snookered. The message may have insulted Halsey’s sensibilities—he cursed and threw his hat on the deck in a rage when he read it—but it got results. He had no choice but to act. At 1052 he ordered Lee to take Task Force 34 and Adm. Gerald Bogan’s TG-38.2 to head for Leyte. They were on their way by 1115. Halsey sulked in his cabin as his New Jersey sailed with the cavalry that would arrive by morning and too late to do any good but hear the tales of Oldendorf’s great surface battle and the ferocious Taffys and their miraculous stand against the giants.
Brad Schaeffer is the author of the acclaimed World War II novel Of Another Time And Place.