Thanks for welcoming me. Fair enough, One good source material is:
The Battle Off Samar, Taffy 3 at Leyte Gulf:
“At the direction of VADM Kinkaid, RADM Oldendorf deployed three old battleships, five cruisers, and two destroyer squadrons twenty-five miles eastward of the northern entrance to Surigao Strait. The remaining forces belonging to the Seventh Fleet were kept well inside of Leyte Gulf. Whether these two groups could have effectively engaged and defeated the IJN Centre Force would never be known.”
Chapter 14.
See also, The Last of the Tin Can Sailors:
“Kinkaid finally ordered Oldendorf to take half his force and rally to the aid of Ziggy Sprague’s beleaguered northern Taffy unit.”
Chapter 44, Page 346.
I have read a list of the battleships’ names, but I don’t have it handy. Will find it later. Could help the thread.
With regards to the remarks about Kinkaid hesitating to risk expensive capital ships to save inexpensive escorts, See, The Battle of Leyte Gulf, The Last Fleet Action, as one example.
Please understand, I did not comment on this thread to argue with anyone, not to be an authority or expert. I thought the beauty of the thread was to set the time when Center Force would be at the Landing Areas, when Oldendorf could engage it, and with what ships.
For those who simply want to say the Battle Off Samar Island made no difference, I bet you could/would say the same thing about the Battle of Coral Sea, Battle of Midway, and Guadalcanal? You would say the War in the Pacific was a done deal - even if the 18.1 inch guns of the mighty Yamato were aimed at you. 4 battleships’, 8 cruisers, and 11 destroyers can do no damage to a major landing area serviced by over 100 surface craft? It took 2 hours for the Taffys to degrade Center Force when they saw it, so how do they do better by not seeing it?. It is a ridiculous argument. Oldendorf’s ships aren’t released until 09:15, and they have to travel 100 miles. Do the math. Maybe, Oldendorf’s gets 3 battleships’ there with assorted cruisers and destroyers by 13:15?
The points which figure9, myself and others made was that even with the scenario given in the OP (What if Taffy 3 had been in the squall line to the east of its actual position when Kurita’s fleet sailed past?) it is not that Central Force gets a magical pass into Leyte Bay unnoticed by any other force. They had already been observed by aircraft from Taffy 3 prior to the engagement, and would have been spotted sometime before reaching their target area.
I don’t follow you. Why should emotions trump discussions? Why bother to debate outcomes?
You are placing far too great of a burden on history in you wish to make all valiant deaths meaningful. This is the tragedy of war, that many lives are thrown away often for even more meaningless reasons. How many young men died taking hills for no purpose. Neither you nor I have the time to list all war fought for no reason let alone the battles and skirmishes.
The brave men who sacrificed their lives in the early morning of October 25, 1944 fought well. Many did so to protect their carriers and their comrades in arms. That is sufficient, we should ask no more. It would be unfair to the other 360,000 killed, missing and wounded US military personnel in the Pacific to single out this group for special meaning.
Actually, your response was conflating two separate issues which I discussed. First, the IJN and IJA did not cooperate with each other beyond the absolute minimum. This was yet one more factor in their poor performance and is a reason why any bombardment by Kurita’s forces on the landed troops would not have been effective.
The separate issue is the IJA communication problems which plagued them on Leyte (as well as many other places) and which would have prevented their forces from capitalizing on any damage even if the battleships had found targets on land.
Yes, he would have been more aggressive, but it would not have changed the outcome. Maybe he would have gotten to Layte Bay and attacked the transports. However, as I indicated in my previous post, unless you are granting divine powers to the enemy, it still would have not changed anything.
Ugaki is infamous for his last flight, another example of killing people meaninglessly. Japan had already announced the surrender. Other leaders had the dignity of slitting their stomachs and dying alone. Ugaki insisted on wasting young men’s lives for his own glory.
No. Taffy 3’ St. Lo was the only one lost to Tokkotai. The other CVE lost was Gambier Bay to surface fire. Taffy 1 and 2’s CVEs all survived the fight.
The report by McArther’s staff was known for its dramatic writing.
The attacks on the 25th were the first for the tokkotai. They simply didn’t have the numbers or experience to have dramatically changed their effectiveness. Even had the Central Force gotten through and brought up Odlendorf’s battleships, there was no coordination between the groups.
Your own cite shows it was a bomb and not a suicide attack, which it could not have been because the tokkotai attacks did not begin until the following day.
Employ strawmen much? I’m sort of surprised that your argument has taken a personal note here.
Conflating one battle in the late stages of a war when the US had such superior forces and material to others earlier in the game is, in your own words, “ridiculous.”
Sorry to be the one to have to inform you of this, but yup, the end result would have been the same. The Japanese could have sunk all the US carriers at Midway, lost none of their own and the end result would still have been exactly the same. Japan would have been completely destroyed and have had to suffer the same unconditional surrender. The US was building so many carriers in the war that the few lost in '42 would not have been enough to have stopped them. Sure, it would have taken a little bit longer, but still, with the overwhelming industrial capacity of the US, firebombing, atomic bombs, and eventual Soviet entry into the war
You are misquoting our arguments. No one is saying that no damage would be done. We’re saying that Central Forces couldn’t do enough to change the overall picture.
I carefully wrote out a detailed response for which you simply replied with an emotional argument and strawmen, and now are calling me ridiculous?
There are no conflicting reports regarding how the Princeton was lost; it was lost to a dive bomber, not a kamikaze. That the pilot of one dive bomber had the extreme luck to both get the jump on the Princeton and to place a single 500lb bomb where it was able to start uncontrollable fires that caused the loss of the Princeton is not indicative of a trend; there is no reason to expect any more such skillful dive bombing to have occurred. Why? Because it didn’t happen again. Did you happen to actually read “USS Princeton CVL23 War Damage Report No. 62.”?There is absolutely no mention of a kamikaze, because no one ever thought it was one. What it actually says is:
Etc. You can’t try to just hand wave facts away and invent a middle ground when you are shown to be wrong as you did with the West Virginia’s speed limitations.
It wouldn’t change the course of war or history one bit. The Soviets would still steam-roll through Germany, and then would crush Japan, regardless of what happened at Leyte Gulf.
Yes, I can. This is a discussion board, not an encyclopedia. The premises of this thread is based upon an assumption which was not fact.
Your complaint is that the Official Damage Report I mentioned did not use the word, “kamikaze.” Because of that, you concluded that NO ONE ever assumerd the Princeton was sunk by one. You are aware that organized “kamikaze” attacks began the next day. October 25, 1944? Have you ANY idea when the word, “kamikaze” was first used by the USN? Do you really believe that none of the survivors of the attacks of 10/25 believed the Princeton had not also been attacked with the same tactic? Further, what difference does it masker tyo this thread?
Next , you complain that WV could not have ever been slowed to 10 nauts, because she had to do 17 nauts for Suragao Strait? Do you know the speed used by USN battleships. They crossed the T and maneuvered at 5 nauts. That being said, I believe the WeeVee could possibly do 17. I have read both claims and am comfortable with 17, but it makes no difference. Please explain what difference does it make to this thread?
You complained when I wrote that Kinkaid was going to release Oldendorf to meet Center Force with 3 battleships. You wrote you searched for that information and could not find it. You demanded a citation. Read below. You didn’t search too hard.
Here is an example of how I can just “wave” facts around, or at least what you claim to be facts. Remember, this is a discussion board, not an encyclopedia. Further, “facts” about the conflict still are undetermined. One member of this Board recently authored a book in which he read and translated IJN logs and compared them with USN logs.
The accounts I tead and wrote about that Seventh Fleet eas 300 miles from Leyte were misleading, or wrong. Note they were frtom ther US Army. Perhaps, there were Seventh Fleet destroyers that far from Taffy 3, but the battleships were already in the Gulf. I found Admiral Kinkaid’s account and a naval map. If you really are interested in questions raised in this and other threads about Oldendorf’s vs. Kuritga. I suggest you read. “Pacific War Remembered, An Oral History Collection,” by John T. Mason, Jr. In it, Kinkaid discusses why he rejected Sprague’s request to move Taffy 3 to the protection of 7th Fleet. He also recounted that he ordered Oldendorf to assemble all of his ships at the northern entrance of Leyte Gulf as quickly as possible. He then ordered that Oldendorf divide his force into two groups and send one outside to engage Center Force. Kurita’s Force turned around before the designated half started out.
What have you contributerd to the thread? And, this is a great thread!
You’re not the only naysayer. Claims that there were no transports at 11:00 and that there was nothing to defend ate baseless. For somerone who demands citations, why haven’t you demanded authority for such claims, or provided it yourself?
From the information I have gathered, not you, we can place Oldendorf’s ships at the entrance of Leyte Gulf with one half ready to engage Center Force. Other accounts, which maybe YOU should find and cite state what ships Oldendorf’s had and how they were armed. I believer the USS Nashville was to join the Force with General McArthur aboard, as well as nine destroyers. Why don’t you research that? If you are smarter and more well informed than the rest of us, sent not contribute something positive?
Another false assertion mader repeatedly has been how Japanese air power was ineffective on 10/25. Read what Kinkaid had to say.
Finally, as to naysayers that said operations off Samar Island made no contribution to the War, you would have been the worst leaders possible. I doubt anyone would trust you to lead anyone. Frankly, such claims ate reminiscent of WWI Generals who were quite comfortable with losing hundreds of thousands of men, because they knew their side was going to win.
Great thread, but contributors are lacking in imagination and understanding. Maybe, it’s time to close the thread? I don’t see it going anywhere.
Trying to sort through the typos here, the simple fact of the matter is that the Princeton was sunk by a 500lb bomb dropped from a dive bomber. Said dive bomber did not then proceed to crash into the ship. There is no uncertainty about said facts, there never has been. No survivor ever claimed the Princeton had been struck by a plane, deliberate or otherwise. It is utterly irrelevant when the word “kamikaze” was first used by the USN. The difference it makes to this thread is that when told the only major loss to kamikaze attack was the escort carrier St. Lo you proceed to make incorrect claims of 2 escort carriers being lost to kamikazes on 10/25 and that the Princeton was lost to a kamikaze on 10/24. You claim cites say things that they absolutely do not say. THE CAMPAIGNS OF MACARTHUR IN THE PACIFIC: Chapter 8 does not say “Taffy 1 lost 2 carriers to kamikazes on 10/25.” The Official Damage Report does not say “there were conflicting reports as to whether it was a kamikaze attack”. When shown to be wrong, rather than admit your error you continue to insist that you might possibly be right.
Please.
Ship speeds, (among English speakers) are measured in knots, based on the use of an actual rope with evenly tied knots tied to a floating plank or log, in the days before more accurate devices came into use.
I’ve notice that the dates for WWII battles in the Pacific don’t always agree with one another. This may be a combined result of a miscommunication caused by the international date line and where the source information came from. (When it’s 7:00 AM December 7 in Hawaii, USA, it would be 2:00 AM December 8, in Japan.)
The USS ST LO (CVE 63), formerly the USS MIDWAY (CVE 63) until it was renamed on Oct 10, 1944, was the first U.S. naval vessel to be sunk by a kamikaze on Oct 25, 1944.
The Battle off Samar was the centermost action of the Battle of Leyte Gulf, one of the largest naval battles in history, which took place in the Philippine Sea off Samar Island, in the Philippines on October 25, 1944.
And there are pictures.
U.S. Navy Photograph From the USS KALININ BAY/VC-3 Association Crewmen aboard the escort carrier USS KALININ BAY (CVE 68) survey the damage caused by the kamikaze attack. She suffered serious damage when two aircraft impacted the ship shortly after 1110.
USS ST LO (CVE 63) visible in the background, would sink in less than fifteen minutes from the time this photograph was taken.
Image 4 of 22
*U.S. Navy Photograph from the personal collection of Mike McKenna An enormous mushroom cloud rises behind the escort carrier USS ST LO (CVE 63) as she lists heavily to port. This photograph was taken from USS HEERMANN (DD 532), Taffy III’s sole surviving destroyer. "The estimated approximate chronological sequence of explosions is as follows:
1053 - Jap plane hit the flight deck.
1054 - Medium explosion.
1055 - Heavy explosion blew part of the flight deck out.
1059 - Medium explosion folded forward elevator back.
1105 - Very heavy explosion - blew out part of port side.
1107 - Very heavy explosion blew out part of starboard side.
1114 - Very heavy.
1120 - Very heavy.
1125 - Ship sank."
Action Report, USS ST LO (CVE 63) F.J. McKenna, Captain, USN, Commanding Image 17 of 22*
Great, and typos are your concern, too. You are offered a great thread, and that’s where you’re at?
There is an absence of any meaningful contribution since I first posted. It is a waste of time. Statements, such as that US had 400 planes in Leyte. Where does that figure come from? Taffy 1 had 4 carriers. See how many planes they carried. Find out where they were. See how many were operational - how many were struck by kamikazes. How many planes crashed on temporary air strips? I have read about that, but why share it? You don’t care. You aren’t really interested in the subject. You offer nothing of substance. As Dissonance wrote earlier, he has an opinion, and he’s satisfied with it. That’s fine, but what kind of opinion depends on being closed minded?
It’s time to close the thread. It was a great try. It put Oldendorf and Center Force in battle at 11 am, or earlier. You now gave composition of the forces. I can provide a list of the ships that would be sent to meet Center Force, but it would be wasted. You would search hard for a misspelled word or typo, or simply make an unsubstantiated claim. That’s said, you sit on claims such as there was overwhelming air support there, with 400 planes! As with my mistaken assertion that Center Force was 100 miles away, which was from US Army history, the claim about 400 planes is also wrong, though frequently written. If you would do a little work, as I did with the distance claim, you could determine how many air planes were available and what armaments did they have? How many carriers did Taffy One have? How many were put out of action by kamikazes? How many planes were lost in those attacks? How many planes crash landed on unfinished air strips? Instead, we have a demonstrated lack of curiosity. In a battle that has long been argued to be about Landing Transports/Areas/Operations, no one, other than me, has even measured the Landing/Transports at the Gulf. Instead, we get sweeping statements such as nothing mattered. If so, why even post on the thread? Does it make sense to you that Oldendorf would risk his capital ships in battle for nothing? Yeah, right.
I suggest this thread be locked and closed. It’s going nowhere.
This is the Straight Dope. We look to fight ignorance. Using “naut” to indicate “knot” is not a typo. It appears to be a misunderstanding which I endeavored to correct. I posted as a member, not a Mod, so I am not sure where that objection originated.
We are not closing this thread because you think that it has run its course. If it has run its course, others will decline to post to it and it will roll off the front page of the forum, on its own.
As to your other objections, some may be worth correcting (so the thread should remain open), and some may require explanation, (so the thread should remain open).
For example, the “400 planes” remark is attested in several documents. That number is taken from all the units, (Taffy 3 plus Taffy 1 and Taffy 2), having planes within striking distance of Samar. While the surface squadrons would require several hours to arrive on the scene, 200+ mph planes could be (and were) summoned from various other units. It is usually noted that they were hampered by carrying HE and ASW rather than AP bombs or torpedoes, but they still made attacks on Kurita’s fleet.
The Order of Battle lists the aviation units for the three “Taffy” groups as 501 planes, (302 fighters and 199 bombers). I would guess that the estimates of 400 or 450 recognize that maintenance issues or the need to continue some CAP flights would have reduced the units available for a strike on Kurita to fewer than 500.
That’s a bit of a misnomer about The Battle off Samar that just won’t die; it sounds more heroic that they were carrying out attacks armed only with HE and depth charges rather than AP bombs and torpedoes. Escort carriers did in fact carry AP bombs and torpedoes and did use them at The Battle off Samar. For example, the loss of the heavy cruiser Chikuma, bolding all mine:
Excuse me? I wrote that where, exactly? My opinions clearly are not what bothers you; I’ve pointed out factual errors you have made, that you have tried to back them up with cites that do not say what you claim they say, and that you attempt to hand wave these facts away with ‘I’m probably more correct, but who knows?’
Well, my claim was not that no AP or torpedoes were used, only that they were not always available.
When Spruance was notified that Kurita had made it to the east side of the Philippines, he ordered an immediate attack with whatever was loaded, so the first wave was carried out without using AP weapons. Certainly, subsequent sorties would have used whatever appropriate armament as was available.
Yes, unfortunately so. (For LittleWolf, this is not anything about you, it’s a slam on other posters who can’t be named outside of the Pit.)
Please reread his reply. The question was not if the word kimizaze appeared or not, but that the report clearly states that it was sunk from a bomb. There were times when pilots from both sides deliberately crashed their planes into the enemy, but usually when their planes were shot or otherwise disabled.
In one of the attacks by US dive bombers during the Battle of the Coral Sea, Lt. Power held his dive to below 1,000 feet, released his bomb late and his plane was engulfed by the explosion of his own bomb. He traded his life (and that of his backseater) to unsure they would not miss.
Sometime in 1945. The word actually was read incorrectly by the US military Japanese specialists. The Japanese word is 神風 and can either be read as “kamikaze” or as “shinpuu” which was the correct reading. The suicide squadrons were called 特別攻撃隊 or tokubetsukougekitai but usually shortened to 特攻隊 tokkoutai. One of the leaders of the early tokkoutai, Capt. Inoguchi named his unit the “shinpuu tokubetsukougekitai” after a dojo in his hometown.
As I wrote, that name was misread by Americans as “kamikaze.” It would have been sometime in 1945, though.
As you may have noticed, we love fact checking here. You had claimed that the attack was by a kamikaze and that’s not the case.
It does appear that you have us confused with another forum. No one here has made such claims. The first mention of that was in your original contribution in which you refuted the nonexistent argument.
Another strawman. No one has said that it didn’t make a contribution, just that whatever happened there would not have changed the final outcome. It doesn’t seem that you appreciate the difference.
I will have to plead guilty of potentially being a horrible leader of either ships or fighting men. One would hope that the Navy would have picked someone out of the several hundred thousand more qualified men than I.
I was the first to use that number as it was the number which were engaged in the historic battle.
The overall point was that this number of planes was not insignificant and that it would have prevented Kurita’s forces from simply attacking at will, as posited by LittleWolf.
B]LittleWolf**, you seem upset. That’s unfortunate. If you search through the various threads about WWII on the board, you can see that this is fairly typical for what we do.
The OP was asking a specific question about how the outcome of the war would have changed. As many of us have stated, the simple fact is that it would not have made that much of a difference, for reasons several of us have outlined. This does not mean that we have no imagination or are emotional about things. It simply means that this is our conclusion concerning the OP.
If Kurita’s Center Force had somehow managed to avoid it’s initial contact with Taffy 3, Center Force would have been able to inflict considerable damage to the Allied landings on Leyte.
Until Spruance ordered an immediate and all out attack.
Center Force would have been trapped. Surrounded by the Taffys, Taffy’s 1, 2, and 3 aircraft and ships plus land-based aircraft would have inflicted even more damage than they actually had. Plus, the longer Center Force was held near Leyte, the closer the American Fleet’s big guns came.
The Yamato’s sister ship, Musashi, had been sunk on Oct 24, 1944, and the Yamato would have been a high priority target on the 25th. Would any of the Kurita’s 4 battleships, 6 heavy cruisers, 2 light cruisers, and 11 destroyers have escaped? As it was, Center Force lost 3 heavy cruisers, 3 more were damaged, as was 1 destroyer. The only thing that prevented the complete destruction of Center Force was the fact that Yamato, and the others, retreated from the area as quickly as they did. IMHO, of course.
No, wiki does not appear to be wrong. The difference between wiki and this thread is the OP’s assumption that Kurita did not see Taffy 3 when Center Force entered Leyte Gulf on Oct 25th.
Once Center Force began shelling the Allies troop and supply ships at Leyte Gulf, there is a very high probability that Taffy 3 would make it a point to go see Center Force and begin kicking it’s ass.
