As dawn broke on October 25, 1944, it appeared as if the U.S. Navy had, for all intents and
purposes, defended Leyte Gulf from Japanese invasion.
In the Sibuyan Sea, U.S. carrier planes from Admiral William Halsey’s 3rd Fleet had savaged
VADM Takeo Kurita’s Center Force, sinking the battleship Musashi.
Meanwhile, 300 miles south, at Surigao Strait, in a harrowing night battle, a portion of
VADM Thomas Kinkaid’s 7th Fleet had repelled the Japanese Southern Force, sinking seven
ships and sending the rest in retreat.
Only VADM Jisaburō Ozawa’s Northern Force remained undamaged.
It patrolled the waters northeast of Luzon.
But not for long, or so Admiral Halsey believed.
The previous day, at 4:40 P.M., a U.S. search plane had discovered Ozawa’s Northern Force
sailing southbound, 190 miles off Cape Engaño.
Among other ships, it included one fleet carrier and three light carriers.
Halsey did not want to delay.
He summoned his staff to his flag plot inside USS New Jersey to discuss the plan.
After several hours of discussion, Halsey and his team determined that Ozawa’s task
force—300 miles away—should be the next major target.
Pointing at the map, Halsey told his chief of staff, RADM Mick Carney, “Here’s where
we’re going.
Mick, start them north!”
At 8:22 P.M., USS New Jersey transmitted orders to 3rd Fleet’s scattered carrier task groups—sixty-five
ships altogether—telling them to assemble on Halsey’s flagship and chart their way
to Cape Engaño.
Steeling his jaw, Halsey vowed not to let Ozawa’s carriers escape.
It was no surprise that Halsey wanted to go after Ozawa.
Although his exploits had already earned him everlasting fame in the American press, Halsey
had yet to participate in a carrier versus carrier battle.
He had missed all the famous ones: the Battle of the Coral Sea, the Battle of Midway, the
Battle of the Eastern Solomons, and the Battle of the Philippine Sea.
He had exercised operational command at the Battle of Santa Cruz, but he had been ashore
when that engagement occurred.
Not once had Halsey been a tactical commander in a carrier battle.
As one member of his staff later noted, Halsey had become obsessed with destroying the last
Japanese carriers, and now, late in the evening on October 24, his moment had arrived.
At the time, and for the rest of his life, Halsey believed this was the correct decision.
He knew the Japanese Southern Force was heading for Surigao Strait, but he had every reason
to expect that it would be easily deterred by Kinkaid’s 7th Fleet.
Further, he believed that Kurita’s Center Force was no longer a threat, it having been
mauled at Sibuyan Sea.
As Halsey later explained, “Not only was the Northern Force fresh and undamaged, but
its carriers gave it a scope several hundred miles wider than the others.
If we destroyed those carriers, our future operations need fear no threat from the sea.”
But Halsey did not know that the Japanese wanted him to sail north.
According to Shō-Gō 1—the name of the Japanese tactical plan—Ozawa’s Northern
Force was supposed to act as a decoy, drawing Halsey’s heavy ships away from San Bernardino
Strait to clear the way for Kurita’s Center Force.
In moving to Cape Engaño, Halsey had given the Japanese exactly what they needed, a clear
path to Leyte Gulf.
Of course, Halsey made this decision because, at dusk, October 24, he supposed that Kurita’s
ships were leaving the Philippines.
Indeed, at 3:30 P.M., Kurita had ordered his ships to head west, retiring from the Sibuyan
Sea.
But this retreat didn’t last long.
At 7:15 P.M., Admiral Soemu Toyoda—the head of the Combined Fleet—sent a forceful message,
ordering Kurita to “about face” and return to San Bernardino Strait.
The fleet needed to execute Shō-Gō 1 or die with honor.
High command would not accept a disgraceful retreat.
With that, the Center Force was on its way again.
Halsey’s decision to unmask San Bernardino Strait became the epicenter of a mighty controversy.
Fourteen years later, in 1958, Samuel Eliot Morison argued that Halsey had erred in judgment
by falling for the Japanese ruse.
As Morison contended, Halsey ignored Kurita’s fleet because he mistakenly assumed that it
was the weaker force.
Moreover, Halsey had also blundered by choosing not to split his force to deal with Kurita
and Ozawa simultaneously.
Morison argued, “It was not a case of either-or.
Halsey had enough gun and air power to handle both Japanese forces.”
Morison’s critique made sense.
Halsey had plenty of firepower, both in surface ships and aircraft.
His 3rd Fleet consisted of two elements: Task Force 34 under VADM Willis Lee and Task Force
38 under command of VADM Marc Mitscher.
Task Force 38 consisted of 8 fleet carriers, 7 light carriers, 5 cruisers, and 36 destroyers.
Meanwhile, Task Force 34 consisted of six battleships, 8 cruisers, and 18 destroyers.
During the Leyte Gulf Operation, Halsey combined the two task forces into four task groups.
These were Task Group 38.1 under RADM John McCain, Task Group 38.2 under RADM Gerald
Bogan, Task Group 38.3 under RADM Frederick Sherman, and Task Group 38.4 under RADM Ralph
Davison.
McCain’s group was unavailable, since it had gone to the rear to resupply, but the
other three task groups contained a roughly equal mix of ships from Task Forces 34 and
38.
Thus, when Halsey ordered Bogan’s, Sherman’s, and Davison’s groups to head north in pursuit
of Ozawa, that meant that all of Mitscher’s carriers and Lee’s battleships would be
going together.
Halsey made no effort to dissever the battleships of Task Force 34 from his planned carrier
engagement.
Had the battleships been left behind at San Bernardino Strait, they might have been able
to block the Center Force much in the same way that 7th Fleet’s battleships blocked
the Japanese Southern Force at Surigao Strait.
But that opportunity was lost.
Prior to dawn, October 25, Kurita’s fleet sailed through the strait unmolested and entered
the Philippine Sea.
Immediately, it headed southeast, following the coastline of the Island of Samar.
With 3rd Fleet cruising north, only one American force stood between Kurita and Leyte Gulf,
Task Group 77.4, the escort carrier group attached to 7th Fleet under command of RADM
Thomas Sprague.
Sprague’s task group was divided into three miniature task groups called “Taffies,”
and each Taffy patrolled a section of the eastern mouth of Leyte Gulf.
Taffy 1—which was under Sprague’s direct command—was farthest south, near Siargao
Island.
Taffy 2—under RADM Felix Stump—was in the center, 100 miles north of Taffy 1, covering
the main entrance to Leyte Gulf.
Taffy 3—under Rear Admiral Clifton Sprague (who was no relation to Thomas)—was another
20 miles farther north, off the coast of Samar.
This group—Taffy 3—was directly in Kurita’s way.
None of the Taffies were capable of dealing with the firepower of Kurita’s capital ships.
Each group contained either four or six escort carriers—slow-moving, nearly defenseless
airstrips used for the support of the landing operations at Leyte.
Each escort carrier contained about 28 aircraft, but none of them carried anti-ship weapons.
The Taffies also contained seven or eight destroyers or destroyer-escorts.
The destroyers carried a battery of 5-inch guns, two salvos of five Mark-15 torpedoes,
but nothing larger.
Thin-skinned and under-powered, Taffies 1, 2, and 3 were little more than fattened calves,
ripe for slaughter.
At 6:40 A.M., Kurita’s Center Force—four battleships, six heavy cruisers, two light
cruisers, and eleven destroyers—reached a position twenty miles northwest of Taffy
3.
Halsey’s 3rd Fleet, having sailed all night, was now 200 miles away and in no condition
to assist.
At 7:00 A.M., Kurita’s forces began firing at Clifton Sprague’s Taffy 3, touching off
a horrific engagement.
As shells splashed around his ungainly escort carriers, Sprague sent frantic messages to
the 7th Fleet’s commander, Kinkaid, warning him about his collapsing right flank near
Samar.
Unable to comprehend why Halsey had taken the battleships from San Bernardino Strait
without warning anyone, Kinkaid sent increasingly shrill messages to him, demanding the return
of Task Force 34 to its old position.
At 7:40, Kinkaid transmitted: “Fast battleships urgently needed immediately at Leyte Gulf.”
Back in Hawaii, Admiral Chester Nimitz, the Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Fleet, listened
intently to the radio transmissions and became alarmed at the story they told.
As Nimitz heard it, Kinkaid was begging for help and Halsey appeared unable or unwilling
to provide it.
Forty-two-year-old CAPT Truman Hedding served on Nimitz’s staff.
That morning, he entered CINCPAC Headquarters on Makalapa Drive, Oahu, and learned of the
disaster unfolding off the coast of Samar.
"At the headquarters we got the daily briefings every morning.
The operations people told us what had happened, so we were always current in what was going
on.
We also had an operations room where we could go in and see the displays.
For this particular incident—which is referred to as the ‘Battle of Bull’s Run’—I
was down in the planning section in Admiral Nimitz’s headquarters underground, when
the flash came from Admiral Clifton Sprague that he was being attacked by battleships,
cruisers, et cetera.
I dashed into the operations room.
Shortly after I got there Admiral Nimitz, Admiral Charles McMorris, and Admiral Forrest
Sherman arrived.
They were looking at the board and discussing the situation.
Admiral Nimitz said, ‘We’d better send a dispatch to Halsey and find out what’s
going on.’
I was there when Admiral Sherman wrote out the dispatch, ‘Where is Task Force 34?’
Task Force 34, under the Third Fleet operation plan, were the battleships with their screen.
What we were concerned about was why Halsey hadn’t left the battleships to engage Admiral
Kurita when he came through the San Bernardino Straits.
As Hedding recollected, Nimitz began by asking a simple question of Halsey: “Where, exactly,
was Task Force 34?”
Because Nimitz’s inquiry was so short, the radioman and the encoder had to increase the
size of the transmission by putting one junk phrase on either side of the interrogative
message with a double consonant in between the junk messages and the main message.
Further, when Nimitz sent the message he wanted Kinkaid and CNO Ernest King in Washington
to read it as well.
Thus, when the message was finally dispatched, it read:
TURKEY TROTS TO WATER.
FROM CINCPAC ACTION COMMANDER, THIRD FLEET INFO, COMMANDER IN CHIEF, CTF SEVENTY SEVEN.
WHERE IS, RPT, WHERE IS TASK FORCE THIRTY-FOUR, THE WORLD WONDERS.
When Halsey received Nimitz’s inquiry later that morning, the communications officer on
USS New Jersey failed to clip off the second junk phrase, such that, when the message was
repeated to Halsey, the transmission read: “Where is, repeat, where is Task Force 34?
The World Wonders.”
Since the phrase, “the world wonders,” sounded like an insult—and oddly like a
line from Alfred Tennyson’s poem, “The Charge of the Light Brigade”—Halsey took
the communique as a public rebuke from his superior.
In a tantrum, Halsey flung his cap off his head and began snarling: “What right has
Chester to send me a goddamn message like that?”
Halsey’s Chief-of-Staff, RADM Mick Carney, did his best to calm him down.
“Stop it!”
Carney admonished.
“What the hell’s the matter with you?
Pull yourself together!”
Unaffected, Halsey stormed off to his quarters to continue his tantrum in private.
It took nearly an hour for Halsey to suppress his rage and start making decisions.
At 11 A.M., he returned to flag plot and reluctantly ordered Task Force 34 to turn around.
With Bogan’s carriers in tow, it made a 200-mile return trip to Leyte Gulf.
Halsey later wrote that he never learned the truth about the message, that Nimitz had never
intended it as an insult, until some weeks later, when he finally spoke to Nimitz face
to face.
That part was undoubtedly true, or so remembered Capt.
Hedding.
The junk phrase had not been intended to spur Halsey’s wrath; however, and perhaps more
importantly, no one in CINCPAC headquarters seemed to believe that Halsey had made the
correct decision when he decided to abandon San Bernardino Strait.
Hedding remembered it this way: "I was there when Admiral Sherman wrote this
dispatch.
It was a very short dispatch.
‘Where is Task Force 34?’
you never sent short dispatches, you pad them until they are a certain length.
So the padding was, at the end of it, ‘The whole world wants to know,’ or something
like that.
It certainly was not intended to be in there, and it was stupid to put it in there.
Of course you can imagine the reaction of Admiral Halsey and his staff when they got
it.
They apparently didn’t realize that it was padding.
They could have put in so many things, but they couldn’t have got a worse wording for
padding.
They sent the dispatch off.
While we were standing around discussing it Admiral Nimitz turned to me and said, ‘Truman,
what would you have done if you’d been Commander of the Third Fleet?’
I looked at the Admiral and said, ‘Admiral, you mean me?
You’re asking me?’
He said, ‘Yes.’
I said, ‘Well Admiral, I don’t know what I would have done, but I know one thing I
wouldn’t have done.
I would never have left San Bernardino Strait unguarded.’
It was easy to have left the battleships or even just one carrier task group there.
That would have been adequate, I think, to handle what was left of Admiral Kurita’s
forces because he had taken a pretty severe mauling the previous day.
But all these things are a matter of history, and they’ve been written up by professional
historians."
Halsey spent the remainder of his life coming to terms with the criticisms of Nimitz and
Morison.
By the time he died in 1959, he had never once admitted fault, claiming that it was
not his job to protect the 7th Fleet.
Since then, historians have been divided on the subject.
A few—such as John Wukovits—have tended to diminish the egregiousness of Halsey’s
error by saying that Halsey’s orders required him to prioritize the enemy carriers as a
target.
However, the majority of historians—including Walter Borneman, Richard Frank, Thomas Cutler,
Thomas Hughes, James Hornfischer, Ian Toll, and Ronald Spector—have criticized Halsey’s
decision in some form or another.
It would be foolish to expect the historical community to reach a consensus on this issue,
as both sides make convincing points.
It is easier to conclude that in all battles, commanders must make difficult decisions—decisions
that no ordinary person would ever relish making.
Because those battlefield decisions are not easy—and because those decisions will cost
people their lives—posterity has every right to pass judgment.
With such high stakes, the world will always wonder.