Kurita's force passed through San Bernardino Strait at 03:00 on October 25, 1944, and steamed southwards along the coast of
Samar, hoping that Halsey had taken the bait and moved most of his fleet away as he had in fact done. Kurita had been advised that Nishimura's Southern Force had been destroyed at Surigao Strait and would not be joining his force at Leyte Gulf. However, Kurita did not receive the transmission from the Northern Force that they had successfully lured away Halsey's Third Fleet of battleships and fleet carriers. Through most of the battle, Kurita would be haunted by doubts about Halsey's actual location. The wind was from the North-Northeast and visibility was approximately with a low overcast and occasional heavy rain squalls which the U.S. forces would exploit for concealment in the battle to come.
Taffy 3 comes under attack Steaming about east of Samar before dawn on October 25,
St. Lo launched a four-plane antisubmarine patrol while the remaining carriers of Taffy 3 prepared for the day's air strikes against the landing beaches. At 06:37,
Ensign William C. Brooks, flying a
Grumman TBF Avenger from
St. Lo, sighted a number of ships expected to be from Halsey's Third Fleet, but they appeared to be Japanese. When he was notified, Admiral Sprague was incredulous, and he demanded positive identification. Flying in for an even closer look, Brooks reported, "I can see
pagoda masts. I see the biggest
meatball flag on the biggest battleship I ever saw!"
Yamato alone displaced as much as all units of Taffy 3 combined. Brooks had spotted the largest of the three attacking Japanese forces, consisting of four battleships, six
heavy cruisers, two
light cruisers, and eleven destroyers. They were approaching from the west-northwest only away, and they were already well within
gun and visual range of the closest task group, Taffy 3. Armed only with depth charges in case of an encounter with enemy submarines, the aviators nevertheless carried out the first attack of the battle, dropping several depth charges which just bounced off the bow of a cruiser. The lookouts of Taffy 3 spotted the anti-aircraft fire to the north. The Japanese came upon Taffy 3 at 06:45, achieving complete tactical surprise. At about the same time, others in Taffy 3 had picked up targets from surface radar and Japanese radio traffic. At about 07:00,
Yamato opened fire at a range of . Lacking the Americans' gunnery radars and Ford
Mark I Fire Control Computer, which provided co-ordinated automatic firing solutions as long as the
gun director was pointed at the target, Japanese fire control relied on a mechanical calculator for ballistics and another for own and target course and speed, fed by optical rangefinders. Color-coded dye loads were used in the battleships' armor-piercing shells so that the spotters of each ship could identify its own
fall of shot, a common practice for the capital ships of many navies. The Americans, unfamiliar with battleship combat, were soon astonished by the spectacle of colorful geysers as the first volleys of shellfire found their range.
Nagato used a brilliant pink;
Haruna used a greenish-yellow variously described as green or yellow by the Americans; and
Kongō used a blood-red dye which could appear red, purple, or even blue in some circumstances.
Yamato used no dye loads, so her shell splashes appeared white. Not finding the silhouettes of the tiny escort carriers in his identification manuals, Kurita mistook them for large fleet carriers and assumed that he had a task group of the Third Fleet under his guns. His first priority was to eliminate the carrier threat, ordering a "General Attack": rather than a carefully orchestrated effort, each division in his task force was to attack separately. The Japanese had just changed to a circular anti-aircraft formation, and the order caused some confusion, allowing Sprague to lead the Japanese into a stern chase, which restricted the Japanese to using only their forward guns, and restricted their anti-aircraft gunnery. Sprague's ships would not lose as much of their firepower in a stern chase, as their stern chase weapons were more numerous than their forward guns, and his carriers would still be able to operate aircraft.
The Run to the East (06:45 to 07:15) At 06:50 Admiral Sprague ordered a formation course change to 090, directed his carriers to turn to launch their aircraft and then withdraw towards a squall to the east, hoping that bad visibility would reduce the accuracy of Japanese gunfire. He ordered his escorts to the rear of the formation to
generate smoke to mask the retreating carriers and ordered the carriers to take evasive action, "chasing salvos" to throw off their enemy's aim, and then launched all available
FM-2 Wildcat fighter planes and
TBM Avenger torpedo bombers with whatever armament they were already loaded with. Some had rockets, machine guns, depth charges, or nothing at all. Very few carried anti-ship bombs or
aerial torpedoes which would have enabled aircraft to sink heavy armored warships. The Wildcats were deemed a better fit on such small aircraft carriers instead of the faster and heavier
Grumman F6F Hellcats that were flown from the larger U.S. Navy carriers. Their pilots were ordered "to attack the Japanese task force and proceed to
Tacloban airstrip, Leyte, to rearm and refuel". Many of the planes continued to make "dry runs" after expending their ammunition and ordnance to distract the enemy. At about 07:20 the formation entered the squall, and the Japanese fire slackened markedly as they did not have gunnery radar that could penetrate the rain and smoke. Kurita meanwhile was already experiencing the consequences of ordering a General Attack, as his Fifth Cruiser and Tenth Destroyer Divisions cut across the course of the Third Battleship Division in their haste to close with the American carriers, forcing the battleship
Kongō to turn north out of formation;
Kongō acted independently for the remainder of the battle. Concerned that his destroyers would burn too much fuel in a stern chase of what he presumed were fast carriers while obstructing his battleships' line of fire, Kurita ordered his destroyers to the rear of his formation at 07:10, a decision which had immediate consequences, as the Tenth
Destroyer Squadron was forced to turn away just as they were gaining on the right flank of the American formation. For the Second Destroyer Squadron, the consequences were more significant if less immediate: ordered to fall in behind Third Battleship Division,
Yahagi and her accompanying destroyers steamed north from their position on the south side of Kurita's formation seeking division flagship
Kongō, leaving no Japanese units in position to intercept the American carriers when they turned back south at 07:30. Despite his General Attack order, Kurita continued to dictate fleet course changes throughout the battle. In the meantime,
Yamato fired the first shots of the battle as her forward six 18.1-inch (46 cm) guns opened fire at the escort carrier
White Plains at 35,000 yards. the first salvo contained four type 3 anti aircraft shells, and the rest were all armor piercing rounds. On the third salvo, one of these shells landed mere feet underneath
White Plains keel, disabling a boiler and electrical power. However, damage control brought these back online after 3 minutes. This did not change that
Yamatos shell damaged
White Plains hull beyond repair, demoting her to an aircraft ferry in local waters after the battle.
Yamato with four more salvos straddled the escort carrier
Kitkun Bay multiple times, while
Nagato straddled the escort carrier
Saint Lo several times at 35,000 yards. However, the extreme range made gunfire mostly ineffective, prompting the battleships to cease firing. Three destroyers and four smaller destroyer escorts had been tasked to protect the escort carriers from aircraft and submarines. The three s—affectionately nicknamed "tin cans" because they lacked armor—were fast enough to keep up with a
fast carrier task force. Each had five single-mounted guns and several light
antiaircraft guns, none of which were effective against armored warships. Only their ten Mark-15 torpedoes—housed in two swiveling five-tube launchers amidships—posed a serious threat to battleships and cruisers. An advantage the American destroyers had was the radar-controlled Mark 37 Gun Fire Control System, which provided coordinated automatic firing of their guns as long as the gun director was pointing at the target. A dual-purpose system, the Mark 37's gunfire radar and antiaircraft capabilities allowed the destroyers' guns to remain on target despite poor visibility and their own radical evasive maneuvering. The Japanese reliance on optical range finders aided by color-coded dye loads in each shell and mechanical calculators made it difficult for them to identify their targets through the rain and smoke and limited their ability to maneuver while firing. The different colored splashes the Japanese shells made as they hit the water by the American ships after a near miss prompted one
White Plains sailor to quip "They're shooting at us in
Technicolor!" The four s were smaller and slower because they had been designed to protect slow freighter convoys against submarines. They were armed with two guns without automatic fire control, and three torpedoes, although their crews rarely trained for torpedo attacks. Since the torpedoes had a range of only about , they were best used at night: during daylight, an attack on heavy warships would have to pass through a gauntlet of shellfire that could reach out to . In this battle they would be launched against a fleet led by the largest battleship in history, although it was the ships' ability to generate dense, heavy smoke from their funnels and chemical smoke generators which would most influence the course of the battle. After laying down smoke to hide the carriers from Japanese gunners, they were soon making desperate torpedo runs, using their smoke for concealment. The ship profiles and aggressiveness caused the Japanese to think the destroyers were cruisers, and the destroyer escorts were full-sized destroyers. Their lack of armor allowed armor-piercing rounds to pass right through without exploding, until the Japanese gunners switched to high-explosive (HE) shells, which caused much more damage. Their speed and agility enabled some ships to dodge shellfire completely before launching torpedoes. Effective damage control and redundancy in propulsion and power systems kept them running and fighting even after they had absorbed dozens of hits before they sank, although the decks would be littered with the dead and the seriously wounded. Destroyers from Taffy 2 to the south also found themselves under shellfire, but as they were spotted by , which had signaled for their assistance, they were ordered back to protect their own carriers.
Johnston's torpedo charge and subsequent attacks At 7:00, Commander
Ernest E. Evans of the destroyer responded to Japanese shell fire on the carriers of the group he was escorting by laying down a protective smokescreen and zigzagging. About 7:10, Gunnery Officer Robert Hagen began firing at the closest attackers, then away, and registered several hits on the leading heavy cruisers. The Japanese ships targeted
Johnston and soon shell splashes were bracketing the destroyer. Without consulting his commanders, Evans brought his ship to
flank speed and headed toward the enemy.
Johnston’s charge led several Japanese ships to switch their fire from the carriers to the approaching American “cruiser”.
Nagato and Haruna unleashed their main guns on
Johnston, while
Yamato fired 19 6.1-inch (155 mm) shells from her secondary battery; all of this fire missed
Johnston, sometimes narrowly. At 7:15, Hagen concentrated fire on
Kumano, the flagship of the leading heavy cruiser squadron, setting fire to her superstructure with 5-inch (127 mm) shell. At a distance of 18,000 yards,
Kumano and sistership
Suzuya returned fire at 18,000 yards, ineffectively.
Johnston closed to 10,300 yard, swerved to broadside, and dumped all ten of her torpedoes into the water. at 7:27,
Kumano noticed three of
Johnstons torpedoes swimming her way at 27 knots and attempted to turn to avoid, but it was too late. One
mark 15 torpedo smashed into the cruiser and blew off her entire bow. Her speed was reduced to 12 knots in reverse as
Suzuya stopped to remove Captain Teraoka from the crippled
Kumano. However, as this was being done a flight of aircraft from
Gambier Bay attacked the stationary cruiser and scored a bomb near miss which bent one of her port propellers, cutting
Suzuyas speed to 22 knots and taking her out of the majority of the battle. After knocking two cruisers out of the fight,
Johnston retreated as Japanese fire increased in intensity, yet not a single shell hit the victorious destroyer.
Kumano was never repaired from the damage inflicted by
Johnston, only fitted with a false bow and limited to 15 knots for the rest of her career, and finished off by mixed submarine and air attacks over the next month. At 07:16, Sprague ordered Commander William Dow Thomas aboard
Hoel, in charge of the small destroyer screen, to attack.
Hoel began a long sprint to get into firing position for their torpedoes. At 07:20,
Hoel located
Kongō at 14,000 yards and sped to engage the battleship; this was a perfect opportunity as
Kongō was blinded by rain squalls and was completely unaware of
Hoels presence. However, the same could not be said for the heavy cruiser
Haguro, which noticed an enemy "cruiser" at 10,300 at 07:26 and opened fire.
Haguros first salvo scored a pair of 8-inch (203 mm) shell hits to Hoel's bridge and rangefinder, destroying her mark 37 director, FD radar, PPI scope, machine gun control, and all voice radio communications.
Hoel commenced firing on
Kongō as
Haguros second salvo landed an 8-inch (203 mm) hit to her forward fire room two feet above the waterline, then her third salvo landed three additional 8-inch (203 mm) shells hit started a powder fire in her turret 3 magazines, punctured and flooded her port engine and after generator, dropping her speed to 17 knots. In response,
Hoel unloaded five torpedoes at the still blinded
Kongō, right when three more 8-inch (203 mm) shells destroyed her turrets 4 and 5 and aft AA mounts.
Haguros final salvo landed a 5-inch (127 mm) shell which holed the destroyer below the waterline before she ceased fire and wrote off the enemy "cruiser" as sunk. For all this effort,
Kongō noticed a spread of torpedoes some distance ahead of her and continued in a straight line. Mere minutes later,
Johnstons luck began to run out as
Yamato had been tracking the enemy "cruiser" which had torpedoed
Kumano. Permission to fire the main battery was granted as the nine 18.1-inch (46 cm) guns aimed at the enemy and opened fire. Three first salvo 18.1-inch (46 cm) shells hit
Johnston aft below the waterline, cutting her speed to 17 knots and destroying her 5-inch (127 mm) turrets 3, 4, and 5. Immediately afterwards, three first salvo 6.1-inch (155 mm) shells from
Yamatos secondary battery tore into the destroyer, one hitting aft and destroying an AA director, while two hit the torpedo director and bridge, causing numerous casualties and severing the fingers of Commander Evans's left hand. The ship was mangled badly, with dead and dying sailors strewn across her bloody decks. Hagen and others repeated the myth that these were 14-inch (356 mm) shells from
Kongō at 14,250 yards, who was still in a rain squall and could not even see
Hoel at 9,000 yards.
Noshiro and her destroyers recorded
Yamato sinking an enemy ship. The rough estimation of the fall of the shell hits was 21,000 yards and 18 degrees; Yamato was at 20,300 yards at 17.5 degrees. However,
Johnston was crippled but not sunk as she hid behind a rain squall and conducted damage control for 10 minutes as
Yamato fired AP shells from her main guns that over-penetrated
Johnston without exploding. Already depleted before the battle, her remaining store of oil did not fuel a catastrophic explosion. Simultaneously, destroyer
Heermann and destroyer escort
Samuel B. Roberts had finished screening the escort carriers and rushed into action at 08:45.
Samuel B. Roberts still carried torpedo tubes (which were removed on many destroyer escorts), and Lieutenant Commander Robert W. Copeland decided to make use of them.
Samuel B. Roberts was functionally a miniature destroyer, equipped with two 5-inch (127 mm) guns and a triple torpedo tube mount, and only designed for 26 knots, intended for light escorting duties and
anti-submarine warfare. However, by raising pressure to 660 pounds per square inch (4,600 kPa) and diverting all available steam to the ship's turbines,
Samuel B. Roberts obtained 28.7 knots. At the same time, the still wounded
Hoel had five more torpedoes on deck and limped to expend the rest. At 07:50,
Hoel spotted what she claimed was a cruiser column, but was actually the Japanese battleships and closed to engage.
Yamato and
Nagato located
Hoel and took her under fire;
Nagato with all her guns at 9,400 yards and
Yamato with her secondary battery at 6,300 yards. One of
Nagatos 16.1-inch (41 cm) shells hit below her bridge alongside a flurry of 5.5-inch (14 cm) and 6.1-inch (155 mm) secondary shell hits destroying her forward engine room and generator, shredding her superstructure, and causing a 10 degree list to port. However, this did not stop
Hoel from dumping the rest of her torpedoes at her opponent's position.
Yamato and
Nagato turned away to avoid the attack, and though no torpedo hits were scored, the Japanese battleships' evasive maneuvers forced them out of the action for 20 minutes and took Kurita out of command on the Japanese side.
Taffy 3's losses After this point, three Japanese battleships returned to the scene.
Yamato and
Nagato were recovering from
Hoels torpedo spread and had Taffy 3 in their crosshairs, while
Kongō had finally left the rain squall and chased the far off action, and the presence of the Japanese flagship took effect as the nearest escort carrier, the
Gambier Bay, was targeted by a first salvo from
Haruna and
Yamato and hit by battleship caliber shell that passed through the very aft end of the flight deck. However, at 08:17 the first definitive 18.1-inch (46 cm) shell sliced through
Gambier Bays forward hangar bay, before at 08:20, another 18.1-inch (46 cm) shell hit
Gambier Bay below the waterline and sliced through her aft engine room, causing major flooding and immediately cutting her speed to 10 knots.
Yamato followed up with another pair of 18.1-inch (46 cm) hits at 08:23, one hitting below the waterline and causing more major flooding destroying her machine shop and some freshwater tanks and the other slicing through her bow. At around the same time,
Samuel B. Roberts closed to point blank range and took
Chikuma under fire.
Chikuma turned to engage, but could score no hits as
Samuel B. Roberts was now so close that
Chikumas 8-inch (203 mm) guns could not be pressed down low enough for an accurate shot.
Heermann also took
Chikuma under fire, and 5-inch (127 mm) shell hits began to pile up on the leading Japanese heavy cruiser while the Americans took little damage in turn. At 08:20,
Kongō briefly shot at
Johnston, and in turn had forty 5-inch (127 mm) shells launched back at her. At 08:23,
Kongō fired on
Gambier Bay and claimed gunnery hits.
Kongō probably witnessed the hits scored by
Yamato, which matched the range, bearing, and firing angle of said hits. At 08:30,
Kalinin Bays break ended as the light cruiser
Yahagi, leading the destroyers
Yukikaze,
Isokaze,
Urakaze and
Nowaki, fired a spread of 24 torpedoes at 15,000 yards, some of which came dangerously close to hitting the carrier until fighters destroyed them with strafing runs. However, things went from bad to worse as
Tone and
Haguro had recommenced firing on
Kalinin Bay, and to great effect. Most of next eleven 8-inch (203 mm) shell hits were scored after 08:40 when
Tone and
Haguro had closed to 10,100 yards. Many hits passed through the flight deck and hangar bay, starting a large fire, while near misses flooded seawater into the ship. Most dangerously, an 8-inch (203 mm) shell holed
Kalinin Bay below the waterline, passed through the ship, and detonated after coming out the other side and hitting the water, effectively acting as a near miss. This shell disabled the ship's fuel lines, shredded her forward bulkhead, and put the ship in serious danger.
White Plains and
Kitkun Bay meanwhile came under fire from
Chōkai, which straddled both carriers multiple times. The plight of
Gambier Bay had only continued during this period.
Yamatos gunfire set a massive fire inside the hangar bay and caused more flooding. Going off of older sources,
Gambier Bays sinking is often credited to Japanese heavy cruisers, particularly
Chikuma. The story goes that
Chikuma recognized
Gambier Bay as an escort carrier, and the cruisers switched to high explosive 8-inch (203 mm) rounds and closed to point blank range, sinking
Gambier Bay between 08:10 to 09:11. However,
Chikuma was engaged in a gunnery duel with
Heermann and
Samuel B. Roberts by the time
Gambier Bay took her first hit, and never fired on the escort carriers again. As for the other cruisers,
Tone and
Haguro focused their fire on the escort carriers
Kalinin Bay;
Chōkai probably engaged
White Plains and
Kitkun Bay. The surviving records from the Japanese cruisers also never correctly identified their targets, reporting either "
Ranger-class aircraft carriers" or "
Independence-class light carriers", and all damage inflicted to the other escort carriers were by armor piercing 8-inch (203 mm) shells. Most of this came from earlier accounts of the battle off Samar being based on U.S. accounts without taking Japanese records into perspective. Regardless, at 08:43
Gambier Bay took a shell hit which destroyed her forward engine room, leaving her dead in the water. The abandon ship order was issued as
Gambier Bay began to sink, prompting
Yamato to cease fire and for the light cruiser
Noshiro to close the range and fire on a disabled and listing "
Independence-class light carrier". The sinking
Gambier Bay received multiple high explosive shell hits at this time period which killed evacuating crew members.
Gambier Bay capsized at 09:07 and fully sank at 09:11 with the loss of 147 sailors.
Hoel was searching for targets as to draw fire from the escort carriers when
Yamato and
Nagato noticed an enemy "cruiser" and opened fire at 9,000 yards,
Nagato with all her guns and
Yamato with her secondary battery only, her main guns still being focused on
Gambier Bay.
Hoel fired with her forward guns, hitting the light cruiser
Noshiro with a 5-inch (127 mm) shell which killed 1 sailor and wounded 3 others, but a mix of 5.5-inch, 6.1-inch, and 16.1-inch gunfire got the better of her as a hit destroyed her last boiler. Dead in the water,
Hoel quickly accumulated hits from
Yamatos and ''Nagato's
shells, and was set ablaze as her forward magazines ignited and practically every function on the ship became disabled. After sustaining over 40 shell hits, at 08:40 Hoel
listed at 20 degrees as the crew attempted to abandon ship. The destroyer inspected the sinking destroyer, and although her crew wished to machine-gun the survivors as revenge for U.S. pilots strafing Japanese survivors in the water, Captain Maeda forbade such an attack. Still, Isokaze
sailed off without rescuing the survivors as Hoel
finally rolled over and sank at 08:55 with the loss of 253 sailors. About 86 to 89 crew members on Hoel'' survived out of a complement of over 300, while 253 men died with the ship. Survivors spent roughly two days in the water, facing shark attacks and injuries, before some of them were lucky enough to be rescued. Things were going more successfully for
Samuel B. Roberts and
Heermann who through all of this continued to blast
Chikuma.
Samuel B. Roberts ran out of high explosive 5-inch (127 mm) shells and switched to armor piercing rounds, then to training rounds, and finally to star shells. The star shells in particular engulfed
Chikumas deck in flames as together
Heermann and
Samuel B. Roberts hit
Chikuma with some 200 5-inch (127 mm) shells.
Chikumas turret 3 was destroyed, and her bridge, superstructure, and deck were all set ablaze as American aircraft took her under fire as well. However,
Heermann took the brunt of the Japanese fire and took multiple 8-inch (203 mm) shell hits from
Chikuma which destroyed her bridge, forward turrets, and steering room while two 14-inch (356 mm) near misses from
Kongō exploded below her keel and flooded her bow so badly her anchors were dragging in the water.
Heermann retreated to lay a smokescreen across the rear formation. Almost entirely out of ammunition,
Samuel B. Roberts attempted to withdraw to the escort carriers, only for the
Kongō to track an American destroyer and open fire. With three salvos, two of her 6-inch (152 mm) secondary shells hit the destroyer escort, one passing through the aft superstructure, and the other hitting below the waterline and knocking out her forward boilers, cutting her speed to 17 knots.
Kongō then fired a single main battery salvo, scoring three or four 14-inch (356 mm) shell hits which caused the destroyer to lose all power and stop dead in the water. The abandon ship order was issued as
Samuel B. Roberts sank by the stern over 40 minutes with the loss of 90 men. Of the three US destroyers in the battle only USS Heerman did not sink.
Heerman is best remembered as the only American destroyer of "Taffy 3" to survive the chaotic Battle off Samar. Despite sustaining heavy damage and hits the destoyer survived the battle. Later the
Heerman was repaired and brought back into service during
World War 2.
Japanese losses By 08:55,
Tone and
Haguro took aim upon
Fanshaw Bay;
Tone scored one 8-inch (203 mm) hit while
Haguro landed three. Two shells hit the forward part of the flight deck and cut through electrical wires, starting a series of fires in the hangar bay, while the other two holed
Fanshaw Bays bow above the waterline. At 09:00,
Haguro fired on
Dennis at 14,500 yards and hit the destroyer escort with four 8-inch (203 mm) shells, two hit the aft superstructure, one hit the bow below the waterline, and a final shell sliced through and destroyed her forward 5-inch (127 mm)
gun turret.
Chikuma had finished losing a gunfight to
Heermann and
Samuel B. Roberts when perhaps due to a mix of that fact and being the lead Japanese cruiser it became the main focus of American torpedo bombers. Four
TBM Avenger torpedo-bombers attacked
Chikuma, and Richard Deitchman, flying from , succeeded in hitting the cruiser's stern port quarter with a
Mark 13 torpedo that severed the stern and disabled its port screw and rudder.
Chikuma's speed dropped to 18 knots (33 km/h), then to 9 knots (17 km/h), but more seriously, she became unsteerable. At 11:05,
Chikuma was attacked by five TBMs from
Kitkun Bay and hit portside amidships by two torpedoes and its engine rooms flooded. At 14:00, three TBMs from a composite squadron of ships from and led by Lt. Joseph Cady dropped more torpedoes which hit
Chikuma portside. Cady was later awarded the
Navy Cross for his action.
Chikuma began to sink as the destroyer
Nowaki came to assist the sinking heavy cruiser, removed her crew, and left the cruiser to slip beneath the waves.
Kurita withdraws Although Kurita's battleships had not been seriously damaged, the air and destroyer attacks had broken up his formations, and he had lost tactical control. His flagship
Yamato had been forced to turn north in order to avoid torpedoes, causing him to lose contact with much of his task force. The determined, concentrated sea and air attack from Taffy 3 had already sunk or crippled the heavy cruisers
Chōkai,
Kumano, and
Chikuma, which seemed to confirm to the Japanese that they were engaging major fleet units rather than escort carriers and destroyers. Kurita was at first not aware that Halsey had already taken the bait and that his battleships and carriers were far out of range. The ferocity of the renewed air attacks further contributed to his confusion and reinforced his suspicion that Halsey's aircraft carriers were nearby. Signals from Ozawa eventually convinced Kurita that he was not currently engaged with the entirety of Third Fleet, and that the remaining elements of Halsey's forces might close in and destroy him if he lingered too long in the area. Finally, Kurita received word that the Southern Force that he was to meet had been destroyed the previous night. Calculating that the fight was not worth further losses and believing he had already sunk or damaged several American carriers, Kurita broke off the engagement at 09:20 with the order: "all ships, my course north, speed 20." He set a course for Leyte Gulf but became distracted by reports of another American carrier group to the north. Preferring to expend his ships against capital ships, rather than transports, he turned north after the non-existent enemy fleet and ultimately withdrew back through the San Bernardino Strait.
Heermann was turning in circles evading the Japanese attack, when the gunfire suddenly stopped, leaving
Heermann as the only American destroyer to survive the battle. As he retreated north and then west through the San Bernardino Strait, the smaller and heavily damaged American force continued to press the battle. While watching the Japanese retreat, Admiral Sprague heard a nearby sailor exclaim, "Damn it, boys, they're getting away!". Another yelled "Just wait a little longer, boys, we're suckering them into 40-mm range". Their wishes were not wasted as at 10:50, the damaged
Suzuya was waddling at 20 knots when a flight of
Kitkun Bay aircraft attacked the heavy cruiser and scored multiple straddles and near misses, which detonated her starboard torpedoes and shredded the cruiser, blasting off her aft 5-inch (127 mm) secondary guns, destroying the starboard engines and boilers, and engulfing the ship in flames which, when they reached the remaining torpedoes and 5-inch (127 mm) ammunition, caused further destruction. The abandon ship order was issued as the destroyer
Okinami evacuated the sinking
Suzuya and rescued 620 men; 247
Suzuya sailors perished.
Kamikaze attacks At 10:10, the American ships had secured from general quarters. 10 minutes later saw the crew relieved to get coffee and a chance to relax, but the fight was not done yet. Just before 11:00, a flight of planes – believed to be a mix of enemy and friendly – were seen above between 1,000 and 3,000 feet to the starboard side of USS
Saint Lo. These were in fact a flight of Japanese Kamikazes from land based air fields. A trio of
A6M5 Zeros raced towards the already crippled
Kalinin Bay, and despite the carrier's AA defenses the first of them smashed onto her flight deck near the starboard quarter, violently exploded, before what was left of the plane slid off the port bow. This was followed very closely by a second A6M5 striking the port stack, catwalk, and 20 mm mount before its remains crashed into the water and exploded, causing mild damage from a small bomb near miss. The third Zero missed
Kalinin Bay and crashed in the water 50 yards away to port. Two more A6M5s attacked
White Plains, one of which just barely missed the carrier by two inches and sprayed debris over the ship. Another five A6M5 Zeros dove down to attack
Kitkun Bay, one of which missed the bridge but crashed into the port catwalk, causing its bomb to explode midair and set fire to the jeep carrier. exploding after being hit by a kamikaze The greatest achievement of this attack came when an A6M5 Zero flown by Lieutenant
Yukio Seki originally dove his plane – with a bomb on each wing – down to attack
White Plains, but was hit by AA fire from his target. He instead took his damaged plane and few it to the direction of
Saint Lo. In his sacrifice, his plane struck the flight deck at the number 5 wire, with the impact detonating both of the Zero's attached bombs. Captain McKenna had not felt that his ship was seriously damaged aside a hole in the flight deck which had water hoses placed into action to stop the fire encasing it. However, damage control was not effective enough as the fire quickly spread to the hangar bay and drenched it in smoke. McKenna attempted contact with the hangar deck, but communications were out. Before any further reactions could take place, a massive explosion engulfed the aft section of the hangar bay, followed by a third and fourth much stronger detonation which blasted the flight deck open and blew off the aircraft elevator. McKenna could not even tell if the rear section of
Saint Lo was still attached as the abandon ship order was immediately issued and all engines screeched to a halt. This proved fortunate as a fifth explosion listed the ship to port, then three more further shredded the escort carrier and hauled her to starboard.
Saint Lo sank a half hour later with the loss of 113 men, while her surviving crew were rescued by
Heermann and the surviving destroyer escorts.
Seventh Fleet's calls for help Shortly after 08:00, desperate messages calling for assistance began to come in from Seventh Fleet. One from Vice Admiral
Thomas C. Kinkaid, sent in plain language, read, "My situation is critical. Fast battleships and support by airstrikes may be able to keep enemy from destroying CVEs and entering Leyte". At 08:22, Kinkaid radioed, "Fast Battleships are Urgently Needed Immediately at Leyte Gulf". At 09:05, Kinkaid radioed, "Need Fast Battleships and Air Support". At 09:07, Kinkaid broadcast what his mismatched fleet was up against: "4 Battleships, 8 Cruisers Attack Our Escort Carriers". away at Pearl Harbor, Admiral
Chester W. Nimitz had monitored the desperate calls from Taffy 3, and sent Halsey a terse message: "Where is TF 34?". To
complicate decryption, communications officers were to add a nonsense phrase at both ends of a message, in this case, prefixed with "Turkey trots to water" and suffixed with "
The world wonders." The receiving radioman repeated the "where is" section of this message and his staff failed to remove the trailing phrase "the world wonders." A simple query by a distant supervisor had, through the random actions of three sailors, become a stinging rebuke. Halsey was infuriated since he did not recognize the final phrase as padding, possibly chosen for the 90th anniversary of the
Charge of the Light Brigade. He threw his hat to the deck and began to curse. Halsey sent Task Group 38.1 (TG 38.1), commanded by Vice Admiral
John S. McCain, to assist. Halsey recalled that he did not receive the vital message from Kinkaid until around 10:00 and later claimed that he had known that Kinkaid was in trouble but had not dreamed of the seriousness of the crisis. McCain, by contrast, had monitored Sprague's messages and turned TG 38.1 to aid Sprague even before Halsey's orders arrived (after prodding from Nimitz), putting Halsey's defense in question. At 10:05, Kinkaid asked, "Who is guarding the San Bernardino Strait?" McCain raced toward the battle and briefly turned into the wind to recover returning planes. At 10:30, a force of
Helldivers, Avengers, and Hellcats was launched from , , and at the extreme range of . Although the attack did little damage, it strengthened Kurita's decision to retire. At 11:15, more than two hours after the first distress messages had been received by his flagship, Halsey ordered TF 34 to turn around and head south to pursue Kurita, but the Japanese forces had already escaped. Just hours after his perceived chastisement by Nimitz, Halsey's forces destroyed all four enemy aircraft carriers he had pursued. However, despite the complete absence of Third Fleet against the main Japanese force, the desperate efforts of Taffy 3 and assisting task forces had driven back the Japanese. A relieved Halsey sent the following message to Nimitz, Kinkaid and General Douglas MacArthur at 12:26: "It can be announced with assurance that the Japanese Navy has been beaten, routed and broken by the Third and Seventh Fleets."
Survivors' ordeal Partly as a result of disastrous communication errors within Seventh Fleet and a reluctance to expose search ships to submarine attack, a very large number of survivors from Taffy 3, including those from
Gambier Bay,
Hoel,
Johnston, and
Samuel B. Roberts, were not rescued until October 27, after two days adrift. A plane had spotted the survivors, but the location radioed back was incorrect. By then, many had died as a result of exposure, thirst and
shark attacks. Finally, when a
Landing Craft Infantry of Task Group 78.12 arrived, its captain used what is almost a standard method of distinguishing friend from foe, asking a topical question about a national sport, as one survivor, Jack Yusen, relates:We saw this ship come up, it was circling around us, and a guy was standing up on the bridge with a megaphone. And he called out 'Who are you? Who are you?' and we all yelled out 'Samuel B. Roberts!' He's still circling, so now we're cursing at him. He came back and yelled 'Who won the World Series?' and we all yelled '
St. Louis Cardinals!' And then we could hear the engines stop, and cargo nets were thrown over the side. That's how we were rescued. ==Aftermath==