Battle of Surigao Strait

11. “Just scored a big flare on 1 of them!”

11 “Just scored a big flare on 1 of them!” While Sections 6, 9, and 8 of the PTs were attacking, Oldendorf had been tracking Force C and plotting its advance as best he could from the jumbled reports of the PT skippers. Now his first echelon of DDs was moving down-strait on both sides to launch the first attack. This was Captain Jesse G. Coward’s Desron 54. Its five ships were divided in two flanking groups: on the west were McDermut and Monssen, with Coward’s flagship, Remey, leading McGowan and Melvin on the east. Captain Coward increased speed to 25 knots as the opposing forces closed rapidly almost head-on. The pips on radar gradually separated until at least seven were visible on the screens. At 0258—the same moment the Japanese were visually sighted—the Eastern group was suddenly illuminated by an enemy searchlight. It stayed on for about ten seconds; Coward immediately assigned targets and increased speed to 30 knots. At nearly exactly 0300 the three DDs commenced firing twenty-seven torpedoes , range about 11,500 yards, barely inside the intermediate setting used. The moment the fish were away Coward swung hard left and made smoke to retire northeast along the Dinagat coast. None too soon. One of Remey’s tubes made a powder flash, and Japanese searchlights snaked out. Starshells burst abruptly overhead. Heavy gunfire began falling. Splashes were drenching the decks, and Eastern Group stepped up to 33 knots. At 0309, when the torpedoes should have reached their targets, two explosions were seen and three to five heard. Coward’s DDs had suffered no hits, and never used their own guns.1 When Coward got his radar fixes, Nishimura was making 20 knots upstrait and by radio-phone and dim beam light sending the order to change from approach to battle formation—an overdue change Yamagumo’s skipper 149 150 · Battle ofSurigaoStrait was chomping at the bit to implement. Shiro’s reason was that this would form a single column in line ahead. By so doing, the Japanese would know where “friendlies” were supposed to be, and avoid the risk of firing on or torpedoing their own ships, which could happen in a night battle—a very real risk, as the Fuso’s deadly swiping at Mogami demonstrated. In the new arrangement, Michishio and Asagumo remained as before, but Yamagumo and Shigure were to draw in from the flanks and take up the No. 3 and No. 4 spots behind them respectively. Astern Yamashiro, Fuso, and Mogami would follow at one-kilometer spaces. Course was north, and Third Section would become a single line, a spear aimed straight at the belly of Leyte Gulf. This is the formation, at least its intent, at the time of the attack by the American DDs as usually related. However, there is a significant dissenter on this point. Lieutenant Commander Nishino claims that this formation description is wrong. He says, “At 0202 Vice-Admiral Nishimura ordered to steady on the course 000.” According to Nishino, the force then advanced in three columns . He comments on the conventional record thus: “Senshi Sosho [official history] suggests that Nishimura’s force used a simple line-ahead formation. This is incorrect. I suspect that the official version is based on Shima’s 2YB staff records, which were off from the very beginning.” Rather, Nishino explained in 1980, “Yamashiro and Fuso made up the middle column. Mogami was stationed at Yamashiro’s port beam, 1.5 kilometers away. Michishio, Yamagumo, Asagumo, and Shigure comprised the right-hand column 1.5 kilometers abeam from the battleships.”2 Nishino’s claim might explain some of the confusing U.S. radar images received in this period. (For example, Boise at 0252 noted there “appeared to be two columns of three or four ships each, with a large ship in the lead of each column.”)3 However, there is no doubt that both Shigure and Yamagumo started to adjust their positions to enter a destroyer line column of some kind shortly after 0300; their voice-phones confirm it. The only question is what its relationship to Batdiv 2 was and how far had it progressed. Once the new formation was in place, Shiro’s Yamagumo and the other DDs would be free to unleash their deadly “long-lance” torpedoes at targets with confidence they were enemy. However, in the uncertain dark of night formation changes like this could take nearly a half hour to complete...