As the Japanese came into range, Rear Adm. Jesse B. Oldendorf’s battleships and cruisers, deployed in an east-west line to cross the “T” of the Japanese column, opened up with their main batteries. All along the northern horizon, enormous billows of flame from their 16- and 14-inch guns lit up the battle line. Directly over our heads stretched a procession of tracers converging on the Japanese column. The apparent slowness of the projectiles was surprising. Taking fifteen to twenty seconds in their trajectory before reaching their target, they seemed to hang in the sky. Through the gun director’s optics, I could clearly see the shells exploding as they hit the Japanese ships, sending up cascades of flame as they ripped away topside gun mounts and erupting into fiery sheets of molten steel as they tore into the heavy armor plate.
Our division, still in column, headed directly for the Japanese battleship Yamashiro. At a range of seven thousand yards, the destroyer leading our division, almost obscured by shell splashes and black smoke, turned right, and I could see its five torpedoes splash as they hit the water. Following in the ship’s wake, the Bennion heeled hard to port in a tight right turn to bring the torpedo tubes to bear. As the bridge called on the intercom and the sound-powered phones to “Launch torpedoes,” the Yamashiro completely filled the viewing glass of my range finder. The crosshairs were stabilized on the waterline just below the pagoda mast. The plotting room computer operator down below was repeating, “We have a good solution.” Glowing dials showed that the torpedo tubes were trained clear and the gyros set. I pushed the “fire torpedo” button on the console and stood up through the hatch to see our five fish shoot out of their tubes, running hot and straight.
As each destroyer adjusted its turn at the launch point to have the target at beam at the moment of launch, the formation became ragged, and the ships began maneuvering independently to avoid the enemy gunfire. As the Bennion retired to the north at thirty knots, explosions erupted close off the port beam. A destroyer of our squadron, the Albert W. Grant, was taking hits from large-caliber shells. The scene of action was now one of growing confusion. The Japanese formation had disintegrated, with ships circling out of control, dead in the water, on fire, and shuddering from massive explosions, unrecognizable with bows gone, sterns blown away, and topsides mangled. On the Bennion we were trying to match up radar contacts with visual sightings to distinguish friend from foe. Then, unexpectedly, large-caliber tracers came in our direction from a major warship only several thousand yards on our starboard side. It was quickly decided that this was not a friendly ship because the main battery was using ripple fire rather than the salvos characteristic of U.S. warships. As the warship and Bennion inadvertently closed, we suddenly found ourselves ideally positioned for a torpedo shot. Captain Cooper immediately decided to launch the remaining five torpedoes at this target of opportunity. Slewing the director around to enable the fire-control radar to get a quick range and bearing, I gave the plotting room an estimated target angle. By the time the torpedo mount reported ready to fire, plot reported the computer had a firing solution with a good target course and speed. The captain ordered, “Launch torpedoes,” the dials were in sync, the firing button pushed, and again it was five fish away. At the moment of launching, Bennion had closed to 3,000 yards on her target, the Yamashiro, and one of the torpedoes of Bennion’s second salvo scored a direct hit on the Japanese battleship, which sank almost immediately.
The destroyer squadron had re-formed north of the strait by about 0430, and as first evidence of morning light appeared, the destroyers were ordered to proceed south at high speed to engage and destroy the remnants of the Japanese force. The scene in the lower gulf, viewed in the predawn light, was appalling. I counted four distinct fires, and the oily surface of the water was littered with debris. Japanese sailors were clinging to bits of floating wreckage and calling out to us as we raced by, but there was no time to pick up survivors. We had sighted a Japanese destroyer, the Asagumo, limping south, badly damaged and on fire. It had been severely pounded by the cruisers and battleships. If the Asagumo still had torpedoes aboard, it remained a real and deadly threat. Changing course to close on the Asagumo, the Bennion opened fire with its 5-inch battery at ten thousand yards and began to hit on the third salvo. We shifted to rapid continuous fire at six thousand yards, and as our rounds penetrated and exploded, flames burst from her hatches. At about two thousand yards, the Asagumo blew apart and slid beneath the gray, choppy waters as the Bennion raced by.
Just as the Bennion turned to rejoin the formation, a Zero broke out of the low clouds on our port beam heading directly at us. Our 5-inch battery commenced firing, and in a no-deflection head-on shot it scored a direct hit. The Zero was blown to pieces, the flaming remnants falling into the sea. It was now the early morning of the twenty-sixth. The crew of the Bennion was tired. We had been up at 0400 the day before, loading 5-inch ammunition from a Liberty ship anchored in Tacloban while Navy Wildcats tangled with Zeros overhead. We had been at GQ for more than twelve hours. Now, as we listened to the reports come in over the TBS and saw the survivors clinging to the smoking wreckage of a Japanese fleet, we realized a major Japanese force of battleships and cruisers had been virtually immolated and only one of our ships, the destroyer Albert W. Grant, had been seriously damaged.
THE BATTLE OFF SAMAR
The thrill of victory was rudely interrupted. The TBS radio in the pilot house was picking up transmissions from Taffy 3, the escort carrier (CVE) task group operating east of the island of Samar. Three carrier task groups (also including Taffy 1 and Taffy 2), consisting of six CVEs each, were providing air cover for the Seventh Fleet ships in Leyte Gulf and close support to the U.S. Army invasion troops who had landed. From what we could make out from the sometimes garbled, and often incomplete, transmissions, the CVEs were under long-range gunfire attack from a large Japanese naval surface force.
Our intercepted intelligence was shortly confirmed by a voice message from “Jehovah,” the personal radio call sign of Vice Adm. Thomas Kinkaid, commander, Seventh Fleet. He was reporting that the three Taffy groups operating east of Samar were under attack by Japanese battleships, cruisers, and destroyers closing rapidly on the small carriers and their defensive screens. Planes from the CVEs, Wildcats and Avengers, had been making repeated runs on the attacking Japanese ships to force them to take evasive maneuvers and slow their rate of closure on the small carriers, but now they were having little effect. Their bomb bays were empty and their gun ammo expended. The Taffy surface escorts, destroyer escorts (DEs) and destroyers, had initiated a series of determined torpedo attacks against the enemy ships, but this heroic assault in clear daylight only served to slow the enemy temporarily before their torpedoes were expended and their short-range guns were disabled by the Japanese counterbattery fire. Three of the escorts were sunk and four were damaged, but their attacks gave all three Taffy groups time to launch aircraft. Taffy 3, closest to the enemy, was fleeing south under heavy fire from the Japanese. The Gambier Bay, bringing up the rear, was sunk, and most of the other five CVEs had been hit and damaged.