Admiral Kinkaid was ordering his Seventh Fleet battleships inside Leyte Gulf to form a column, proceed to the eastern exit of the gulf, and, at best speed, sortie from Leyte and engage the Japanese surface force. The cruisers and destroyers were to form up on the battleship column as promptly as possible. A first concern, however, was to inventory the stocks of armor-piercing (AP) projectiles on hand. The battleships and cruisers had expended most of their AP ammunition during the night action at Surigao, and the rounds remaining in their magazines were primarily high-capacity (HC) projectiles intended for shore bombardment fire in support of the troops ashore. HC rounds, even in the 14- and 16-inch calibers of the battleships, would cause mainly external damage to the larger Japanese warships. AP projectiles were needed to pierce their armor and detonate in their magazines and engineering spaces. Listening to the reports going back to Kinkaid on the TBS, I could appreciate the admiral’s concern. The count of AP projectiles remaining in the force’s magazines seemed well below what might be required for the heavy engagement Kinkaid anticipated.
As the Bennion steamed north at thirty knots to rejoin the battleships, we gathered the other destroyers in our division. The crew was at partial battle stations, with one-third of the men at a time going to the mess decks for a ration of flapjacks and black coffee.
Before the first battleship had sortied from the gulf, Jehovah announced on the TBS that Rear Admiral Sprague, the Taffy Force commander, was reporting that the Japanese force had disengaged, turned 180 degrees, and was now headed north at flank speed for San Bernadino Strait, apparently to depart the Leyte area. Why, we wondered, when they were so close to destroying the CVE groups? They had to be concerned with getting caught by Admiral Halsey’s Fast Carrier Task Force. With no air cover of their own, they could face disaster if Halsey’s dive bombers and torpedo planes attacked them in the confines of the Philippine archipelago with limited room for evasion. Further, the destroyer torpedo attacks had broken up their tactical cohesion and three Japanese heavy cruisers had been fatally damaged by combined air and surface attacks from the CVE Taffy groups. Our carriers had been largely spared. One CVE and three escorts had been sunk. But apparently, the threat of the imminent arrival of Halsey’s Fast Carrier Task Force had driven off the Japanese heavies. The Taffy units had been saved from almost certain annihilation off Samar.
Samuel Eliot Morison was later to write that Leyte Gulf, with the Battle of Surigao Strait, the action with the Taffy groups off Samar, the landing of a U.S. Army invasion force on Leyte, and the repulse of the Japanese air attacks on the exposed transports and supply ships of the invasion force anchored in Leyte Gulf, was the greatest battle in naval history. The Battle of Surigao Strait would be the last major engagement of U.S. naval surface ships in which aircraft did not play a part. It was the end of an era.
It was a milestone in my career as well. A week later, during an intense air attack in Leyte Gulf, I transferred by whaleboat from the Bennion to a departing cargo ship to begin a long, slow hitchhike across the Pacific. I had orders to attend flight training. As I was saying good-bye to my skipper, Cdr. Joshua Cooper, a splendid gentleman and a great destroyer a great destroyer captain, he said he was sorry to see me leave the destroyer navy. I thought for a moment before I replied. I told him it was a great temptation to stay in tin cans. I particularly liked the Bennion, with its congenial wardroom and happy crew. But I had gone to the United States Naval Academy with the purpose of eventually becoming a carrier pilot and this was my last chance. I added only half seriously, “This past week, in a single twenty-four-hour period, we shot down three Zeros, sunk an enemy destroyer with gunfire, and made a torpedo hit at point blank range to help sink a Japanese battleship. I think I’m ready to try something new.”
Commander Cooper thanked me for my service as his commissioning gunnery officer in the Bennion and, gripping my hand firmly, wished me the best in my new Navy career. As I went over the side, he said, “By the time you get your wings, the war will be over. Exciting days like these will be a thing of the past.” He proved to be a better destroyer skipper than a seer.
An unspoken reason for my going into aviation was that I had become convinced that the carrier had replaced the battleship as the capital ship of U.S. naval sea power. My experiences on board the Bennion over the last three months had impressed upon me that surface ships at war cannot survive in a hostile air environment without fighter cover. Although the Bennion was to win a Presidential Unit Citation for its prowess in shooting down Japanese aircraft, the carrier fighter planes, under the Bennion’s control, shot down ten Japanese planes for every one that our ship’s guns got.
THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER EMERGES
It was in the first days of World War II that the aircraft carrier replaced the battleship as the capital ship of the U.S. Navy. The Japanese carrier attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941 had conclusively demonstrated the effectiveness of carrier-based aviation as the new fulcrum of power in naval warfare. All eight of the battleships that had been moored at Pearl were sunk or damaged in the Japanese attack. That was tangible evidence of the range and lethality of carrier aviation. When the British battleship Repulse and battle cruiser Prince of Wales were sunk at sea off Malaya just two weeks later by Japanese horizontal bombers and torpedo planes, it drove home a new axiom of modern naval warfare: the vulnerability of surface ships to air attack during daylight hours. The requirement for protective air cover for surface ships venturing into harm’s way had been established. Surface ships in wartime could not operate safely during daylight hours in areas where there was probability of hostile aircraft unless local air cover was provided. Because of the need for this defensive air cover, and to exploit the striking range and power of the carrier’s planes, it became U.S. Navy doctrine that the carriers would be the centerpiece of the fleet’s offensive fighting dispositions, designated as fast carrier striking groups or fast carrier task forces. Carriers, battleships, cruisers, and destroyers were now to be integrated into these task forces (TFs) for mutual support. Carrier aircraft would provide the air cover and deliver the offensive punch at long range.
Surface forces continued to operate without air cover at night, when Japanese air attacks were not effective. Adm. Arleigh Burke, chief of naval operations (CNO) from 1952 to 1958, had served in the Pacific as a destroyer squadron commander in World War II. His success with the “Little Beavers” of Destroyer Squadron 23, eight Fletcher — class destroyers, was legendary. His operations consisted primarily of night maneuvers against Japanese surface forces in the “Slot,” the channel between the eastern and western Solomon Islands, between Guadalcanal and the Japanese naval bases to the west and the U.S. supply points to the east.