On 25 October 1944, USS Tang was accidentally sunk by one of her own torpedoes in the Formosa Strait. This time seventy-eight crewmen died, but nine survived to become PoWs.
For her fifth war patrol, the USS Tang, under the command of Richard O’Kane, left Pearl on 24 September 1944 en route to the Formosa Strait. Tang had an eventful patrol in the course of which she sank several ships, including an exciting encounter with two enemy vessels which came in to ram, but only succeeded in colliding with each other.
On the evening of 24 October Tang surfaced off Turnabout Island and commenced a surface attack on a large convoy including tankers and merchant ships transporting aircraft as deck cargo. Tang fired two torpedoes from her bow tubes at each of three targets, then fired her two stern tubes at another two ships. Having reloaded two bow tubes with his last remaining torpedoes, at 023 °Commander O’Kane closed to finish off a damaged transport. The first torpedo ran straight and true, but the last torpedo broached the surface, turned left and headed back towards the submarine. Tang fishtailed to avoid it, but 20 seconds after firing it, the torpedo struck the boat abreast the after torpedo room.
As she sank by the stern, the nine officers and men on the bridge were left swimming, but only three were left alive by daybreak. The three were joined by an officer who had escaped from the conning tower as Tang sank. The survivors trapped in the sunken submarine burned confidential papers, then tried to escape to the surface. Of the thirteen men who made the attempt, only nine reached the surface, and of these only five were still alive at dawn. The final total of nine survivors, including Commander O’Kane, were picked up by a Japanese escort vessel. She had already saved many burned and injured men from Tang’s victims of the previous night, who vented their anger by clubbing and kicking the Americans. Fortunately, all survived as PoWs to relate their escape.
DEATH OF GIANTS I: LEYTE GULF
The fleet encounters collectively known as the Battle of Leyte Gulf — which encompassed the sinking of the Musashi, one of the two largest battleships ever built — included the very last surface encounter between dreadnoughts in history, and brought home the dangers of the large torpedo batteries on Japanese warships, demonstrated how a torpedo threat could be as useful as an actual attack.
American torpedoes began the action when Admiral Kurita’s flagship Atago was torpedoed out from under him by US submarine Darter. He was picked up out of the sea and transferred to Yamato. Then USS Dace sank another heavy cruiser, the Maya, and finally Darter put two torpedoes into Takao that sent her back to Brunei. Three heavy cruisers down and more to come.
Then in the Sibuyan Sea, on 24 October 1944 US carrier air groups concentrated their attacks on the 70,000-ton Musashi. Despite her anti-aircraft armament of twelve 12.7cm guns and a total of no less than 130 × 25mm Hotchkiss cannons, she was unable to fight off the concentrated and co-ordinated attacks by hundreds of dive- and torpedo-bombers. For the loss of five Avenger torpedo bombers and five Helldiver dive-bombers, the Musashi was progressively hit by nineteen armour-piercing bombs and, more damagingly, a total of seventeen torpedoes. Counter-flooding helped reduce her list, but she trimmed seriously by the bows due to multiple torpedo hits forward of № 1 turret. Abandoned by the rest of Kurita’s force, her captain tried to beach her, but with her forward turret already awash it was hopeless. He gave the order to abandon ship, in time for 1376 members of her crew of 2399 men to be rescued. From the very first torpedo hit amidships, Musashi had begun to take in a large amount of water and to list significantly, indicating failures in her TDS.
The next act of the drama took place in the Surigao Strait, on the night of 24/25 October 1944, where Admiral Nishimura’s battleships Fuso and Yamashiro, the heavy cruiser Mogami and three destroyers were heading for the southern entrance to Leyte Gulf. They were ambushed by PT-boats and destroyers. Fuso took two torpedo hits from the destroyer salvo amidships on her starboard side, slowed and hauled out of line. She then reversed course, evidently fighting internal fires started by the torpedo explosions, as she headed away from the coming battle at slow speed.
Some time later secondary magazines started exploding, as heard by shadowing PT-boat crews, and at 0345 Fuso blew up in a brilliant fireball and apparently broke into two halves, which continued to drift for a considerable time, blazing furiously. Following Japanese ships identified the two halves as Fuso and Yamashiro, thinking both had been destroyed. Shortly after, more US destroyer torpedoes reached the Japanese line, sank one destroyer, left a second crippled, and blew the bow off a third, leaving Nishimura with only one undamaged destroyer.
Meanwhile, Nishimura’s flagship Yamashiro had taken two separate torpedo hits from destroyers, one in the port quarter and one in the starboard bow. She initially slowed after each hit, but each time regained speed and carried on to her hopeless battle with the large force of battleships, cruisers and destroyers awaiting her at the mouth of the strait. After taking a third torpedo hit in her starboard engine room, and a fourth soon after in the same area, Yamashiro began to list, and capsized at 0419, confirmed by the fact that at that moment her blip disappeared from US radar screens.
Finally, it remains to describe the torpedo actions in the main battle, which took place when Kurita’s centre force bore through the San Bernardino Strait to fall upon the invasion transports. The only surface forces in his way were the light escort carriers (CVEs) off Samar, used for air combat patrol, ground attack and anti-submarine patrols. In addition, their screen consisted of just three destroyers and four destroyer escorts. Without hesitation the captains of the destroyers Johnston, Heerman and Hoel, together with the DE Samuel D Roberts, engaged the immensely powerful Japanese force, consisting of battleships, heavy and light cruisers, and fleet destroyers. When their own torpedoes were expended, they continued to make torpedo attack feints, while all the time engaging the Japanese with rapid 5in gunfire.
The escort carrier USS Kalinin Bay engaged in a fire-fight with Japanese heavy cruisers, replying to their 8in salvoes with rapid fire from her single 5in stern gun. After the cruisers turned away she duelled with the large destroyers of Destroyer Squadron 10. Kept at bay by the counter-attacks of USS Johnston, at 0915 the Japanese destroyers launched a torpedo attack from the long range of 10,500yds (51/4 miles). As the torpedoes approached Kalinin Bay, they were seen to be slowing. A Grumman Avenger from CVE St Lo strafed and exploded two torpedoes in Kalinin Bay’s wake, and her own 5in gun crew deflected a third which missed astern.