A turning point came when Kurita’s flagship Yamato, turning north to comb the tracks of six torpedoes, found them running alongside at the same speed, so she was unable to turn and come back into the battle for almost ten minutes. This loss of control added to the confusion in the mind of Kurita.The vulnerability of the Japanese cruisers’ torpedo armament has already been mentioned in Part I. The damage his ships were taking from the desperate air attacks from the small escort carriers, hidden behind smoke screens, convinced him that he was facing a full- blown carrier group, and he threw in the towel, ordering his ships to break off the pursuit. The battle, to all intents and purposes, was over. And once again, the torpedo had proved itself the decisive weapon.
During their withdrawal, the Japanese were to lose one more dreadnought to torpedo attack. On the night of 21 November 1944, the Kongo was accompanying Yamato returning to Japan, when the flagship detected radar emissions from a surfaced submarine. The fleet took evasive action, but Kongo was struck by one torpedo from a spread launched by USS Sealion II, commanded by Captain Eli T Reich. Kongo’s commander Rear Admiral Shimazaki Toshio kept her under way to escape further submarine attack, but one by one her bulkheads gave way under the pressure of inrushing water. Inexorably she flooded, listing more and more to port. Her exhausted damage control officer committed suicide, despairing of saving his ship. The news of this personal tragedy convinced Kongo’s CO to stop the vessel and give the order to abandon ship. But suddenly, when her list reached 60 degrees, the forward 14in magazines erupted in a series of giant explosions, and Kongo plunged to the bottom with heavy loss of life.
DEATH OF GIANTS II: SHINANO
On the evening of 28 November 1944 the giant aircraft carrier Shinano, planned as the third of the Yamato-class super-battleships, but converted after Midway to an armoured deck support carrier for battle groups, left Yokosuka on her maiden voyage to Kure to complete fitting-out. The largest carrier built during the Second World War, she would also have the shortest life.
During her initial voyage Shinano’s crew became aware that they were being shadowed by an American submarine, as they picked up her radar emissions. The carrier and her escorts were capable of a much higher speed than a surfaced submarine so they continued on their way unconcerned. The submarine was USS Archerfish, under the command of Joseph P Enright, who doggedly pursued his prey through the night, until her continual zigzags, and a reduction in speed caused by a hot propeller shaft bearing, enabled him to get within torpedo range. Having dived, Commander Enright set his torpedoes to run at 10ft (3m), and launched six at Shinano.
Four hit on the starboard side, causing serious flooding. Shinano had sailed with many watertight doors lacking their waterproof rubber gaskets, which were to be installed at Kure. In addition, the watertight integrity of her compartmentalisation had not been able to be checked using air pressure. Piping and wires passing through bulkheads had not been backed with stuffing materials to render them watertight, the ship’s pumping arrangements were still incomplete and she was supposed to rely on portable pumps. Despite all these drawbacks, Captain Abe evidently had confidence in his massive 70,000-ton ship to absorb even four torpedo hits, as her half-sister Musashi had survived many more before finally sinking.
He therefore kept running at Shinano’s best speed, thereby causing the entry of thousands of tons of water. Attempts to control her list by counter-flooding did not work, and eventually she heeled so far that the water inlet valves on the port side were above water level and ineffective. In a last desperate bid to save the ship, Abe ordered the flooding of the port engine rooms, and called for two of his escort destroyers to tow the ship to shore. To expect two 2000-ton destroyers to move a waterlogged 70,000-ton deadweight was patently impossible, and the cables parted immediately.
When the list reached 30 degrees Abe ordered abandon ship, and when she capsized shortly afterwards, she took 1435 officers, men and civilian contractors down with her. As with her half-sister, Shinano had suffered severe internal disruptions from the initial torpedo explosions, meaning that like Musashi, the design of her TDS was inadequate.
DEATH OF GIANTS III: YAMATO
When in April 1945 Musashi’s sister ship Yamato was sent on her one-way mission to Okinawa, to beach herself as an artillery battery, it was inevitable that the Americans would concentrate massive air attacks to sink her. And in three concerted attacks, lasting just over an hour, this is precisely what they proceeded to do, for the loss of a handful of planes. It is estimated that it took at least six bomb and eleven torpedo hits to sink Yamato. As she capsized, Yamato’s magazines erupted in a huge mushroom cloud that was seen as far away as Kyushu. She took down with her 3055 officers and men.
The last of the super-battleships, the largest the world would ever see, and built to resist one-ton armour-piercing shells, had succumbed to the aerial torpedo hitting in her most vulnerable region, her underwater hull.
LAST OF THE HEAVYWEIGHTS: TAIHO, HAGURO AND INDIANAPOLIS
Taiho was to be the first of a new breed of Japanese aircraft carrier. After the disastrous Battle of Midway, when four carriers had been sunk by dive-bombers, she copied the Royal Navy’s philosophy when faced with superior air power, in adopting an armoured flight deck. This was 3in (76mm) thick, and the hangar deck itself was again armoured to 4.9in (125mm). She displaced 37,270 tons at full load, could accommodate up to seventy-five aircraft, and had a top speed of 33.33 knots.
Having solved, as they thought, the principal problem with their aircraft carriers, the Japanese fell foul of a more widespread problem, the lack of adequate anti-submarine escorts. So it was that the virtually brand-new Taiho sailed to participate in the Battle of the Philippine Sea, with high hopes. Unfortunately, at 0745 on 19 June 1944 the submarine USS Albacore launched six torpedoes at her. One of her pilots, Warrant Officer Sakio Komatsu, who had just taken off to participate in the second wave of attacks on the American carrier force, spotted the torpedo wakes and selflessly dived his plane onto one, which caused it to detonate. Of the remaining five torpedoes, four missed, but one hit the carrier on the starboard side just forward of the island.
The shockwave jammed her forward elevator in mid-rise, and fractured her aviation fuel tanks. She carried on operating aircraft, her crew even planking over the forward elevator with benches and tables taken from a mess deck to let planes pass over it, but all the time petrol fumes were invading the ship. Her damage control parties were completely inexperienced, and when finally, six and a half hours after the torpedo hit, the ventilator fans were turned on to clear the ship of the vapour, an electrical circuit caused a devastating explosion. Taiho lingered for almost two hours before a second huge explosion sent her to the bottom, together with 1650 officers and men. After this disaster, the giant carrier Shinano, also fitted with an armoured flight deck, had her aviation fuel tanks encased in a layer of concrete.