Over a thousand Americans died, comparable to the combined losses of American men and ships at the Coral Sea and Midway. The force lost two escort carriers, two destroyers, a destroyer escort and several aircraft. Aircraft from the carriers of Taffies 1, 2, and 3, including FM-2 Wildcats, F6F Hellcats and TBM Avengers, strafed, bombed, torpedoed, rocketed, depth-charged and made numerous "dry" runs at the Japanese force when they ran out of ammunition. Taffy 3's three destroyers and four destroyer escorts possessed neither the firepower nor the armor to oppose the 23 ships of the Japanese force capped by the Yamato 's 46 cm (18-inch) guns but attacked anyway with 5-inch (127 mm)/38 caliber guns and torpedoes to cover the retreat of their slow "jeep" carriers. Instead, it had turned around unobserved and encountered the northernmost of the three groups, Task Unit 77.4.3 ("Taffy 3"), commanded by Rear Admiral Clifton Sprague.
The escort carriers and destroyer escorts which had been built to protect slow convoys from submarine attack had been adapted to attack ground targets and had few torpedoes, as they normally relied on Halsey's fleet to protect them from armored warships.Ī Japanese surface force of battleships and cruisers-led by the super battleship Yamato, the largest and most heavily-gunned ship afloat-had been battered earlier in the larger battle and was thought to have been in retreat. The remaining American forces in the area were three escort carrier groups of the Seventh Fleet. was lured into taking his powerful Third Fleet after a decoy fleet, taking with him every ship in the area that he had the power to command. The Battle off Samar has been cited by historians as one of the greatest last stands in naval history ultimately the Americans prevailed over a massive armada-the Japanese Imperial Navy's Center Force under command of Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita-despite their very heavy casualties and overwhelming odds.Īdmiral William Halsey Jr. It was the only major action in the larger battle in which the Americans were largely unprepared. The Battle off Samar ( Filipino: Labanan sa may Samar) was the centermost action of the Battle of Leyte Gulf, one of the largest naval battles in history, which took place in the Philippine Sea off Samar Island, in the Philippines on October 25, 1944.
0 kommentar(er)
