Finding Musashi

[Tom Ligon]

Paul Allen found the Musashi, sister ship of the Yamato, on March 1.

http://www.paulallen.com/interests/expl ... expedition

Musashi and Yamato were the largest two battleships ever built, mounting the largest naval rifles ever made. Militarily, they'd been about as useful up until that part of the war as a pair of over-sized bookends, but they were the pride of the Japanese Navy and they were absolutely awesome machines. But by the Battle of the Philippine Sea, the Japanese had lost almost all of their naval aircraft, and were running out of fuel. They needed a victory, and stopping us from landing on the Philippines was considered worth risking what was left of their navy for. Although, apparently one Admiral did not share this view.

They put together three forces. The Northern force was their empty carriers, bait to get Admiral Halsey out of the area. This part worked brilliantly, although it meant the sacrifice of the carriers.

The Southern Force attemped to come around by a southern passage thru the Philippines to attack our landing forces, but was detected. As it made the passage it was plinked at by our subs and then our PT boats. Their Admiral knew he was outed, but continued into what he must have known was a trap, and as he exited the passage he found his T well and truly crossed by a bunch of old US battleships, some of which had been sunk at Pearl Harbor, but not, it would seem, sunk enough. This was the end of the Southern Force. But they knew, as they died, that they were taking the heat off of Center Force, under Kurita, and Center Force had the Musashi and Yamato, not to mention a number of other battleships and heavy cruisers.

Center Force was detected and hit with carrier planes, which singled out Musashi for special attention. With Musashi sinking, Center Force turned around, but a few hours later resumed their original course, undetected.

Thus it was that a small task force, Taffy 3, found itself facing the Yamato, an array of smaller battleships, a mix of cruisers, and a swarm of destroyers. Taffy 3 consisted of four small "jeep carriers", whose planes were not armed to attack armored ships. Taffy 3 was screened by three destroyers and four even smaller destroyer escorts.

Here are the stats showing how mismatched this engagement was. Notice that the Yamato exceeds the entire tonnage of Taffy 3, including the jeep carriers (not shown in my stats, one 5" gun each, and their job was to Run Away if at all possible).

Fleet Statistics, Taffy 3 (and my apologies for the tabulation ... you'll figure it out)

US Side Tons Guns Torpedoes
Hoel DD-533 2050 5 5" 10
Heermann DD-532 2050 5 5" 10
Johnston DD-557 2700 5 5" 10
Dennis DE-405 1350 2 5 3
Butler DE-339 1350 2 5 3
Raymond DE-341 1350 2 5 3
Roberts DE-413 1350 2 5 3

Total 7 12200 23 42

Japanese Side Tons Guns Torpedos
Yamato 65,027 9 18.1
Nagato 32,720 8 16.1
Kongo 36,600 8 14
Haruna 36,600 8 14
Chōkai 15,781 10 8 8
Haguro 13,300 10 8 12
Kumano 13,440 10 8 12
Suzuya 13,670 10 8 12
Chikuma 15,443 8 8 12
Tone 15,443 8 8 12
Yahagi 6,652 6 6 8
Noshiro 6,652 6 6 8
Kagerōs 2,000 6 5 8 Class of destroyer
Asashio 2,370 6 5 8 Class of destroyer
Destroyers 18,000 54 5 72 Assume 9 more Kageros

Total 24 293,698 172

Ratios 3.43 24.07 7.26 4.10

So, you are in a destroyer. Your destroyers and destroyer escorts are up against a fleet with 3.43 x as many warships, outmassed by 24 x, they have 7.26x the number of guns, your guns are all little 5" popguns, the enemy has guns up to 18+ inches, and they have over 4x the number of torpedoes. What should you do?

Attack, of course. Head straight for 'em and engage! I should have told you, you're on the Johnston, and your captain is half Cherokee. Destroyer escort Roberts followed, and then the rest.

And win. Kurita must have been shaken by losing the Musashi, and may have been reluctant to risk the other bookend in the pair. But that was his job ... stop the landing at all costs. Two other task forces had sacrificed themselves to make it possible. But he let a handful of tin cans and a swarm of mis-armed aircraft run him off. Worse, the Japanese lacked the fuel to ever sortie this fleet again. As soon as he headed home, Center Force might as well have already been sunk.

We are UNWORTHY!

[GIThruster]

Who made that decision on the Johnson to attack?

[Tom Ligon]

The destroyer was the Johnston (don't forget the T).

Earnest E. Evans, Medal of Honor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_E._Evans

I highly recommend The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors for a full account of this amazing battle. According to that, Evans had been telling anyone who was interested that he would like just such an opportunity to show what the little DDs could do in a fight against heavys. He knew the strengths and weaknesses of his ship. What he had going for him was speed, manuverability and small size, a difficult target to hit. Against him was pathetic armament that could not hope to penetrate the hull of a cruiser or battleship, and his guns lacked the range of the heavies. In his favor, the little guns had an incredible rate of fire, not all that far down from a bolt action rifle, and they were radar controlled. They aimed for the superstructures of their targets, and had a very high percentage of hits. And they had torpedoes that could sink any ship built if they got a good hit. The Johnston and Roberts were lost, but before they went down they made an absolute mess of several cruisers, a couple of which had to be scuttled, and took others out of the fight when they had to stop to help the stricken ships. The Yamato, for reasons not clearly understood, but possibly due to avoiding a stray torpedo, left the fray, and signaled the rest to follow. The Japanese reports say that they mistook the DDs and DEs for cruisers.

The novel and movie Harm's Way probably borrowed elements from the Battle of the Philippine Sea, especially the PT boat attacks against the Southern Force and the destroyers desperately attacking an overwhelming force led by the Yamato, but placed it in a totally fictitious area and a battle that never happened. The real story would have made a much better movie (one exists but the story deserves a much better one). In the real story, the destroyers have no old swayback cruiser backing them up. That probably would have doubled their tonnage and firepower.

[paperburn1]

Undaunted by damage sustained under the terrific volume of fire, he unhesitatingly joined others of his group to provide fire support during subsequent torpedo attacks against the Japanese and, outshooting and outmaneuvering the enemy as he consistently interposed his vessel between the hostile fleet units and our carriers despite the crippling loss of engine power and communications with steering aft, shifted command to the fantail, shouted steering orders through an open hatch to men turning the rudder by hand and battled furiously until the Johnston, burning and shuddering from a mortal blow, lay dead in the water after 3 hours of fierce combat.
Here is a very good website that has details and why this action was so significant.
http://www.bosamar.com/