A new look at the last battleship battle of  World War II and perhaps of all time.  A review by Steven Toby, republished with permission from the MarHst list.

In this new book, Battle of Surigao Strait,  author Anthony P. Tully mines some hitherto little known Japanese sources to create a more even-handed account of the Battle of Surigao Strait (October 1944).   As the Introduction says, this battle, the last surface gunnery encounter between capital ships that is ever likely to occur, has been overshadowed by the more famous battle off Samar and other operations in the Leyte Gulf theatre. In Samuel Eliot Morison’s account, which I had already read, and apparently in most English-language sources, it is suggested that the smaller Japanese force that tried to force Surigao Strait fell into a trap set for them by the USN. They were overwhelmed by superior firepower, and that was that. The Japanese commander, Vice-Adm. Nishimura, was brave, but not too bright.

This new book shows that this view of the operation is one sided and prejudiced. The book starts with the Japanese staff planning for the operation, and while this seemed odd to an American reading it, I began to realize why as the action unfolded. The battle in Surigao Strait happened when and where it did because the Japanese planned it that way – not because of anything that happened on the American side. The Japanese plan to disrupt a US invasion of the Philippines, “Sho-Go 1”, was necessary strategically because our occupation of these islands would create a barrier in the sea lines of communication between Japan and their sources of oil and rubber in the Southeast Asian islands they had conquered at the beginning of the war. This would separate the IJN’s fuel sources from its repair yards and ammunition sources, eliminating it as a fighting force however many ships were still intact, and naturally, could not be tolerated by C in C Combined Fleets.

The author shows how Combined Fleets worked out a plan that took advantage of the rather limited resources they still had at this stage of the war. By bringing in Japanese sources that were unavailable to Morison, such as the memoirs of survivors (published in Japanese between 1945 and 1980) and official records, he shows that the Second Striking Force was conceived as a diversion to Kurita’s main assault on Leyte (the one that was turned back in the more celebrated Battle off Samar). He also makes it evident that the Second Striking Force’s instructions, which have been known to historians for a long time, need to be seen in the proper light. V-Adm. Nishimura, CO of the force, was essentially being ordered to sacrifice his force to make the USN concentrate on Surigao rather than San Bernardino Strait where the main attack was coming. In Japanese culture you don’t have to spell this out in the text of the orders – the Admiral understood all too well what was being asked of him, a fact that becomes evident as the author leads us through his actions and radio reports to C in C Combined Fleets. Instead, the impression one gets in this first part of the book is that for a rapidly collapsing empire, Japan still boasted a top flight staff corps that predicted the time frame and targets of the US landings in the Philippines quite accurately, as well as planning their counter-stroke with impressive skill. This is far from concentrating forces only at the intended battle site so they could be defeated piecemeal, a criticism leveled at the Japanese by Morison. It is still questionable if Combined Fleets might have been too clever. They had a plan for two diversions within a single operation, and perhaps that was just getting too complex in a theater where they had already lost air superiority.

The author also lets us get to know some of the Japanese commanders, and his portraits ring profoundly true. The force Admiral Nishimura is given includes two frumpy old battleships left over from the previous war, Fuso and Yamashiro. To stiffen this force – the old ladies had been serving as training ships in home waters for several years – Combined Fleets gave him the new cruiser Mogami, whose Captain Toma thought he was being thrown away on this operation and viewed the old battleships with thinly veiled contempt. This contempt was unfortunately fed by two friendly fire incidents in which Mogami was fired upon by its own side. Nishimura, an expert on torpedo warfare, was convinced his force could get through the narrow strait (ten miles wide) even if it was defended by torpedo boats. He hadn’t expressed an opinion as to whether the same held true against destroyers. Nishimura comes across as a man worthy of our respect. He took on a mission he suspected was suicidal from the beginning but carried it out to the letter with forceful tactics, undaunted courage, and inspired leadership. He remained at his post till the flagship sank under him, ordering the crew to abandon ship but making no attempt to save himself. That the Japanese survivors, after they got together in POW camps and postwar, talked it over among themselves and decided the whole debacle was his fault is a monstrous injustice that the author has done his best to undo.

The account is very readable and keeps you on the edge of your seat as the forces meet and all hell breaks loose. The Japanese push aside the US PT boats guarding the entrance, then advance up the strait. In this battle weather played an amazingly strong role. It was one of those humid, misty, still nights with rain squalls passing across the area that those of us who have lived in the tropics know so well, and in that environment, the fact that the US had effective radar while the Japanese relied more on their powerful night binoculars and lookouts put the latter at a profound disadvantage as the US destroyers formed up for a torpedo attack. The Japanese fired back with their much superior torpedoes, as well as their guns. They achieved little. When they closed to gun range the US force of cruisers and older battleships – many of them Pearl Harbor survivors – got the chance to open up with their big guns. Most of the Japanese force was annihilated, only Mogami, another cruiser, and a destroyer managing to turn around and retreat (the former at 14 knots, with 3 of her 4 engine rooms flooded and abandoned and the one remaining engine running in a space that was so hot it could no longer be manned). Ironically, US Adm. Oldendorf had concentrated his entire force at the exit to Surigao Strait to achieve this overwhelming advantage in force, which was exactly what Japan’s planners intended. Had Kurita’s First Striking force, its flagship Yamato the biggest battleship ever built, not turned back after its encounter with the destroyers and “Jeep carriers” of Taffy 3 off Samar, the Japanese planners would have gotten what they wanted – Kurita could have transited San Bernardino strait into Leyte Gulf unopposed, with some possibility he could have attacked the transports providing logistics to Macarthur’s landing force before Oldendorf could maneuver to intercept. (In addition, Oldendorf’s battleships had expended most of their armor-piercing ammunition at Surigao Strait, so had there been a Battle of Leyte Gulf it might have ended badly for the Allies.) This result was “helped” by US Admiral Halsey’s falling for the bait of the Japanese Northern Force of aircraft carriers under Adm. Ozawa and pulling all of his forces away from San Bernardino Strait to chase them, including the more modern US battleships that Oldendorf thought were left to guard the strait. In short, the Leyte Gulf warfare, like most warfare, was marked by humans doing what they do – displaying bravery, foolhardiness, or cowardice, and making decisions poorly or well using the inadequate data they had available to them.

So, a classic story of war at sea is told in this book. That is not to say it’s without problems. A few minor irritations persist through the text, what I like to call an “informality” not consistent with the great events being chronicled. It almost seems that the author’s notes or rough draft were typeset and became the final text. “Through” is spelled “thru” most of the time – acceptable for road signs but not proper English on either side of the Atlantic. More jarring is the author’s familiar use of nicknames current in the time: Adm. Oldendorf is “Oley” every now and then. I’m sure he was really called that by his crews (if not to his face by his staff); American tradition certainly includes nicknames for people whose real names have more than 2 syllables. However, that doesn’t make it appropriate in a history book. Even worse is the author’s use of USN abbreviations for Japanese units. The sentence “The four DD’s formed up for a torpedo attack” is too self-consciously jargon for me, even if they were USN destroyers. When they are IJN destroyers it really doesn’t work at all, and it’s even worse when they are called “DesRon 2”! It might be that the IJN had a “Destroyer Squadron 2”, but using the USN abbreviation just makes the text confusing. Erring on the other side, the author also fails to explain what “Sho-Go” means in Japanese, leaving us uncertain if it is a code name, a descriptive name, or an acronym (remember, the Japanese don’t use the same alphabet as we do; perhaps “sho” is one character and “go” is another).

This is a very worthwhile book in spite of its minor flaws. It is likely to remain unchallenged as the definitive account of the battle until there is a forensic investigation of the wreckage on the bottom of Surigao Strait.