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Her skipper initially ordered abandon ship, but then countermanded the order, commencing one of the great damage-control efforts in the history of the U.S. On the evening of 14 October, another heavy Japanese air attack succeeded in putting a torpedo into the light cruiser Houston (CA-81), damaging her even more severely than Canberra the previous day and leaving her crippled without propulsion as well. The tow of Canberra, initially by the heavy cruiser Wichita (CA-45) is an epic tale of damage control in itself.
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Despite the proximity to Japanese land-based aircraft and the continuing air attacks, Admiral Halsey made the bold decision to tow the Canberra rather than scuttle her. Hornet (CV-12) narrowly dodged an air-dropped torpedo, which then proceeded to hit the heavy cruiser Canberra (CA-70) causing grave damage as it hit below the ship’s armor belt in her engineering spaces, killing 23 men and causing the ship to go dead in the water. At about the same time, carriers Lexington (CV-16) and Wasp (CV-18) barely avoided being hit by Japanese aircraft. However, the pilot of the crippled Betty crashed into Franklin’s flight deck, fortunately at an angle at which the plane slid across the flight deck into the water with only minor damage to the ship. At dusk on 13 October, a Japanese twin-engine Betty bomber dropped a torpedo that narrowly missed carrier Franklin (CV-13), thanks to great ship handling by Franklin’s commanding officer (Captain Shoemaker), and another passed under her stern without exploding. fighters and dense anti-aircraft fire, some Japanese aircraft managed to get through to hit U.S. This would have profound effect on the outcome of the subsequent Battle of Leyte Gulf.ĭespite staggering losses to U.S. forces or provide cover to Japanese surface forces, but not both. As a result, the surviving Japanese aircraft in the Philippines would only be able to attack U.S. The result was a slaughter of hundreds of Japanese planes and pilots, on par with the “Great Marianas Turkey Shoot,” before they ever had a chance to intervene in the U.S.
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However, Kusaka committed the planes to battle in an “air only” response to Halsey’s strikes. naval intelligence correctly assessed that these new pilots and new planes (and three new aircraft carriers nearing completion) would not be ready before the spring of 1945, leading to an erroneous assessment that the Japanese would not commit their inadequately trained pilots (nor their current mostly empty-deck carriers) to a major battle before then. At the same time, the Japanese were engaged in a massive effort to hastily train a new cadre of carrier pilots. carrier strikes, Kusaka made the decision to initiate an “air only” component of the Sho plan, a decision that proved gravely premature.įollowing the heavy Japanese air losses in the Battle of the Philippine Sea in June 1944, the Japanese had carefully kept most of their remaining aircraft out of battle, husbanding them for use in what they anticipated would be a U.S. attacks, Toyoda was effectively out of communication and unable to command and control the battle, ceding that authority to his chief of staff, Vice Admiral Ryunosuke Kusaka. As a result of having repeatedly to take shelter from U.S. The onset of the attacks caught the commander of the Japanese Combined Fleet, Admiral Soemu Toyoda, attempting to return to Japan from an inspection visit to the Philippines (which Japanese intelligence had correctly determined to be the area of the next major U.S. The carriers then swiftly attacked targets on the island of Luzon in the Philippines before concentrating on the primary target, the Japanese airfields on the island of Formosa (present-day Taiwan), starting on 12 October with about 1,400 aircraft sorties. Carrier Attacks on Okinawa and Formosa, 10–16 October 1944įollowing closely on the heels of a typhoon (dubbed “Task Force Zero” by wags on Admiral Halsey’s staff), the 17 carriers of Vice Admiral Mitcher’s Task Force 38 commenced strikes on Okinawa and along the Ryukyu Island Chain on 10 October 1944 as part of a diversionary effort before the commencement of the landings at Leyte in the Philippines, scheduled for 20 October.