MIflyer
1st Lieutenant
One of the most exciting naval battles of WWII occurred at Leyte Gulf, where the Jeep carriers faced the IJN. From the Spring issue of the AF Museum
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The USAAF at the Battle of Leyte Gulf
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The Basket
Senior Master Sergeant
- 3,712
- Jun 27, 2007
Kurita has often been seen as tanking the tactical advantage the IJN had.
He had already had his flagship sunk from under him and taken an early swim.
However, had he gone up against the major USN fleet then he would have done about as well as Yamashiro. If he felt it was a fools errand then his heart wasn't in it.
He had already had his flagship sunk from under him and taken an early swim.
However, had he gone up against the major USN fleet then he would have done about as well as Yamashiro. If he felt it was a fools errand then his heart wasn't in it.
This is great reading, I like the details about these actions. Thank you
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- #4
MIflyer
1st Lieutenant
In the book "Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors" They describe how Taffy 3 was heavily engaged and the commander of Taffy 2 sent two of his destroyers over to assess the situation but told them to NOT engage. Taffy 3 radioed "Glad you are here! We need help!" but the two destroyer captains did as they were told and did not open fire at the IJN ships. I guess I would have never made a WWII destroyer captain, because I would have said, "They may relieve me of command and send me home, but I'm gonna get me at least one Jap cruiser and as many of their cans as I can. Set up a torpedo attack!"
IdahoRenegade
Airman 1st Class
I always thought the story of the USS Johnston at that battle was pretty amazing. USS Johnston (DD-557) - Wikipedia
Johnston, Hoel, Heermann, Roberts, St Lo, Gambier Bay, the Seabees and AF guys ashore; another amazing chapter along with David, Goliath, and Thermopylae in the sagas of impossible miracles. If you haven't read "....Tin Can Sailors", that's your reading assignment for the week, kids. See you next year.
Cheers,
Wes
Cheers,
Wes
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- #7
MIflyer
1st Lieutenant
Only two Fletcher Calls destroyers from Taffy 3 turned when ordered to and engaged the IJN. But they were joined by the USS Samuel B. Roberts, a Rudderow Class Destroyer Escort. The USN still has a USS Samuel B Roberts in its fleet, and its crew had to save their ship when it was attacked in the Persian Gulf.
By the way, that article was about the USAAF at Tacloban, and they welcomed the USN airplanes with open arms. But the US Army built that airstrip and when the USN started landing there an Army officer told them to get lost, they had P-38's inbound that had no choice but to land there and there was no room for anyone else. The USN guys seized a jeep with a machine gun and used it to prevent the Army from running off the USN airplanes.
By the way, that article was about the USAAF at Tacloban, and they welcomed the USN airplanes with open arms. But the US Army built that airstrip and when the USN started landing there an Army officer told them to get lost, they had P-38's inbound that had no choice but to land there and there was no room for anyone else. The USN guys seized a jeep with a machine gun and used it to prevent the Army from running off the USN airplanes.
Jees, another reason to not like the Army! I thought I had enough already.
Barrett
Senior Airman
Excellent post--thank you.
One of my Gambier Bay pals was in a hurry to exit his FM-2 at Tacloban and snagged his chute harness on the canopy rail. The soldier who assisted him down was from his home town...
One of my Gambier Bay pals was in a hurry to exit his FM-2 at Tacloban and snagged his chute harness on the canopy rail. The soldier who assisted him down was from his home town...
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- #10
MIflyer
1st Lieutenant
The first P-38's that arrived at Tacoloban were led by Gerry Johnson and included Dick Bong.
As did in fact, Cmdr Evans (Johnston) and Cmdr Copeland (Samuel B Roberts), both of whom insubordinately dashed off to attack the Japanese fleet before they were ordered to. Johnston was returning crippled from her solo attack run when she met the other two DDs on their ordered attack run with the DE (Roberts) trailing along against orders. Evans couldn't stand to see the others going in "unprotected", so despite a shattered bridge, a flooding port engine room, manual steering, fires on deck, and all torpedoes expended, he swung her around and joined the attack. Cmdr Evans and 185 of his shipmates paid for that with their lives. Adm Kurita, thinking he was being overwhelmed by CVs and cruisers withdrew, never knowing what hit him. At a distance, the profile of a Fletcher Class's similarity to that of a cruiser, the accuracy and devastation of radar guided 5 inch fire, and the fury of the air assault convinced him he was up against the big league.
Cheers,
Wes
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- #12
MIflyer
1st Lieutenant
Cmdr Copeland asked the Taffy 3 commander if his order for the "little fellows" to attack included the "Little little fellows" or in other words, the DE's as well as the DD's. He was told that the little little fellows should follow the DD's in. But the Roberts was the only one that did.
Kurita probably was also influenced by the unknown fact that the Taffy airplanes were being rearmed and launched from Tacloban. It made the attack look bigger.
It is too bad that the old BB's that savaged Kurita's Southern Force could not have got in on it. It would have been so nice for the IJN Yamato to have been sunk by the BB's that were sunk at Pearl Harbor.
Kurita probably was also influenced by the unknown fact that the Taffy airplanes were being rearmed and launched from Tacloban. It made the attack look bigger.
It is too bad that the old BB's that savaged Kurita's Southern Force could not have got in on it. It would have been so nice for the IJN Yamato to have been sunk by the BB's that were sunk at Pearl Harbor.
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"Taffy 33, this is Juggernaut (S B Roberts). Do you want the little little fellows to go in with the big little fellows?"
"Juggernaut, this is Taffy 33. Your last transmission negative - negative. The big fellows form up for first attack, then little fellows make second attack. Acknowledge." (Page 199, Tin Can Sailors)
Copeland elected to ignore this and join the DDs. The remaining DEs made their attack later with their skimpy three torpedoes and two 5 inchers each and did their share of damage.
Cheers,
Wes
That's because the third (Johnston) had already jumped the gun, made her solo attack run, blown the bow off a Japanese heavy cruiser, battered the superstructures of a couple others, and was limping back behind a smoke screen under manual steering, bridge shattered, with half her powerplant destroyed and no torpedoes remaining. But her guns and fire control were still operational, so her skipper, Cmdr Evans, "the Cherokee Warrior" turned her around and joined the attack. He didn't survive to be tried for insubordination and loss of his ship.
Cheers,
Wes
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- #16
MIflyer
1st Lieutenant
Unfortunately, yes. It happened quite a bit in Vietnam.
Solo rampages against the enemy in lieu of orders can easily undermine the master battle plan, although if it turns out to be successful, punishing it can seem pretty ridiculous. It's the successful ones we hear about, the others tend to fly under the radar, which leads to questions like pgf_666's.
There's a novel called "Flight of the Intruder" which narrates this scenario quite well.
Cheers,
Wes
Snautzer01
Honourably banned
- 42,970
- Mar 26, 2007
Do you play chess? It is like you form your formation, have all steps that can happen thought out/played out in a plan and now a minion with a deathwish opens up. Your left side lays open to a laughing, no bewidered opponent that can not believe his luck. All that is rehearsed, plans are made for are worthless because an sob with a medal wish (2 cents metal 1 cent ribbon) decides he is the all knowing god of war. He willfully endanges all the crew (un needed deaths) involved and the outcome of the battle. Better have a coward among ranks then an over zelous officer. The last one is always far more costly in lives and material and outcome
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- #19
MIflyer
1st Lieutenant
Some incidents I was thinking of were described in the book "Thud Ridge". Two F-105 pilots strayed too close to the NVN-PRC border while evading SAMs and were told they would receive letters of reprimand. Aware that their USAF careers most likely were over, the two pilots became even closer friends. When one was shot down the other agreed to remain overhead until the rescue forces arrived. When rescue got there, there was no sign of the F-105; he had been shot down, too. The Air Force responded to this by forwarding the letters of reprimand to their next of kin.
I found that the most distressing thing about the Air Force was that you could do a terrific job but if you violated one of the chicken poop restrictions all that great performance was forgotten. I can recall once we had six F-111D's that were grounded due to a component I was trying to fix. The F-111D unit needed to deploy to Korea to respond to some US Army officers that had been attacked and killed by DPRK troops. Then I got a letter from a GS-5 saying that my "primary duty until completed" was investigating the loss of a MA-1 flight jacket (valued at $27.50) belonging to an airman in another unit.
The F-111D unit - the entire wing - did not get to deploy to Korea.
The previous SECAF put out a letter saying that we needed to stop wasting our people's time with all this pointless crap. But most of the people at O-6 or above neither know about nor care about the useless crap; as long as it is off their desk, they are happy.
I found that the most distressing thing about the Air Force was that you could do a terrific job but if you violated one of the chicken poop restrictions all that great performance was forgotten. I can recall once we had six F-111D's that were grounded due to a component I was trying to fix. The F-111D unit needed to deploy to Korea to respond to some US Army officers that had been attacked and killed by DPRK troops. Then I got a letter from a GS-5 saying that my "primary duty until completed" was investigating the loss of a MA-1 flight jacket (valued at $27.50) belonging to an airman in another unit.
The F-111D unit - the entire wing - did not get to deploy to Korea.
The previous SECAF put out a letter saying that we needed to stop wasting our people's time with all this pointless crap. But most of the people at O-6 or above neither know about nor care about the useless crap; as long as it is off their desk, they are happy.
Gotta watch out for those souvenir collectors! If not caught and punished, they'll rob the taxpayers blind!
Perfect environment for generating paranoid martinets and micromanagers all up and down the chain of command. Captain Queeg cloned en masse.
I was out of boot camp, starting "A" School when Elmo Zumwalt was jumped over the heads of many senior admirals to become CNO and the "Z grams" started showering from on high. One by one the "chicken___t" regs went down in flames, much to the chagrin of the establishment.
All of a sudden the "bush chiefs" (those black shoe types whose sole shore duty function on an airedale base was chicken reg enforcement) were out of a job. No more trips to Captain's Mast because your shave failed the "3x5 file card test" when you were ambushed on the way to evening chow or the EM Club.
In the short term, the relaxation of strictness led to increased conflict between the old guard and the new, with race riots on some of the carriers, whose senior black shoe ship's company enlisted ranks were rife with traditionalist southern whites, and whose air wings were starting to see numbers of technically trained, competent and confident northern blacks who had no stomach for Jim Crow. But by the time I got out, things had sugared off and settled down into a navy that could live in the modern world. Just in time for the post-Vietnam decline in all things military.
Cheers,
Wes
