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Battle of Leyte Gulf, Day 2 So by the morning of October 24, Admiral William Halsey, commanding Third Fleet, the more powerful of the USN fleets supporting the Leyte landings, had received the reports from USS Darter and USS Dace that they had attacked a powerful Japanese force approaching through the Sibuyan Sea. He began to have some regrets, primarily about having detached Admiral John S. McCain's Task Group 38.1, the most powerful of his carrier groups, to return to Ulithi for refueling and resupply on October 22. He sent a message to TG38.1 telling them to refuel at sea and return ASAP (in the event, they would make a minimal contribution to the battle.) To be fair, among his remaining carrier groups he had five full-size carriers (four Essex-class plus USS Enterprise) and six Independence-class light carriers built on cruiser hulls. He also had six modern battleships (Iowa, New Jersey, South Dakota, Massachusetts, Alabama, and Washington) plus numerous cruisers and destroyers. Directly supporting the landings was Seventh Fleet, commanded by Admiral Thomas Kinkaid. Seventh Fleet had eighteen escort carriers (slower and smaller than the fleet carriers, generally built on cargo ship hulls), six older battleships (West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, California, and Mississippi, the first five all being survivors of Pearl Harbor), four heavy cruisers (including HMAS Shropshire from the Royal Australian Navy), four light cruisers, and assorted destroyers and destroyer escorts. Seventh Fleet also had operational control over the PT boat detachments in the Phillipines. So anyway, Halsey ordered air strikes against the Japanese ships coming up through the Sibuyan Sea. This was Admiral Kurita's "Center Force" with the heavy battleship component including Yamato and Musashi, and also most of the Japanese heavy cruisers (minus the three that had been hit by the submarines the previous night.) Air strikes were launched from the Essex-class carrier Intrepid and the light carriers Independence and Cabot. Halsey's other carriers found themselves forced into defensive mode as land-based Japanese planes from the First Air Fleet based on Luzon began attacks on Third Fleet. While most of the attackers were shot down, one "Judy" dive bomber managed to hit the light carrier USS Princeton with a 250kg armor-piercing bomb right as her hangar deck was packed with planes being loaded up for strikes against Center Force. The ship was quickly engulfed in fire and later exploded while her escorts were attempting to remove her crew, severely damaging the light cruiser USS Birmingham and killing 241 of her crew (more crew members than Princeton lost). Princeton was scuttled at around 6 pm by USS Reno, becoming the largest US ship lost at Leyte Gulf. (There would be more to come.) So while all this was going on behind them, the first air strike hit Center Force, concentrating on the battleship Musashi and heavy cruiser Myoko (though hits were also made on the battleships Yamato and Nagato). Kurita ordered Myoko to retreat as she was no longer combat capable, the others pressed onward. Then, once they were done with the attacks from First Air Fleet, the other carriers launched a second strike against Center Force. Between the two strikes, Musashi was hit by 17 armor-piercing bombs and 19 aerial torpedoes. This proved too much and at 7:30 that evening she rolled over and sank. The remainder of Center Force turned around and headed back the way they had come. The carrier pilots, as was typical, somewhat overstated the damage they'd done to the other ships, and Halsey believed from those reports that Center Force was no longer a threat. (More fool him.) Around this point in time Halsey was notified of the sighting of Admiral Ozawa's Northern Force. which you may recall had all of Japan's remaining aircraft carriers (but very few planes.) At this point he sent out a message announcing that he was going to form the six fast battleships into Task Force 34, under the command of Admiral Willis Lee, and then head north to attack the carriers. The problem was, the message was worded so ambiguously that Admiral Kinkaid at Seventh Fleet assumed that TF34 was going to be left behind to defend the landings, while the carriers and cruisers of Third Fleet went north. Admiral Nimitz, back at Pearl Harbor, assumed the same. This would come back to bite everyone in the ass a day later. So Third Fleet, including TF34, headed north after the Japanese carriers. Meanwhile Seventh Fleet received reports from the PT boats patrolling the entrance to Surigao Strait to their south that a third Japanese force, composed of two battleships, two cruisers, and assorted destroyers were coming up that way. (This was Admiral Nishimura's "Southern Force".) Kinkaid detached his battleships and cruisers, under the command of Admiral Jesse Oldendorf, and sent them to the northern end of Surigao Strait, while ordering the PT boats to harass the Japanese force. By the time Nishimura's forces reached the northern end of the strait, the battleship Fuso had been sunk by torpedoes and his flagship Yamashiro damaged. The Battle of Surigao Strait is, to date, the last battleship-vs-battleship action fought by any navies. It was kind of lopsided, though (just a bit!), with six intact battleships on the American side, "crossing the T" of Nishimura's remaining ships (being at right angles to the advance, so they could fire broadsides while Nishimura's ships could only use their forward guns). As it happened, only 5 of the 6 US battleships fired on Nishimura, Pennsylvania had trouble with her radar and did not participate. Five was quite enough, though, as Yamashiro was hit over 100 times by 14- and 16-inch projectiles wile not scoring a single hit on a US ship (one destroyer on the US side was hit, but it was later determined to be "friendly fire"). She sank about 4:20 on the morning of October 25. The remainder of Nishimura's force retreated, again running the gauntlet of PT boats and destroyers. The light cruiser Abukuma took one torpedo hit, while heavy cruisers Nachi and Mogami collided in the chaos, leaving Mogami without steering control and at a severely reduced speed. (Mogami would be finished off the following day by US aircraft.) The rest of the Southern Force was able to retreat, and the USN thought they'd done a pretty good job for the day. But off to the west, Admiral Kurita and the remains of Center Force, which still included four battleships and six heavy cruisers, along with two light cruisers and 15 destroyers, had turned around again under the cover of darkness and was heading back into the fray. What was left to oppose them?