Armistead is right. The Jeep carriers of Taffy 3 were there for ground support and ASW duties only. They had no armor piercing (anti-ship) bombs, only HE fragmentation bombs and depth charges, which they did use against Kurita's force nonetheless but to little effect. Still, the confusion and havoc they caused on Kurita's force appears to have been significant. The biggest problem for the IJN was their inflexibility in maintaining radio silence. The left hand had no idea what the right hand was doing, or even if any success was gained by Nishimura's Southern Force. Kurita wasn't even sure if Halsey had taken the bait of Ozawa's Northern Force.

Regardless, Rear Admiral Jesse Oldendorf's 7th Fleet was too far away (at Surigao Strait) to come rushing to the aid at Leyte. Though some historians still question/ponder Kurita's decision to withdraw, the general consensus is that, much confusion was caused by the smoke-screens and attacks by Taffy 3's DDs/DEs in addition to the bombing/strafing runs from her Escort Carriers. This coupled with a lack of communication and coordination between the IJN's Northern, Central and Southern forces lead Kurita to retire, fearing he was being drawn into a trap by the U.S. Navy. He had already lost a number of Heavy Cruisers either sunk or put out of the action and consistently mistook the ships of Taffy 3 for their larger counterparts. Aside from all that, he was not thrilled about using his fleet against meager transports and cargo ships rather than in a glorious battle with U.S. warships. Had he continued instead of turning about, he could've wiped out the entire invasion fleet and still have had time to escape.

Is that when you got sunk..:haha:

Last time I attacked it, the US planes came in, got mad because they sunk a few carriers I had hit robbing me of soon to be kills

Escort carriers - Three CVE-based task groups, all equivalent or larger than Taffy 3; Kurita hadn't even really gotten "past" Taffy 3 when he decided to break off;

Surface ships I: Oldendorf's battle line had re-deployed to the mouth of Leyte Gulf (Hibusan Island) by mid-morning, before Kurita's force could have made it TO the Gulf, much less inside;

Surface ships II: The close escort in the transport area included the cruiser Nashville (MacArthur's flagship) and almost 50 DDs, DEs, etc.

TF 38 (McCain) was coming up fast from the east, with (IIRC) four fast carriers and escorts to match;

Other US aviation assets within range included USN VP and VPB and USAAF heavy bombers;

Tha'ts the point, he shouldn't have broke off to go chasing a TF north that didn't exist, he had T3 in his hands.

Your ignoring historical facts, all those assets were not there during the actual battle with T3, cept the planes of T1&2 which were attacking. None of the heavy assets could arrive in time to have any outcome on the battle of Samar. All 3 T groups had combined nine destroyers, and fourteen destroyer escorts, only a handful attacked. If Kurita had destroyed T3, he could've possibly caught and destroyed T1&2 and had plenty time to do it before other assets came into play. Also must remember the Kamikazes attacked T1&2 shortly after Kurita retreated, if he had stayed, with now jap plane attacks, no telling..many think it possible or think he should've wiped out all 3 CVE groups and had he not retreated he could've done it.

Remember, Kurita surprised the group, he was spotted by a plane and visuals from T3 almost the same time and already had shells coming at them.

I agree Kurita could only do so much, he certainly couldve wiped out T3 and no telling about T1&2, but he had time, course he didn't know it.

Had he plowed through the Jeep Carriers and headed south and battled Oldendorf's group, who knows, with planes of 1&2 helping him, he certainly would've hurt Kurita. I do think Kurita could have done great damage, but lost all in the process, but that would've certainly prolonged the war.

My point is he could have and should've destroyed T3...that he could've done. I do agree in reality he probably couldn't have done much more.

Oldendorf had sent a force of cruisers and destroyers down Surigao Strait in pursuit of the Japanese survivors of the night action, but his battle line was still close enough to Leyte Gulf to easily bar the entrance before Kurita could get close. Interestingly enough, had Kurita chosen to contine on towards the Gulf, Oldendorf would have had an excellent chance to cross the enemy's "T" for the second time in two days! Oldendorf's fuel state was not nearly as bad as Kurita's, who had been in two major air/sea battles in the last 48 hours. And Oldendorf had the prospect of refueling from tankers once the battle was over, a luxury Kurita could only wish for.

Kurita might have required another hour to finish off Taffy 3, but he wasn't even close to engaging Taffy's 1 and 2. They were far off on the horizon to the southeast of Kurita, and steaming away from the direction that Kurita would have to take to get into Leyte Gulf. Regardless of what happened to the CVE's of Taffy 3, Kurita would still have to deal with close to 500 carrier planes from the three Taffies, plus about another 240 from McCain's TG 38.1. At about the time Kurita made his decision to break off the attack on Taffy 3, McCain was 335 miles distant, coming on at 30 knots, and and launching a strike aimed at Kurita. This strike arrived just as Kurita turned north to, as he claimed, seek another reported American task force. Had Kurita decided to head for Leyte Gulf instead, McCain would have been inside 200 miles just about the time Kurita would have reached Leyte Gulf.

So the answer is, Kurita would have had no window of opportunity to shell either the transports or the beachhead free of massive air attack, assuming, of course, he managed to get past Oldendorf's battleline (a very dubious assumption)

I would have to agree with Dread that it's doubtful Kurita could've done much damage to the landing force if any. Kurita even later stated

Q: {Kurita under interrogation } So that the reason for changing course to the north was the threat of a heavy air attack if you entered the Gulf, is that correct?
A. It wasn't a question of destruction that was neither here nor there. It was a question of what good I could do in the Bay. I concluded that under the heavy attack from ship and shore-based planes, I could not be effective. Therefore, on my own decision, I concluded it was best to go north and join Admiral OZAWA."

He aslo stated he knew he couldn't manauver in the gulf. However, he had no clue what had happened in the battle of Surigao, for all he knew they got through, but he decided not to close the pincer, plus he really had no idea what assets the US had there.

T3 did a hell of a job to confuse the Center Force, one DD, the Johnson took out two CA's, but to turn back north just as his CA's and DD's were gonna overrun T3, doesn't make sense, cept he had lost tactical control and probably had no real idea.

Had Kurita made it to the gulf, I see no way he couldn't retreated back north, he would've had to exit back through Surigao, question is how much damage could they have done to the landing force and would it have been enough to matter before he became trapped in a pincer himself.

Interesting read is Kurita's interrogation after war, although much of it conflicts with previous reports, but it's obvious he had little clue what was going on around him.

http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/AAF/...IJO/IJO-9.html

Still, he could've destroyed T3 and maybe the others...since he wasn't following orders anyway..:haha:

Not to forget, Oldendorf had old BB's, but they had updated radar fire control, something the japs were way behind in.

Yes, indeed it is doubtful and why I said he "could have", though I should've said he "might have" to avoid confusion. The fact that Center Force made it through the San Bernardino Strait and caught Taffy 3 completely by surprise is commensurate with the unknowns of battle. Still, despite not having armor piercing bombs, Taffy 3 showed how hard it is to defend against simultaneous air and surface threats. I'm sure if somehow, Kurita managed what seemed impossible, by wiping out the landing force, his postwar comments would've been adjusted accordingly. I noticed in my last post, I ended with a sentence that could be misconstrued by my hasty and poorly structured paragraph. The last sentence should be omitted from the general consensus of "most historians".;) It was meant to be my own speculation. BTW, only the BBs West Virginia, California and Tennessee had advanced radar directed fire control systems. The other three BBs has less advanced systems that had difficulty arriving at a firing solutions during the battle of Surigao Strait.

Yea, we have the glory of hindsight and can only speculate, but imagine if Kurita got to the gulf the panic among 100's of piled up landing craft.

I assume the southern force had no clue, but what a bad mistake to have to come up through a narrow straight in a single line....However, the southern force was also attacked by planes earlier that day with damage, but least they made a sincere effort to follow orders.

The other issue is that because of plane attacks on Kurita and him turning back before coming back again was it put him behind about 6 critical hours, course had he not retreated Halsey would've hung around so I guess it's mute.

Remember Stonewall Jackson, he became famous for defeating large armies by "get there first with the most" and defeated them piecemeal. Kurita was certainly there with the most for Samar.

In retrospect it's hard to believe that the Japanese Navy that fought at Leyte Gulf was the same institution which conceived and executed the attack on Pearl Harbor, which sank the British warships Prince of Wales and Repulse, which crushed the ABDA force at the Java Sea, which performed such feats of skill and daring in the early years of the war. At Leyte Gulf the commanders of Japan's greatest warships revealed stunning ineptitude. Their ship recognition skills were shockingly poor, their tactics primitive, their gunnery woeful, their spirit feeble. None of this diminishes the American achievement at Samar, but it does invite the bewilderment of history.

Perhaps the best example of the fatalism that gripped the Japanese is the ambush of Kurita's force on October 23rd by the submarines Darter and Dace. This first US success was made possible by a tactical carelessness amounting to apathy. Five battleships and ten heavy cruisers were steaming in three columns at sixteen knots without an anti-submarine screen. This is all more astonishing since the Japanese had intercepted US radio transmissions, and knew the subs were in their path. Like many aspects of the battle, Japanese behavior suggests a resignation to an inevitable crushing defeat much stronger than a will to fight.

'tis exactely Liddell Hart's ideas shown in a very good practical example. Wars are won with psicology, not with force per se, so your force should be employed in such a manner as to bring down the enemy's will, not so much its means. Its the indirect approach principle, and kudos to the americans for having done just that with the japanese.

The Japs were steadily reaching a point of not being able to replace capital ships and carriers if lost. Losing irreplaceable capital ships/carriers meant that the IJN would be downgraded as a "strategic" player in the Pacific. Eventually USA would be able to release assets and recources that were "dedicated" to check the IJN in other activities. In itself, delaying the demise of the IJN bought time for the Emperor, me thinks :hmmm:

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The question for me, course it was for many after the war is for what reason did Kurita turn back. He gave some good answers, but US answers, his answers don't make sense from a jap perspective.

Obvious he didn't know if Halsey took the bait, he even thought at first the jeep carriers were fleet carriers from a distance. Having been attacked the day before I can see why he would think this, but he went back in, surely he had to think Halsey may be there to attack him in daylight. His goal and orders were the gulf, so we have to assume he was going to try to fight through whatever was there to get to the gulf, he even stated as such.

He had no info on the southern force, he has to assume they got through.

Even though the T's put up a good fight, he got into position enough to wipe T3 out, but turned........

Everything from a jap perspective says he should've gone through T3 and headed to the gulf... do all the damage you can and get out when you can. He admitted he expected over 50% loses before the battle.

Did he really get a message that possible carriers were just about 100nms north, history isn't so sure.. but as he turned north just the plane attack from the Taffies and some land planes scared him off. If he planned to go attack the carriers, he should've expected that anyway and worse.

Not sure if he lost his nerve, got confused, etc..but he knew this was a all or nothing battle....retreat shouldn't have been an option in his mind.

Kurita later produced a range of excuses for his disengagement decision. After three days and nights without sleep his said his mind was extremely fatigued. He claimed a judgement of exhaustion. He talked (unconvincingly) about a signal of American ships to the north of which no record can be found.

It could be there was no good solution for Kurita. Pressing on would merely have meant throwing away the lives of his officers and crewmen without accomplishing much at all in terms of damage to the Allies. Time was running out, or rather had run out, for the IJN, but it was a case of having thrown the dice and lost by the time Kurita was able to engage the CVE's off Samar. There was no sense sacrificing his men, because the result for the IJN would be the same, either way. At least they wouldn't be killed under his watch. He also may have thought he had sunk a few fleet carriers in the bargain and that was enough for one day.

Just prior to sailing for the battle, at a conference of his commanding officers, Kurita spoke of miracles occurring. I think he realized that the IJN needed one (if not several) to have any chance of even delaying the inevitable Allied victory, and he also realized, on the morning of October 25th, 1944 that the Gods had failed to provide one.

Ahh, and here I think you've touched upon the crux of the matter. This, more than anything else (I think) is the most likely reason that Kurita broke off the engagement. I also think I read that somewhere in one of my books, maybe Japanese Destroyer Captain, don't recall. Either way, there were those inside the Japanese military machine who had heartfelt compassion for the men who served under them, probably more prevalent in the IJN than the IJA. The early IJN victories were (in retrospect) to be expected. They had a vastly superior Navy, with regards to modern design, training and experience. Their opposition was an enemy whose pilots, personnel and tactics were outdated, inexperienced, and in inadequate numbers.

I believe, early in the war, the Japanese plans for expansion were quite contrived, but like Yamamoto said, beyond one year of war, he could not guarantee victory. The Japanese simply were not prepared for a long, drawn out, protracted war of attrition. They were betting on a soft America to sue for peace, giving them a greater status/position in Asia.
I often wondered about their overall tactics, and even more so after reading Shattered Sword. Starting with the Battle of Midway, their strategy seemed to lack focus, purpose and heart. Another great book I read, "The Eagle And The Rising Sun: The Japanese-American War 1941-1943" by Alan Schom, also raises questions about Japanese tactics, and more so of early American Tactics. After reading this book, I got the impression that, although the IJN rattled it's sword and talked the talk (about drawing out and defeating the US Navy), they did not walk the walk in terms of true intent set forth by their strategies.

Anyway, I'm getting long winded here, and beyond my typing skills. The point is, Leyte Gulf, Surigao Strait, etc., and the ensuing Battle of the Philippine Sea was an act of desperation commensurate with the comment by one Japanese military leader who said, "So goes the battle of the Philippines, so goes the war". Acts of desperation are usually rife with poor judgement, devoid of any real strategy and apt to fail, barring the "Hail Mary" football pass. In reality, an act of desperation is an act that would not usually be carried out under other circumstances. Kurita probably knew it was all in vain and wasn't about to sacrifice Japan's remaining Navy and personnel on an act that he believed was futility.