It would have the effect of committing the Japanese ships in a piecemeal fashion and dispersing their overwhelming firepower during the upcoming battle. Due to still-ongoing shift from nighttime to daylight antiaircraft dispositions, this order inadvertently led to confusion. ![]() Center Force’s commander, Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita, immediately ordered his ships to move into a pursuit formation. task force of carriers and cruisers on the eastern horizon, thought to be part of the U.S. Additional air contacts followed and were fired on until 0650, when the Japanese sighted what appeared to them to be a large U.S. At 0623, shortly after sunrise and before the task force had fully shifted to its circular daytime anti-aircraft formation, Yamato made radar contact with U.S. (See images of these vessels in "The Ships of TG 77.4.3") The Battleįollowing its San Bernardino Strait passage, the Japanese Center Force was still in its nighttime search disposition. Taffy 3 was comprised of the following ships: Sprague’s TG 77.4.3-call sign “Taffy 3”-the northwesterly-most task unit, made up of six small escort carriers, three destroyers, and four destroyer escorts, was stunned to confront four Japanese battleships (among them Yamato with her 18-inch main guns), six heavy cruisers, two light cruisers, and 11 destroyers. Just after sunrise on 25 October, Rear Admiral Clifton A. This left only three Seventh Fleet escort carrier (CVE) task units on the northern flank of the Leyte operational area, where they had been providing close air support and an ASW screen for the amphibious landings. Seventh Fleet were engaged to the south of Leyte Gulf. The heavy forces of Vice Admiral Thomas C. The Japanese Northern Force, a carrier task force, had drawn Admiral William F. However, the task force ultimately resumed its eastward passage, broke out of the San Bernardino Strait north of Samar early the following day, and headed southward toward Leyte Gulf. ![]() Following the 24 October Battle of the Sibuyan Sea, the powerful Japanese First Diversion Attack Force (“Center Force”) appeared to be retiring westward. On 15 October 1944, the Japanese Imperial Navy’s First Mobile Fleet launched Operation Shō, a last-ditch attempt to engage Allied naval forces off Leyte in the central Philippines decisively.
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