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  • NARRATOR: Battle of Leyte Gulf.

  • While William Halsey's Third Fleet has been pummeling

  • the Japanese carriers off Cape Enga o,

  • the American landing forces in Leyte Gulf have been

  • caught completely off guard.

  • [cannon firing]

  • Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita's Center Force.

  • The force Halsey thought was retreating in fact

  • turned around, sailed all night through the San Bernardino

  • Strait, entered the Philippine Sea,

  • and steamed south toward Leyte Gulf early this morning.

  • With Halsey's Third Fleet well north sinking carriers,

  • Kurita reached the Gulf unopposed

  • and is now bearing down on the American landing forces.

  • Seventh Fleet's battleships are too far south

  • to lend immediate aid, and the destroyers and carriers simply

  • don't have adequate firepower.

  • They are hopelessly outgunned.

  • There's no weapon larger than a 5-inch gun

  • on any of the American ships in the area.

  • And on the Japanese side, you have Battleship Yamato,

  • which is armed with 18.1-inch guns, the largest naval

  • rifles ever installed afloat.

  • They have a second battleship.

  • They have numerous heavy cruisers.

  • This is a mismatch of mythic proportions.

  • NARRATOR: But the commander of one of the small destroyers

  • chooses to stand and make the best showing he can--

  • despite the odds.

  • Lieutenant Commander Ernest E. Evans,

  • commanding the destroyer USS Johnston,

  • determines to charge the enemy.

  • He had two choices.

  • He could flight or fight.

  • What he did is he turned his ship,

  • and he actually went, and he attacked this Japanese armada.

  • NARRATOR: Evans orders his little vessel

  • to speed toward the vastly superior Japanese force.

  • He knows the enemy's guns will be firing on him,

  • but he plans to weave to try to avoid the killing rounds.

  • And if he gets close enough, he might just score a lucky hit.

  • [explosions booming]

  • Evans's bold charge inspires other commanders around him,

  • and soon, many destroyers join the attack.

  • They go after the Japanese with both gunfire

  • and torpedoes.

  • They're laying smokescreens to try

  • to screen the escort carriers as they're

  • trying to dawdle their way out at 17 or 18 knots.

  • NARRATOR: Finally in range, Evans

  • unleashes a torpedo at the Japanese heavy cruiser Kumano.

  • The torpedo courses through the sea, and minutes later--

  • [explosion booming]

  • Blew the valve right off the front of a Japanese cruiser.

  • NARRATOR: Soon, the Japanese cruiser Suzuya stops

  • to assist the wounded Kumano.

  • He fired another torpedo, and he also hit and sunk that ship.

  • NARRATOR: Amid the heavy gunfire, torpedo attacks,

  • and the hundreds of planes harassing them,

  • Admiral Kurita and his commanders are bewildered.

  • The Japanese are thrown into confusion.

  • They believe that they're being attacked by more

  • powerful forces than they are.

  • You start seeing Japanese cruisers getting knocked out.

  • The Japanese battleships are taking

  • damage to their top sides.

  • It makes it very difficult for the Japanese

  • to fight a coherent action against the Americans.

  • They're constantly maneuvering to avoid air attacks, which

  • in turn makes it difficult to direct gunfire against

  • the American Jeep carriers.

  • NARRATOR: Like a bear under attack by a swarm of bees,

  • the Japanese Center Force falters.

  • Where they thought that they had a mismatch--

  • and they really did in terms of raw material terms--

  • they are unable to close with the Americans.

  • They're increasingly harassed by American air power.

  • And eventually, the Japanese admiral decides that he's

  • had enough, and he leaves.

  • WILLIAM BODETTE: They said, the hell with this.

  • They turn around and they hightail it out of there.

  • NARRATOR: The battle of Leyte Gulf

  • has ended in utter disaster for the Japanese Navy.

  • The Japanese losses at Leyte include 4 aircraft carriers,

  • 3 battleships, 10 cruisers, 11 destroyers, and nearly

  • 14,000 sailors and air crewmen.

  • American losses, by contrast, are relatively light.

  • One light aircraft carrier, two escort carriers,

  • two destroyers, two destroyer escorts, and

  • 1,500 sailors and air crewmen.

  • This really marks the final demise of the Japanese Navy,

  • and they'll never really be able to do anything

  • of a concerted nature to repel any further attacks

  • by the US Navy at this point.

  • It really is the end of an era.

  • NARRATOR: The US Navy has now eclipsed the force that

  • started a mode of warfare--

  • carrier warfare-- whose supreme potential no one had recognized

  • before December 7, 1941.

  • No one knew how carriers were supposed to operate.

  • Pearl Harbor really was the initial battle

  • that sort of announced the beginning

  • of the carrier age warfare.

  • Leyte is the battle that announces that there's only one

  • navy in the world that is really capable of doing

  • that sort of warfare, and it's the US Navy.

  • NARRATOR: The Battle of Leyte Gulf

  • has another pre-eminent distinction.

  • It is the largest naval confrontation

  • in the history of mankind.

NARRATOR: Battle of Leyte Gulf.

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