Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita set sail on the 21^st of October from Brunei on the island of Borneo with a formidable force. Kurita himself was aboard the heavy cruiser Atago, only one of ten such heavy cruisers under his command. He also had two light cruisers and thirteen destroyers from his original allotment of fifteen (two were forced to turn back due to mechanical difficulties.) But by far the most formidable elements of his fleet were the five battleships. The Yamato and Musashi remain to this day the largest battleships ever built, displacing 68,000 tons (an Iowa and a half each!) and armed with nine 18.1" guns.. The Nagato, though old, was the fastest and most powerful battleship when she was in service two decades earlier, and still boasted a formidable armament of eight 16" guns. Bringing up the rear of the force were the 14" gunned Kongo and Haruna, surviving sisters of the Kirishima and Hiei which went down off Guadalcanal in 1942.

As Kurita sailed this mighty force northward on October 23^rd, things did not go well for him. First of all, two American submarines, the Darter and Dace picked up "many ships" on their radar that morning, and then laid in ambush waiting for the formidable task force to sail by. They launched a spread of torpedoes undetected by the Japanese; the first signs of their successful attack were the explosions, bursts of flame, and large columns of water that informed the Japanese that the torpedoes had found their targets. Admiral Matome Ugaki, second in command of the operation aboard the mighty Yamato, rushed to see which ships had been hit hoping that only a screening destroyer or two had been lost. Much to his dismay, he saw three heavy cruisers all hit and severely damaged. And one that seemed sure to sink quickly was the Atago, Admiral Kurita’s flagship.

The Atago sank in 18 minutes, followed by the Maya. The Takao was the luckiest of the three – she had her rudder and two of her screws blown off, and was flooding in three boiler rooms. But the Takao would survive the day, and she limped off at five knots escorted by two destroyers. Another fortunate survivor was Admiral Kurita, who was fished from the water by the destroyer Kishinami, and transferred to the Yamato to resume command later that afternoon.

The Americans had drawn first blood, and Kurita’s force had been weakened two ways. First, while the loss of the three heavy cruisers and the two destroyers to escort the Takao home was not catastrophic, it certainly was not insignificant. Kurita’s main striking force was undoubtedly weaker than it had been. But second, and perhaps more significantly, Admiral Kurita himself had set sail to save his nation with a mighty force, but began the operation by having his flagship sink underneath him. We can only guess what doubts ran through Kurita’s mind as he stood on the deck of the Kishinami covered with salt water and oil – even before the battle got underway.

(Follow the links to each phase of the battle.)