When the new day dawned on the 24^th of October, it brought with it more problems for Kurita. The Americans, alerted to the presence of Kurita’s force to the west of the Philippines, launched extensive air searches in that direction. It did not take them long to spot the large column. Kurita at that time was sailing east through the Sibuyan Sea, planning to pass through San Bernardino Strait to join in an attack at dawn on the 25^th, more or less at the same time as Admiral Shoji Nishimura proceeding in from the shorter route to the south through the Sulu Sea.

Although the Japanese were worked hard to scrape together every possible resource for this operation, Admiral William F. "Bull" Halsey actually had the luxury of being able to dispatch one of his four task groups (TG38.1) to Ulithi to refuel and rearm. But even after this one task group had departed, Halsey was left with nearly a dozen carriers, escorted by six of the new fast battleships, and dozens upon dozens of cruisers and destroyers. These forces were on the lookout for three threats. First, Kurita and his surface forces had to be dealt with. Second, the Japanese were launching repeated air strikes from the Philippine islands themselves (they would claim the Princeton later in the day.) And third, nobody had seen the Japanese carriers.

Task Group 38.3 had been busy struggling to save the crippled light carrier Princeton and repel further Japanese land-based air attacks. But Task Groups 38.2 and 38.4 were able to able to send hundreds of aircraft to deal with Nishimura sailing through the Sulu Sea (Nishimura’s fleet would take hits, but suffered no losses) and Kurita sailing through the Sibuyan Sea. The first wave of American aircraft arrived over Kurita’s force at about 10:30 in the morning, and they immediately hit the Yamato, Musashi, and heavy cruiser Myoko. Due to their immense protection, the Yamato and Musashi were hardly damaged by the Americans, but not so the Myoko, which dropped speed to 15 knots and was forced to turn back to Brunei. Kurita had lost another heavy cruiser.

The second wave concentrated on the Musashi, which used large shotgun-type shells in her 18.1" guns in an attempt to knock down some of the attacking planes. No planes were seen to fall from the sky, and after the attack the Musashi signaled her status to Ugaki, "Musashi capable of cruising at 15 knots. Listing to port about 15 degrees. One bomb hit first bridge; all members killed. Five direct bomb hits and twelve torpedo hits." But Musashi sailed on, falling further and further behind Kurita, and drawing ever increasing attention from American air attacks throughout the day. When her speed was reduced to six knots, Kurita ordered the Musashi to turn towards home.

After suffering continued air attacks throughout the day, Kurita too decided to turn west, in order to gain some range from the impressive American onslaught. All of his battleships had now been hit at least once.  Although the only battleship to suffer crippling injuries was the Musashi,  it was apparently too dangerous to sail into the teeth of Halsey’s Third Fleet in broad daylight with no air cover. As Kurita retreated west, he passed the crippled Musashi that had fallen behind earlier, and was now struggling just to stay afloat. At about 7:30 in the evening four and a half hours after the last attack, Musashi would finally roll over and sink.  Her extensive protection ultimately failed after being subjected to twenty torpedoe hits, seventeen bomb hits, and the destructive force of the detonation of sixteen near misses in the water.

The reports of the American pilots were of great relief to Halsey. The Musashi had been sunk. All of the battleships had been hit. Other ships were damaged. And Kurita was last seen retreating to the west – the way he had come. And, perhaps best of all, the Japanese carriers had finally been located – to the north. With Kurita driven back, and the Seventh Fleet more than strong enough to deal with Nishimura coming through the Sulu Sea, Halsey set sail for the north at maximum speed, in the hope of destroying Admiral Ozawa and his carriers at dawn. He sent word to Admiral Chester Nimitz "Am proceeding north with three groups." To Halsey, of course, the message was clear – "three groups" meaning "everything that I have." And so Admiral Halsey sped off, into the night, aboard his flagship the New Jersey. Between her and the other five fast battleships, there would be little hope on the part of the Japanese to avoid the massive surface action in the morning that Halsey had hoped for since his days as a cadet at Annapolis. The battleship would at last finally have her day. All that the carriers had to do was to let Halsey know where the enemy was, provide air cover from Japanese attack aircraft (although there were none) and keep the Japanese from getting away.

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