In One Night, America's Battleships Annihilated Japan's Southern Fleet at Surigao Strait
HISTORYINWW2
7,794 views
At 03:51 on October 25, 1944, six American battleships opened fire in the darkness of Surigao Strait.
Waiting in front of them was Japan's Southern Force.
Twenty-eight minutes later, the last battleship gun engagement in naval history was effectively over.
This is the story of the *Battle of Surigao Strait* — one of the most devastating surface actions of the Pacific War and a critical part of the larger Battle of Leyte Gulf.
Vice Admiral Shoji Nishimura entered Surigao Strait with two battleships, the heavy cruiser Mogami, and four destroyers.
His mission was to break through the strait, enter Leyte Gulf from the south, and join the larger Japanese Sho-1 operation against the American invasion fleet.
But Rear Admiral Jesse Oldendorf knew the Southern Force was coming.
At the northern end of the strait, Oldendorf constructed a layered defense.
First came the PT boats.
Then the American destroyers.
Finally, waiting across the northern exit, stood six American battleships supported by cruisers.
The geometry created one of the classic situations in naval warfare:
*Crossing the T.*
Before Nishimura's battleships could reach the American battle line, destroyers launched coordinated torpedo attacks from both sides of the channel.
The battleship Fuso was hit and eventually broke apart.
Japanese destroyers were sunk or disabled.
But Yamashiro continued north.
Waiting for her was USS West Virginia.
West Virginia's Mark 8 fire-control radar had been tracking Yamashiro for forty-one minutes before the first American battleship salvo.
At 03:51, West Virginia opened fire.
Maryland, Tennessee, California, Pennsylvania, and eventually Mississippi joined the engagement.
Radar allowed the American ships to build firing solutions in darkness while the Japanese force depended largely on optical fire control.
Heavy 14-inch and 16-inch armor-piercing shells began falling around Yamashiro.
The Japanese battleship returned fire, but the accumulating damage overwhelmed her ability to fight.
At 04:19, Yamashiro capsized and sank.
But there was another remarkable element to the battle.
Five of the six American battleships in Oldendorf's battle line had been at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.
West Virginia and California had been sunk.
Maryland and Tennessee had been damaged.
Pennsylvania had survived the attack while in dry dock.
They were raised or repaired, reconstructed, modernized, equipped with improved fire-control systems, and returned to the Pacific.
Nearly three years later, those ships were waiting for Japan's Southern Force at Surigao Strait.
This documentary follows that entire story — from Pearl Harbor and the massive American battleship salvage operation to the Japanese Sho-1 plan, Nishimura's approach through Surigao Strait, the PT boat contact reports, the destroyer torpedo attacks, Oldendorf's crossing of the T, and the final battleship gunfire against Yamashiro.
We also examine the technology that transformed the engagement.
Radar fire control.
Intelligence.
Coordinated torpedo attacks.
Layered defenses.
And battleships that had returned to war more capable than they had been before Pearl Harbor.
Surigao Strait was not simply a battleship duel.
It was the collision of two different approaches to night naval warfare.
The Japanese Southern Force entered a confined channel expecting to reach Leyte Gulf.
Instead, it encountered a defensive system designed to track, weaken, and finally destroy it before it could break through.
The destruction of Nishimura's force also removed the southern arm of Japan's Sho-1 pincer operation.
While Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita's Center Force approached from the north toward Samar, the force that was supposed to enter Leyte Gulf from the south had ceased to exist as an effective fighting formation.
And when the guns finally stopped firing, naval history had quietly reached the end of an era.
Mississippi's final broadside became the last battleship broadside fired in a surface engagement between battleships.
No battleship fleet would fight another gun engagement like Surigao Strait again.
Based on US Navy after-action reports, Oldendorf's battle planning records, Japanese Combined Fleet operational records, radar and fire-control logs, and survivor accounts, this documentary reconstructs the night the old Pearl Harbor battleships returned to fight one of the final great surface battles of the Pacific War.
From Pearl Harbor to Leyte Gulf.
From PT boats and destroyer torpedoes to radar-directed battleship gunfire.
This is the story of the **Battle of Surigao Strait**.
Subscribe for deeply researched World War II documentaries covering the battles, battleships, aircraft, submarines, weapons, strategies, and decisions that shaped the Second World War.
#WW2 #WorldWarII #PacificWar #USNavy #WWIIHistory #SurigaoStrait #Battleships #LeyteGulf #PearlHarbor #NavalHistory #MilitaryHistory #USAInWW2
4 Comments
In One Night, America's Battleships Annihilated Japan's Southern Fleet at Surigao Strait
HISTORYINWW2
7,794 views
At 03:51 on October 25, 1944, six American battleships opened fire in the darkness of Surigao Strait.
Waiting in front of them was Japan's Southern Force.
Twenty-eight minutes later, the last battleship gun engagement in naval history was effectively over.
This is the story of the *Battle of Surigao Strait* — one of the most devastating surface actions of the Pacific War and a critical part of the larger Battle of Leyte Gulf.
Vice Admiral Shoji Nishimura entered Surigao Strait with two battleships, the heavy cruiser Mogami, and four destroyers.
His mission was to break through the strait, enter Leyte Gulf from the south, and join the larger Japanese Sho-1 operation against the American invasion fleet.
But Rear Admiral Jesse Oldendorf knew the Southern Force was coming.
At the northern end of the strait, Oldendorf constructed a layered defense.
First came the PT boats.
Then the American destroyers.
Finally, waiting across the northern exit, stood six American battleships supported by cruisers.
The geometry created one of the classic situations in naval warfare:
*Crossing the T.*
Before Nishimura's battleships could reach the American battle line, destroyers launched coordinated torpedo attacks from both sides of the channel.
The battleship Fuso was hit and eventually broke apart.
Japanese destroyers were sunk or disabled.
But Yamashiro continued north.
Waiting for her was USS West Virginia.
West Virginia's Mark 8 fire-control radar had been tracking Yamashiro for forty-one minutes before the first American battleship salvo.
At 03:51, West Virginia opened fire.
Maryland, Tennessee, California, Pennsylvania, and eventually Mississippi joined the engagement.
Radar allowed the American ships to build firing solutions in darkness while the Japanese force depended largely on optical fire control.
Heavy 14-inch and 16-inch armor-piercing shells began falling around Yamashiro.
The Japanese battleship returned fire, but the accumulating damage overwhelmed her ability to fight.
At 04:19, Yamashiro capsized and sank.
But there was another remarkable element to the battle.
Five of the six American battleships in Oldendorf's battle line had been at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.
West Virginia and California had been sunk.
Maryland and Tennessee had been damaged.
Pennsylvania had survived the attack while in dry dock.
They were raised or repaired, reconstructed, modernized, equipped with improved fire-control systems, and returned to the Pacific.
Nearly three years later, those ships were waiting for Japan's Southern Force at Surigao Strait.
This documentary follows that entire story — from Pearl Harbor and the massive American battleship salvage operation to the Japanese Sho-1 plan, Nishimura's approach through Surigao Strait, the PT boat contact reports, the destroyer torpedo attacks, Oldendorf's crossing of the T, and the final battleship gunfire against Yamashiro.
We also examine the technology that transformed the engagement.
Radar fire control.
Intelligence.
Coordinated torpedo attacks.
Layered defenses.
And battleships that had returned to war more capable than they had been before Pearl Harbor.
Surigao Strait was not simply a battleship duel.
It was the collision of two different approaches to night naval warfare.
The Japanese Southern Force entered a confined channel expecting to reach Leyte Gulf.
Instead, it encountered a defensive system designed to track, weaken, and finally destroy it before it could break through.
The destruction of Nishimura's force also removed the southern arm of Japan's Sho-1 pincer operation.
While Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita's Center Force approached from the north toward Samar, the force that was supposed to enter Leyte Gulf from the south had ceased to exist as an effective fighting formation.
And when the guns finally stopped firing, naval history had quietly reached the end of an era.
Mississippi's final broadside became the last battleship broadside fired in a surface engagement between battleships.
No battleship fleet would fight another gun engagement like Surigao Strait again.
Based on US Navy after-action reports, Oldendorf's battle planning records, Japanese Combined Fleet operational records, radar and fire-control logs, and survivor accounts, this documentary reconstructs the night the old Pearl Harbor battleships returned to fight one of the final great surface battles of the Pacific War.
From Pearl Harbor to Leyte Gulf.
From PT boats and destroyer torpedoes to radar-directed battleship gunfire.
This is the story of the **Battle of Surigao Strait**.
Subscribe for deeply researched World War II documentaries covering the battles, battleships, aircraft, submarines, weapons, strategies, and decisions that shaped the Second World War.
#WW2 #WorldWarII #PacificWar #USNavy #WWIIHistory #SurigaoStrait #Battleships #LeyteGulf #PearlHarbor #NavalHistory #MilitaryHistory #USAInWW2