The second half of World War II saw the last battleship duels. In the Battle of Guadalcanal on 15 November 1942, the U.S. battleships and fought and sank the Japanese battleship , at the cost of moderate topside damage to "South Dakota". For the Battle of Leyte Gulf the Japanese had to use their battleships as the main combatants, due to the heavy losses in their carrier air wings suffered in the earlier Battle of the Philippine Sea which relegated the carriers to decoys. On 25 October 1944 six battleships, led by Rear Admiral Jesse Oldendorf of the U.S. 7th Fleet, fired upon and claimed credit for sinking Vice Admiral Shoji Nishimura's battleships and during the Battle of Surigao Strait; in fact, both battleships were fatally crippled by torpedo attacks from destroyers before being brought under fire by Oldendorf's battleships, and probably only Yamashiro was the target of their fire.