Soemu Toyoda
Nishimura issued a telegram to Admiral Soemu Toyoda at 20:13: "It is my plan to charge into Leyte Gulf to [reach] a point off Dulag at 04:00 hours on the 25th." At 22:52, his force opened fire, damaging and and forcing them to retreat before they could launch their torpedoes. Three American destroyers launched torpedoes at 03:00 that morning, hitting "Fusō" at 03:08 and forcing her to fall out of formation. "Yamashiro" opened fire with her secondary battery seven minutes later. Around 03:11, the destroyers "Monssen" and "Killen" fired their torpedoes, one or two of which hit "Yamashiro" amidships. The resulting damage temporarily slowed the ship down, gave her a list to port and forced the flooding of the magazines for the two aft turrets. "Yamashiro" may have been hit a third time near the bow at 03:40.