page_title: USS West Virginia (BB-48)
section_title: Battle of Leyte Gulf
hierarchical_section_title: USS West Virginia (BB-48) / Service history / World War II / Operations in the Philippines / Battle of Leyte Gulf
caption_attribution_description: AFDB-1 with West Virginia (BB-48) high and dry in the dock, off Aessi Island, Espiritu Santo, New Hebrides, 13 November 1944. The battleship was docked for upkeep and repair to propellers damaged when she touched ground off Leyte on 21 October. US National Archives photo # 80-G-314220, a US Navy photo now in the collections of the US National Archives. Removed caption read: Photo # 80-G-314220 &#160;&#160;&#160; USS West Virginia in floating drydock ABSD-1, 1944
context_page_description: USS West Virginia (BB-48) was the fourth dreadnought battleship of the Colorado class, though because Washington was cancelled, she was the third and final member of the class to be completed. The Colorado class proved to be the culmination of the standard-type battleship series built for the United States Navy in the 1910s and 1920s; the ships were essentially repeats of the earlier Tennessee design, but with a significantly more powerful main battery of eight 16-inch guns in twin-gun turrets. West Virginia was built between her keel laying in 1920 and her commissioning into the Navy in 1923. The ship spent the 1920s and 1930s conducting routine training exercises, including the typically-annual Fleet Problems, which provided invaluable experience for the coming war in the Pacific.
  West Virginia was moored in Battleship Row on the morning of 7 December 1941 when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, bringing the United States into World War II. Badly damaged by torpedoes, the ship sank in the shallow water but was later refloated and extensively rebuilt over the course of 1943 and into mid-1944.
context_section_description: The landing on Leyte led to the activation of Operation Shō-Gō 1, the Japanese navy's planned riposte to an Allied landing in the Philippines. The plan was a complicated operation with three separate fleets: the Northern Force under Vice Admiral Jisaburō Ozawa, the Center Force under Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita, and the Southern Force under Vice Admiral Shōji Nishimura. Ozawa's carriers, by now depleted of most of their aircraft, were to serve as a decoy for Kurita's and Nishimura's battleships, which were to use the distraction to attack the invasion fleet directly. Kurita's ships were detected in the San Bernardino Strait on 24 October 1944, and in the ensuing Battle of the Sibuyan Sea, American carrier aircraft sank the powerful battleship Musashi, causing Kurita to temporarily reverse course. This convinced Admiral William F. Halsey, the commander of Third Fleet, to send the fast carrier task force to destroy the Northern Force, which had by then been detected. While these maneuvers were occurring, Nishumura's force approached the Surigao Strait to attack the invasion fleet from the south. His fleet consisted of the battleships Yamashiro and Fusō, the heavy cruiser Mogami, and four destroyers, supplemented by Vice Admiral Kiyohide Shima's Second Striking Force, consisting of the heavy cruisers Nachi and Ashigara, the light cruiser Abukuma, and four more destroyers.
  As Nishimura's flotilla passed through the strait on the night of 24 October, they came under attack from American PT boats, followed by destroyers, initiating the Battle of Surigao Strait. One of these US destroyers torpedoed Fusō and disabled her, though Nishimura continued on toward his objective. West Virginia steamed at the head of the American line. Observers aboard Tennessee spotted the flashes in the distance as the light American craft attacked Nishimura's force, and at 03:02, her search radar picked up the enemy ships at a range of 44,000 yd (40,000 m). West Virginia's radar picked them up fourteen minutes later, by which time the range had fallen to 42,000 yd (38,000 m). Oldendorf gave the order to open fire at 03:51, and West Virginia opened fire first a minute later, followed by Tennessee and California, concentrating their fire on Yamashiro; the other American battleships had trouble locating a target with their older, less-effective radars and held their fire. West Virginia probably hit Yamashiro on her bridge with her first salvo, though Nishimura and his staff were not injured at that time. Yamashiro was quickly hit several times by several American vessels that concentrated their fire on her. With Yamashiro badly damaged and burning furiously, the Americans then shifted fire to Mogami, which was also hit several times, suffering severe damage.
  At about 04:00, Mogami and then Yamashiro turned to retreat, both burning; the destroyer Shigure fled with them, though she had not suffered any serious damage. Shortly thereafter, Oldendorf ordered his battleships to make a 150-degree turn, and West Virginia complied at 04:02, leading the other battleships on the new course, which ran parallel to Yamashiro's line of retreat. Confusion aboard California led her to fall out of position, and in so doing, mask the rest of the battleships and force them to cease firing to avoid hitting her. Shortly thereafter, reports of Japanese torpedoes in the water prompted the American battleships to turn to the north at 04:18 to avoid them. This marked the end of the action, as the remaining Japanese ships retreated in the darkness. In the course of the action, West Virginia fired sixteen salvos at the Japanese ships; this proved to be the last ever battle between battleships.
caption: West Virginia aboard the floating drydock USS Artisan for repairs on 13 November 1944
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