page_title: Battle off Samar
section_title: Japanese take further hits
hierarchical_section_title: Battle off Samar / Battle / Japanese take further hits
caption_attribution_description: The Japanese cruiser Chikuma under aerial attack during Battle off Samar on 25 October 1944. The ship's stern has been severely damaged by a torpedo hit, but the ship's outboard propellers are still keeping her somewhat moving.
context_page_description: The Battle off Samar was the centermost action of the Battle of Leyte Gulf, one of the largest naval battles in history, which took place in the Philippine Sea off Samar Island, in the Philippines on October 25, 1944. It was the only major action in the larger battle in which the Americans were largely unprepared. The Battle off Samar has been cited by historians as one of the greatest last stands in naval history; ultimately the Americans prevailed over a massive armada – the Japanese Imperial Navy's Center Force under command of Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita – despite their very heavy losses and overwhelming odds.
  Admiral William Halsey, Jr. was lured into taking his powerful 3rd Fleet after a decoy fleet, taking with him every ship in the area that he had the power to command. The remaining American forces in the area were three escort carrier groups of the 7th Fleet. The escort carriers and destroyer escorts which had been built to protect slow convoys from submarine attack had been adapted to attack ground targets and had few torpedoes, as they normally relied on Halsey's fleet to protect them from armored warships.
context_section_description: After Johnston blew off the bow of Kumano with a Mark 15 torpedo, the Japanese ship retired towards the San Bernardino Strait, where she suffered minor damage from an aerial attack.
  Chikuma engaged the U.S. escort carriers, helping to sink Gambier Bay, but came under fire from Heermann and under a heavy air attack. It is generally thought that destroyer Nowaki took off survivors from Chikuma, and then scuttled her at 11°25′N 126°36′E in the late morning of on October 25, 1944, but a more recent study suggests Chikuma sank from the effect of the air attack, and Nowaki arrived only in time to pick up survivors from the water.
  While withdrawing from the battle area, Nowaki was herself sunk, with the loss of all but one of Chikuma's surviving crewmen.
  The heavy cruiser Suzuya, which had also engaged the carriers, received fatal damage from the air, ironically without suffering any direct hits. Early in the battle, she was attacked by ten Avengers from Taffy 3. A near-miss close astern to port by an HE bomb from one of the TBMs carried away one of Suzuya's propellers, reducing her maximum speed to 20 knots. At 10:50, she was attacked by 30 more carrier aircraft. Another near miss by a bomb, this time starboard amidships, set off the Long Lance torpedoes loaded in one of her starboard tube mounts. The fires started by the explosion soon propagated to other torpedoes nearby and beyond, the subsequent explosions damaging one of the boilers and the starboard engine rooms. Abandon ship was ordered at 11:50, none too soon, as the fires set off the remaining torpedoes and her main magazines just ten minutes later. Suzuya rolled over and sank at 13:22, with 401 officers and crew rescued by destroyer Okinami, followed by further rescues by American ships later.
caption: The Japanese cruiser Chikuma maneuvering after sustaining torpedo damage.
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