page_title: Battle off Samar
section_title: The Run to the South
hierarchical_section_title: Battle off Samar / Battle / The Run to the South
caption_attribution_description: A U.S. Navy Grumman TBM-1 Avenger from Torpedo Squadron VT-26 over Panaon Island, Philippines. VT-26 was assigned to the the escort carrier USS Santee (CVE-29) in 1944 and in July-August 1945.
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: Temporarily safe within the rain squall, Admiral Sprague had a difficult decision to make.  The easterly course was drawing the enemy too close to San Bernardino Strait and away from any help that might come from Admiral Oldendorf's forces to the south, and Kurita was about to gain the windward side of his formation, which would render his smoke less effective. Thus, at 07:30 Sprague ordered a course change, first to the southeast and then to the south, and ordered his escorts to make their torpedo attack to cover the carrier's emergence from the storm. That was a very risky decision for Sprague because it gave Kurita a chance to cut across the diameter of Sprague's arc and cut him off.
  However, Kurita missed the chance and his forces followed Taffy 3 around the circle, his earlier decision to send his destroyers to the rear having removed them from a position that they could have intercepted or prevented the American formation's turn. The aircraft carriers of Taffy 3 turned south and withdrew through shellfire at their top speed of 17.5 knots (20.1 mph; 32.4 km/h). The six carriers dodged in and out of rain squalls, occasionally turning into the wind to launch the few planes they had left.
  After one hour, the Japanese had closed the chase to within 10 miles (16 km) of the carriers. That the carriers had managed to evade destruction reinforced the Japanese belief that they were attacking fast fleet carriers. The heavy clouds of black and white smoke generated by the Americans were now making target observation extremely difficult. At 08:00, Sprague ordered the carriers to "open fire with pea-shooters when the range is clear." The stern chase was also advantageous for the sole anti-ship armament of small carriers was a single manually controlled stern-mounted 5 in (127 mm) gun as a stinger, though they were loaded with anti-aircraft shells. Fire from the CVEs' stingers would be credited with hitting Japanese warships that ventured within 5 in (127 mm) gun range and contributing to the sinking of heavy cruiser Chōkai. As anti-aircraft gunners observed helplessly, an officer cheered them by exclaiming, "Just wait a little longer, boys, we're suckering them into 40-mm range."
caption: A Grumman TBF Avenger from USS Santee.
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