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Subject: Battle off Samar
ens. jack    4/11/2010 10:24:57 AM
Reading thru the Hood/bismarck discussion, I think herald made a reference to this battle. I just wanted to get some other input as to how the heck we(USN) managed to win it. All the information I've read on it refers t the destroyers and aircraft fighting so hard the japanese thought them a larger force than they actually were. Any other reasoning out there?
 
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Hamilcar    We had the better men.   4/11/2010 5:50:17 PM
From Clifton Sprague on down.
 
 
In summary, he, Clifton Sprague, laid down smoke, ran his carriers into the rain-squalls to blind Japanese gunfire optics and radar, sacrificed his pilots and planes, as well as his destroyers, and did everything in his power to appear much bigger than he was, including dummy radio traffic, and encouraging his pilots to make the fake torpedo and dive-bombing attacks that cost so many of them their lives. (almost 100 aircraft lost)
 
At the end of it, he sank more tonnage than he lost, saved a beachhead, put a proud Japanese admiral and his superior fleet to cowardly flight, and in my opinion fought the finest surface action ever fought by a US naval officer. 
 
H.     
 
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CJH       9/6/2015 12:29:37 PM
This is one I surely do not understand. The only thing that mattered to the Japanese was the destruction of the Leyte landing forces and not the survival of their fleet. So why did they not persist in sailing to the landing zone?

If the landings were successful then what value was there in retaining a fleet for the Japanese?
 
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