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In this excerpt from the address delivered in Washington by the former Chief of Naval Operations at the World War II in the Pacific Conference on 11 August 1994, we join Lieutenant Holloway, gunnery officer in the USS Bennion (DD-662), during the early-morning hours of 25 October 1944, as he watches the Battle of Surigao Strait unfold.
From my battle station in the director, 1 had a view of the whole scene, from the panorama of the two fleets to a closeup of the Japanese ships through the high- powered lenses of the Mk 37 director. As our destroyers started the run to the south, we were immediately taken under fire. It was an eerie experience to be rushing through the dark toward the enemy at a relative speed of 50 knots, not firing our guns but hearing enemy shot fall all around us. The awesome evidence of the Japanese gunfire were the towering columns of water from the splashes of their 14- and 16-inch shells, some close enough to wet our weather decks. Star shells hung overhead, and the gun flashes from the Japanese battle line illuminated the horizon.
About the time our division made its final turn to run in for the torpedo attack, Rear Admiral Jesse B. Oldendorf s battleships and cruisers opened up with their main batteries. It was a comforting sight. Directly over our heads stretched a procession of tracers from our bat- tie line converging on the head of the Japanese column. I recall being surprised at the apparent slowness of the projectiles. They almost hung in the sky, taking 15 to 20 seconds in their trajectory before reaching their target. It was a spec
tacular display. Through the director optics, I could clearly see the bursting explosions of our battleships’ and cruisers’ shells as they hit the Japanese ships, which became enveloped in flames.
Plans were for each division to
launch torpedoes at the individual capital ships in the enemy column at a range of about 10,000 yards, then retire to the north at high speed. Our column was headed directly for the lead battleship, the Yamashiro, so the division had to turn for a clear shot, each destroyer launching successively as she executed the turn. As the Bennion was the second ship in the last element, at a 50-knot relative speed, our firing point closed rapidly with the Japanese battle line. We started launching our five torpedoes at a range of about 7,000 yards. At this distance, the silhouette of the Yamashiro filled the viewing glass of the rangefinder optics. I recall my reaction: “That looks exactly like a Japanese battleship with its pagoda foremast.” Then, I realized it was a Japanese battleship.
As we retired to the north in formation at 30 knots, still making max black smoke, explosions erupted close off our port beam. It was one of our destroyers, the Albert W. Grant (DD-649), being hit
by large-caliber shells during the retirement. The scene of action was becoming confused, and Oldendorf ordered his battle line to cease fire for concern of hitting our retiring destroyers in the melee. About this same time, we noted large-caliber tracers coming from a major warship only several thousand yards on our starboard beam. These rounds were being fired over us and directed toward our destroyers retiring up the western side of the strait. We decided quickly that this was not a friendly ship because of the sequential nature of her salvoes, as opposed to the simultaneous fire characteristic of U.S. ships, and the immediate decision was made to launch our remaining five torpedoes at this target of opportunity and continue our retirement.
The destroyers had reformed north of the strait by about 0430, and as first evidence of morning twilight appeared, we were ordered once again to proceed south and engage and destroy any surviving Japanese ships.
In the pale, pre-dawn twilight, the scene in Surigao Strait was appalling. I counted eight distinct fires, and the oily surface of the gulf was littered with debris and groups of Japanese sailors clinging to bits of wreckage and calling out to us as we raced past.
The Bennion did not pause to pick up survivors, as we had sighted the Japanese destroyer Asaguma, badly damaged, on fire, and limping south. She was still afloat, and if she still had torpedoes on board, she constituted a definite threat to our ships. With orders to destroy the Japanese ship, we changed course to close the Asaguma and opened fire with 5- inch salvoes at about 10,000 yards. We shifted to rapid continuous fire at 6,000, and she blew apart and slipped beneath the waves as we passed close aboard.
As the Bennion turned to rejoin
[he formation, a Zeke popped out of the low clouds, heading toward us.
The 5-inch battery Was manned and ready, and in a nodeflection shot, an influence-fused antiaircraft common shell scored what Was as close to a direct hit as 1 have ever seen from a 5- inch gun. The Zeke blew apart in a terrific explosion, and the flaming Pieces fell into the sea.
On board the Bennion, the crew Was dog tired but elated. As we listened to the reports come in over the TBS (talk between ships) and witnessed the hundreds of survivors clinging to the smoking wreckage of the Japanese fleet, we all sensed that a great victory had been won.
A major Japanese force of battleships and cruisers had been virtually annihilated with serious damage to only one of our ships, the destroyer Albert W. Grant.
Suddenly, the transformation of spirits was dramatic. Elation turned to real alarm, when over the TBS we heard that the Task Force (Taffy) groups—the jeep carriers off the eastern entrance to Leyte Gulf—were under attack at close range by Japanese battleships and cruisers. We couldn’t believe it.
We thought all of the capital ships in the Japanese reaction force had been destroyed during the night battle in Surigao Strait.
Immediately, our pursuit south through Surigao was turned around, and over the TBS an ad hoc rescue mission was organized from Olden- dorf’s force, which had engaged the Japanese at Surigao just hours before. Apparently, we had been caught completely by surprise, and there was no time for writing operation orders. One concern expressed over the voice circuits was that the capital ships had shot up most of their armor-piercing ammunition in the night action at Surigao, and their magazines were holding mostly high-capacity rounds best suited for the soft tar
The destroyer USS Bennion (DD-662) had an illustrious war career, but no night was quite as exciting as 24-25 October 1944.
gets typical of shore-bombardment missions. Their effectiveness against battleships and cruisers would be questionable. We knew Vice Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid, the Seventh Fleet commander, had to be deeply concerned. If the Japanese force could get into Leyte Gulf, the merchant ships with all of the invasion support would be at their mercy.
As the Bennion bent on maximum turns again to the north, to fall in with the battle disposition, the crew once more got ready for a fight. Ammunition was moved from the magazines to the ready lockers, empty brass was collected and dumped over the side, and Condition One Easy was set to allow the sailors to go to the galley for pots of coffee and buckets of thick bread and cold salami sandwiches.
I had gone down to the wardroom to see Robbie Robertson, the assistant gunnery officer who had been wounded severely at Tacloban. He was stretched out on the wardroom table—which was our makeshift sickbay annex— when I heard “General Quarters, all hands man your battle stations.” I stepped out on the flush deck just in time to see a Hamp (type of Zero) very close, flying toward us out of a rain squall at low altitude. As the plane passed directly over head, the Bennion had all her 20mm firing. The Hamp then rolled over and plunged into the sea.
There were no flames. A 20-mm round must have hit the pilot or the controls. ,
By 1000, Oldendorf s rescue force had formed up and was ready to exit the gulf, when we were told
that the Japanese had suddenly broken off the pursuit of the Taffy groups and retired at high speed to the north through San Bernardino Strait.
Oldendorf s bombardment and fire- support force of battleships, cruisers, and destroyers—including the Bennion—turned around one more time to take up stations within the gulf, again to support the invasion force and protect the logistic ships offloading at Tacloban.
The Battle of Surigao Strait was history, but what history! In the broadest historical sense, it may be most notable in marking the end of an era in naval warfare. It was the last naval battle in which air power played no part.
It was the ending of an era for me, as well. A week later, during an intense air attack in Tacloban Harbor, I transferred by whaleboat from the Bennion to a departing Liberty ship and began a long, slow hitchhike east across the Pacific. I had orders to flight training.
As I was saying goodbye to Commander Josh Cooper, a splendid gentleman and a great destroyer captain, he asked me one final time if I wouldn’t like to reconsider and continue my career in the destroyer Navy. I pondered only a moment before replying: “Captain, in the past week as a destroyer gunnery officer, we’ve silenced three shore batteries, shot down two Zeroes, battled a Japanese cruiser, sank a destroyer by gunfire, and scored a torpedo hit to help sink a Japanese battleship. What is there left to do?”
So the Bennion went on to Lin- gayen and Okinawa and a Presidential Unit Citation without me. I went on to flight training and a career as a carrier pilot. But I cannot recall any night quite as exciting as 24-25 October 1944 in the Surigao Strait.
Admiral Holloway served as Chief of Naval Operations and President of the Naval Institute. He retired after 39 years of active duty.