Sea Control - Sea Control 387 - The Untold Story of the Battle Off Samar

Episode Date: October 20, 2022

Links:The Battle of Leyte Gulf: The Untold Story (Part I), RADM (Ret) Tom Andrews, Naval Order of the United States, June 8, 2020. The Battle of Leyte Gulf: The Untold Story (Part II), RADM (Ret) Tom Andrews, Naval Order of the United States, July 13, 2020. The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the US Navy's Finest Hour, by James Hornfischer, Bantam March 29, 2005.The Defenders of Taffy 3: Analysis and Retelling of the Battle of Leyte Gulf, by Byron Como, June 26, 2019.Naval Order of the United StatesTreasure Island Museum

Hey folks, it's Jared. Rear Admiral Retired Tom Andrews is here with us today to discuss naval aviation's role in the Battle of Samar. This episode was edited and produced by Alexia Boulaghi. I'd like to pause here to highlight our local chapters, whether you're in South Korea, Egypt, Singapore, France, New York, India, or the Caribbean. Chances are there's a SimSec local chapter near you. You can find a full listing of local chapters and contact information on our website at simsec.org. So if you're interested, please reach out and get involved. Finally, I want to take the opportunity to recommend our partners and the SimSec Podcast Network, The Bilge Pumps.

You can find Alex, Jamie, Drack, and a Paw of Iron Brew Bottles wherever you download your podcasts. And with that, Kimber's Men. You're listening to Sea Control, hosted by the Center for International Maritime Technology. Aloha, shipmates, and welcome

back aboard Sea Control. My guest today is raremo-retired Tom Andrews, and he's going to be sharing the story of his father's experience in the Battle of Samar. So Admiral, thanks for joining me today. Would you mind telling the listeners a little bit more about your background, please? Sure, sure, Jared, and thanks for having me. It's a privilege for me to share my dad's story about the Battle of Lady Gulf off Samar. Regarding my career, I knew from the time I was 12 years old that I was going to go to college on an NROTC scholarship, spend four to five years on active duty, and then go work for Price

Waterhouse. I just knew it, and it actually worked out that way. Little did I know, though, how much of an effect both Price Waterhouse and the Navy would have on the rest of my life. In short, Price Waterhouse anchored me in the San Francisco Bay Area, and the Navy Reserves allowed me to travel the world and work with great people doing meaningful work. Now, being a logistician, as you know, I will always take the opportunity to remind people that soldiers and sailors win battles, but logistics wins wars. And I'm hopeful that in my 31 and a half years of service as a logistician, I some way enabled that. Well, thanks again for joining us, sir. As a reminder to the listeners, all opinions are our own and not reflective of any of the

institutions with which we might be otherwise associated. So Abel, you and I actually met at an event for the Naval Order of the United States up in San Francisco during Fleet Week. So can you tell us a little bit about what is the Naval Order of the United States? Because that was kind of my first exposure to that organization, and it actually is directly related to what we're going to talk about today. Yeah, I appreciate it. I really enjoyed having you guys up there. It was a great event. We've got another one coming up in about a month and a half here. Well, the Naval Order of the United States is primarily a veterans organization, and we're dedicated to preserving and sharing the history of the maritime services. We see ourselves as the

living history of the seagoing services. We were founded in 1890 and have dedicated ourselves to keeping the history alive through things like the restoration of historic artifacts like we're doing right now for the U.S. Barry Stern plate, the establishment of memorials at key sites, and examples of that are the Navy Memorial at Normandy, which didn't exist until we got involved, the Nimitz Statue at Pearl Harbor, and the Lone Sailor Statue here at the north end of the Golden Gate Bridge. And then the active collection of our shared history through academic papers, published works ad hoc stories such as what we're doing here today for my dad and the battle of lady gulf you've given this presentation a number of times and there'll be links to it uh posted when

we publish this down in the show notes uh why do you refer to this as the quote-unquote untold story of the battle of samar you know it's interesting now when i started this project i really felt it was an untold story and i had read the books by cutler and morrison these are huge tomes on the four-day engagement, and I waited with eager anticipation for James Hornfisher's last stand of the tin can sailor, figuring that that book might finally tell my dad's story. Well, at one point in time, I gave my dad the cover book, and he read it. And when he returned the book to me, he had written a comment inside the front cover, and I'll quote with emphasis at it, said, the Kitkin Bay is hardly mentioned in 343 pages of this book,

with an exclamation mark. Then he went on to list the three pages where it was mentioned. So when Hornfisher finally published his book, I devoured it. And boy, was I disappointed, as there was barely any mention at all of VC5 or the Kitkin Bay in the book. That was a great book, you know, focused on the escorts, of course, the tin can sailors, but there's nothing about the Kitkin Bay. And not long afterwards, Jim came out to San Francisco to do some research on his next book, Neptune's Inferno. And he joined us at one of our naval order luncheons, our monthly luncheons. And he sat behind me, in fact. And after the lunch, I stood up and I confronted him with this terrible omission about not having the Kitkin Bay. Well, he was a tall guy, you know, and he

looked down at me with these bright eyes. And I'm sure he pondered how he was going to handle this teaching moment. And he was very clear in his response. He said, you know, in the process of researching the book, I sent letters out to all the alumni associations and all the squadrons and all the ships involved in the battle, and I never heard back from VC5 or the Kitkin Bay. And I thought about it for a minute, and I realized why he had never heard from either alumni association, because they had pretty much dissolved over time, and all their material had found its way into my dad's hands and subsequently into mine. And there was my epiphany. History is only what gets told. Books can be written and movies can be made, but if your story is not part of the final product,

that's not necessarily the fault of the author. But of course, it took me years to get around to moving forward with the project. And by the time I really got down to working on it after my full retirement in 2018, the 75th anniversary of the battle was fast approaching and there was a whole lot more active interest in it. So I had earlier met Rear Admiral Sam Cox at the Treasure Island Museum. And Sam is the director of the Navy History and Heritage Command in D.C. And I gave him a call to see what he might have about the battle. Well, he told me that some of his staff were working on projects. And he asked me if I'd ever read the books by Byron Como. Well, I never even heard the name. So I was intrigued. And sure enough, Byron had written not one, but two books

on the battle, one from the perspective of dad's battle group, Taffy 3, and one from the perspective of the attacking Japanese force, which Taffy 3 engaged that day. So by the time I finished the project, part of the story had been told, but there was still more to tell. Now, what did your dad first start to share his experiences with you, and then how did what he was willing to share evolve? Yeah, yeah, that's a good question. I'm sure, you know, a lot of people have about the same answer to this. You know, dad was like most World War II veterans. He never talked about the war, at least not while I was growing up. It really was only at the reception of my first wedding in 1984 that I heard my dad talking to our maid of honor about the war. And I was sitting

on the other side of her, and I'm going, what? I've never heard that before, huh? And so after of that uh he started to talk a little more about his experiences but so much of it was anecdotal and just disconnected there were little snippets here and there it was like a highlight reel you know it was he talked about raking the beach um on d-day at saipan and then listening to tokyo rose talk about it that night on the radio he talked about standing on the deck of the kit convey during the the battle of samoa island and watching the japanese cruiser elevate its guns and fire at him. And, you know, later on, he actually was in the nuclear program, and he was at Eniwetok, and he talked about sitting on the beach at Eniwetok as a nuclear weapon was detonated

right behind him. And then one of his favorites was that he saw a UFO during a weapons test in Nevada. And I mean, there was a story behind each one of these things, and it was a big effort trying to put pieces together, and it was fascinating. So how did you ultimately start to piece together this story then? As I mentioned earlier, all the stuff from the Alumni Associations had ended up in my hands. I had a number of pictures taken on the Kitkin Bay during the battle. I also had three key first-hand accounts of the battle. One that was written shortly after the battle by one of Dad's squadron's junior officers, Charles Spalding. One by my dad written from memory right before the 50th anniversary of the battle, and a confidential document called the

Odyssey of the Old Crow, which was a comprehensive telling basically of the history of VC5 through the war. And I thought there might be some more information at the National Archives, so I enlisted a couple of my friends from my Washington, D.C. Naval Order Commandery who visited the archives outside of D.C. and found a bunch more pictures along with some battle action reports. And then And I worked, and this is important for people who want to do research on this stuff. I worked with, I found a database called Fold 3. I had it brought to my attention. And I found an absolute treasure trove of material, including the battle action reports

from my dad and his squadron commander, Dick Fowler. It's absolutely amazing what's out there. Then, of course, there were the two books by Byron Como, The Defenders of Taffy 3 and The Raiders of Taffy. Mr. Como, God, it's just amazing. He had tracked the path of every ship involved in the battle through the surviving logbooks, including those of the Japanese ships. So he knew where every ship was at every moment in the battle.

And his analysis was very effective in clearing up some of the inconsistencies from my sources, my firsthand sources. In fact, it was so effective that Admiral Cox, you know, took some of this stuff on, took some of his analysis, and brought the issues to his team for further research, as Byron's research raised the possibility that some of the damage to the American ships might have been attributable to friendly fire. Let's talk about VC-5. How did your dead squadron come together, and what was their war like leading up to the Battle of Lake Tickle? Yeah, the World War, I mean, VC-5 has had various iterations over the course of its 50 years, but

the World War II version of VC-5 had pretty much a short, eventful life. It was established in September of 43, and VC-5 embarked aboard the Kitkin Bay, an escort carrier, also known as a jeep carrier in March of 1944. And Kitkin Bay got underway to Points West on May 1st of 1944 with the VC-5 fully manned at 34 officers, three chiefs, and 130 crew. Now, their first engagement came about a month and a half later on June 13th when a Japanese Betty encountered the VC-5 cap. It didn't survive the encounter. And two days later was D-Day on Saipan, where VC-5 and VC-10 preceded the 2nd and 4th Marine Divisions into the beach on H-hour strikes. Now, Dad was vivid in his description of this strike, as you can imagine, as it was his first combat action.

He said the squadron flew parallel to the beach in two columns with the fighters above and the TBMs below until Dick Fowler, the squadron commander, told them to turn 90 degrees and head into the beach. They then commenced a glide dive with the fighters strafing, followed by the TBMs, each of the TBMs simultaneously firing a salvo of eight rockets and a burst of their twin .50 calibers and then dropping a load of bombs before pulling out. And as they pulled out, the radio man was in the back portal, shooting out the back portal. And as they left the beach. And later that night, as I mentioned earlier, Tokyo Rose reported that the U.S. Naval Forces had unleashed a new powerful aircraft launch secret weapon

against Imperial forces protecting Saipan. And I'm not sure of this, but, and Dan believed this to be true, he thought that this might have been the first time that TDMs had fired rockets against Japanese forces. Now, the VC-5 supported the Marines there for the next 18 days. They flew sorties every day, providing close air support, engaging Japanese aircraft, and it was just a grind. On the next to last day there, the Marines were having a hard time dislodging a force of Japanese soldiers holed up in a ravine in the northern end of the island, and they called for support from VC-5, and Dick Fowler, the squadron commander, led an attack on the ravine that just ravaged the forces, and apparently killed more than a thousand enemy soldiers from the after

Action Report, with only a few tanks escaping to the north from that force. And after that encounter on July 2nd, the Kitkin Bay Task Force left Saipan, and the island was secured a few days later. I've got a few more steps that they took before they got to Lady Gulf. Can I go through them? Absolutely, sir. Okay, great. You know, after Saipan, the force proceeded to Tinian, And they spent the next two weeks, in their words, blasting the hell out of the island. Now, during this engagement, Dad fired a rocket into what was really described as an innocent-looking clump of trees and ended up setting off this huge explosion when he hit a fuel dump that was hidden there. And he also recounted an event where he dove into a target and waited a little too long to pull out of his dive.

And when he finally did, he hit a palm tree with his tail fin stabilizers and brought part of that tree back to the ship with him. And as it turned out, in pulling out of his dive, he had exceeded the safe level of the G-force that the plane was designed to withstand. And when they inspected the plane further, they found that the fuselage was covered with cracks. And so they just pushed the plane overboard. And that was it. So and after two weeks of underlinen attacks there, Tinian was secured. Their next significant engagement wouldn't really occur until early September when they set out for the Palau's and where they were to participate in the D-Day H-Hour strike on Peleliu. Now, anybody that knows about the engagement of Peleliu knows how ugly that thing became.

But it was like many of the island hopping campaigns across the Pacific. The effort was just grueling and costly. In just the first eight days of the battle, the 1st Marine Division suffered 71% casualties, 71% casualties. And one of my dad's best friends, Cecil Franks, was a mortar man for the 1st Marine Division. And I remember him talking about how the force would just a-trit and a-trit and a-trit and then reconstitute, and then a-trit and a-trit and a-trit and then reconstitute. It was absolute hell for them. Now, dad was heavily involved in the action throughout that campaign. And he shared two stories about the engagement. First was on the afternoon of D-Day, after the morning strikes. And he said the squadron got a call from the Marines ashore about a Japanese counterattack that was involving about 20 enemy tanks and that they needed help. So Dad launched with a division of TBMs and strafed and bombed the tanks, literally stopping them in their tracks.

And you can just imagine what that was like. A Marine sergeant in later interviews said that it just saved the day for the Marines. The second story was much lighter. A number of squadron planes had gone down on the island over the course of the battle, and some of the squadron pilots were stranded there. And so Dad and another squadron mate, Charlie Lee, were dispatched to the island to pick up the stranded pilots. Well, they landed on the airstrip and got out to wait for the pilots. Now, a photographer just happened to be there and asked Dad and Charlie Lee if he could

take their picture. Of course, you know, one pilot, have you ever known that would say no to such a request? Of course. Yeah, sure. Absolutely. Who cares if the battles raging around us? Come and take a picture. But right after the picture was taken, one of the Marines drove up and read the riot act to dad and Charlie, saying that the planes had to be moved because they were drawing Japanese mortar fire. And dad said, of course, they'll move as soon as they get their pilots in, which pretty much happened shortly after that. But 20 years later, dad was sitting down in Amarillo with his best friend, Cecil Franks, and they were talking about Peleli. And Cecil started telling dad about this guy who parked his plane right next to him and was drawing fire on him. And dad kind of said, well, you know, Cecil, that was me. And so it took them 20 years to figure out that the two of them came within 20 feet of each other during the war.

So, well, once they finished up the business at Peleliu, the Kitkan Bay and VC-5 moved on to Ulythi and then to the Admiralty's to replenish and rearm, and then on to Leyte Gulf to support MacArthur's landing there. What was the balance of forces at the Battle of Samar? Well, as you know, the battle off Samar was the fourth of five engagements comprising the four-day battle of Laidagal. First was the interdiction off Palawan, where the subs Darter and Dace took out the Japanese heavy cruisers Otago and Maya and then severely damaged the Takao. Vice Admiral Kurita and his center force lost five ships in that engagement, including the two that were assigned escort duty to take the Takao back for repairs. Next was the Battle of Sibuyan Sea, where Halsey's search planes found Karida's center force and bombarded them with four attacks over the course of the day, sinking the super battleship Musashi and two destroyers, and damaging the heavy crews in Miyoko.

Again, another five ships lost to the center force as a destroyer was tasked with escorting the Miyoko back to port. The third engagement was the Battle of the Surigao Strait, which probably most people identify with the Battle of Lady Gulf. That was where the American 7th Fleet successfully crossed the T on the Japanese Southern Force and almost completely wiped out the forward element, sending the rear element into an early retreat. The Center Force, having survived the two engagements, though, with Kurita, finally emerged from San Bernardino Street, having already lost 10 of their ships, and they found no one there to meet them, as Halsey had charged north after the

northern force, leaving no one behind to guard the San Bernardino Strait. This oversight left the northern flank of the Lady Invasion Force wide open, and basically set the stage for the coming battle off Samar. Of course, that's the long answer to your question, of course. The short answer is that at 630 on October 25th, Vice Admiral Curita had 23 ships, including four battleships, six heavy cruisers, two light cruisers, and 13 destroyers in two squadrons. Taffy III had 13 ships, six jeep carriers, and seven destroyer and destroyer escort screening ships, but we had the planes. What was the state of Admiral Sprague's force, Taffy III, at 0630 then on the morning of the battle? So the 25th of October was always a pretty somber day for Dad, though I really

didn't understand why until much later. It was that morning that the battle off Samar began, and just so happened to be the day that Dad started smoking. That's a habit he wouldn't kick for the next 25 years. Of course, he thought it was going to be the last day of his life, so why not have a smoke? So at 630, the 13 ships that Taffy III had just secured from the morning in general quarters, which they did every morning, and they were set in normal underway watches. They were steaming north in a circular formation really designed to protect the six carriers. The sun had been up for 16 minutes, and the weather was spotty with scattered but extensive rain squalls and considerable haziness, which would come to their advantage later.

The combat air patrol had been launched at five o'clock, 0500, and there were nine planes in the air. All the ships had been monitoring radio traffic over the night, and they knew about the action to the south, so they were feeling pretty good. Everyone in Taffy 3 also believed that Halsey had left behind some ships on their northern flank, Task Force 34. So, you know, their worries were few. But between the six carriers, there were 71 TBM Avengers and 97 FM2 Wildcat fighters, and that fact would prove to be pivotal in the coming battle. But really, at 0630, both Taffy III and the Japanese Center Force were blithely unaware of each other. Who noticed the Japanese fleet first, and then how did the Americans, to include your dad, respond?

Well, you know, it was the Yamato that first detected the presence of aircraft in the area, and that happened shortly before Ensign Bill Brooks, flying off the St. Lowe, found the Center Force at 640. Now, Rear Admiral Sprague did not believe him at first, and he asked the watch to confirm the sighting. Yeah, you can imagine being Ensign Brooks in the air, right? So Ensign Brooks radioed back, I don't think those ships there are friendly. I'm drawing fire. Those bastards have pagoda masks. And about the same time, and Dad recalls this, the pagoda masks started to appear above the horizon and were visible to Taffy III, an absolutely frightening sight. At that point in time, Sprague was convinced, and he ordered the ships to change course from 000 to 090.

I'll share with you later my dad's response. So how did the Battle of Samara unfold then? Well, you know, in my presentation, I've got 27 slides on the surface engagement, which went on for two and a half hours. Now think about that. Two and a half hours. That's an absolute eternity in a running battle. So as soon as the Japanese ships resided, the entire formation went to general quarters, and the pilots were ordered to their planes. You know, on board the Kitkin Bay, the Odyssey of the Old Crow notes that, and I quote, never in the history of any ready room was so much flight gear put on so quickly and more planes manned in a greater hurry. In exactly one minute after flight quarters was sounded, the first of 11 fighter planes was

launched off the Kitkin Bay. One minute. Now, the TBMs were quickly loaded with semi-army piercing bombs, sap bombs, and they were lined up to follow the fighters. Dad's plane, unfortunately, was on the hangar deck. And when he got to his plane, he quickly realized that he was not going to launch with the first group. So he ran up to the flight deck and watched the launch. And I actually have a picture taken from the bridge of the Kitkan Bay showing the launch of the planes and showing Dad standing there. It's really rather surreal. Now, during the ensuing running battle, as shells from the Japanese ships started to land around the carriers and took their toll on a couple, it became apparent that having planes loaded with bombs on hangar decks was not a safe option. So

some of the carriers started launching the remaining planes into the ocean. Cap Whitney, the skipper of the Kitkin Bay, he had given the order to do so on the Kitkin Bay. And when dad got wind of that, he ran up to the bridge and asked the skipper to reconsider, to consider bringing the remaining planes up to the flight deck, loading them with 50 gallons of gas and a bomb and maintained them in reserve in case they got the opportunity to launch. Skipper thought about it for a minute and gave the order to do so, and this would prove crucial later in the battle. Now, Dad spent part of the battle on the flight deck, and he recounted late in the battle, watching a Japanese cruiser off the port quarter elevate its guns and lock them, and when the guns

locked, the skipper would order a helm turn to go either left or right full rudder, and the ship would vibrate violently as she turned, and Dad would watch the flashes as the Japanese guns fired. Then he would hear the rounds as they came in, and either over his head or land in front of him, and he'd watch as the geysers of water would go into the air. Now, I can only imagine what that must have been like, volley after volley. Just amazing. Meanwhile, the escort ships in our planes were creating havoc with Japanese attack. Now, I'm going to forego discussing the heroics of the Magnificent Seven, as Byron Cuomo referred to the Taffy III screening ships. You can read James Hornfisher's and Byron Cuomo's books and get a clear idea of their heroics, absolutely

unmatched. But the planes of Taffy III and Taffy II made a huge difference too, as they made run after run at the attacking Center Force ships. Half of the attacks they made, they made without any ammo. But in doing so, they still caused the ships to take evasive action. Commander Dick Fowler pretty much summed it up in his aircraft action report, number 56, when he said, and I quote, the results of about 20,000 rounds of .50 caliber fire against the weather decks of the ships would be interesting to know. However, it may be safely assumed that much damage was done to light caliber anti-aircraft weapons and attendant personnel as the return fire definitely diminished after the second strafing runs by the division of planes. Now, each of these planes made

eight to ten firing runs and six to eight dummy runs against the ships before having to disengage due to fuel and other issues, and that is sheer bravery. What were you able to discern about the mood aboard Kitkin Bay as the crew watched the destruction of the other ships? Well, as you can imagine, mood wasn't an issue covered in any of the official reports, and the books didn't really do the topic justice either. The topic was, however, front and center in Charles Spalding's firsthand account of the battle, as he struggled with it himself. Now, like Dad, he was not launched in the first group, so he experienced what was going on aboard the ship as somewhat of an observer. The crew knew what was going on and

understood the dilemma. Their force was never intended to be a frontline battle group. They were an invasion support group. They didn't have the weaponry nor the protection provided by thick steel, excuse me, poles to survive the attack. And they basically had the weather, the ability to make black smoke, and airplanes as their primary assets that day. So the recurring statement heard around the ship that day was, this is it. Yep, this is it. It was a resignation to their fate. As Charles Spalding wandered around the ship during the attack, he found frantic behavior in certain places, and he found people in their bunks in other places. He actually crawled in his bunk at one point in time he had a conversation with another officer sitting on the toilet you

know just guy was reading the paper on the toilet so a lot of interesting behavior he he went like i said he went to his bunk and he turned out the light and laid there for a little while but it was just too much for him and he got out of his bunk and went back out on the flight deck and it really got bad when the gambier bay got hit uh the carriers have been pretty lucky for the first hour of the run and battle as they maneuvered through the rain squalls but when the gambier Bay got hit and then sunk, it was sickening to those on the Kitkin Bay who were watching because they knew they were next. And as the battle raged on for the next hour and as the weather cleared, they knew they were just sitting ducks being herded into the slaughterhouse.

So I guess the only light moment for the crew of the Kitkin Bay came when the Japanese cruisers came so close to the ship that the skipper went out on the 1MC and told the gun captain of their single five-inch 58, said, Mr. Kuhn, the enemy is now within range. You may fire the five-inch at will. Then the gun crew proceeded to fire 120 of their 180 rounds on board at the closing cruisers. How was the crew kept informed about the battle's progress? Well, you know, of course, most of the crews below decks throughout the battle. So they weren't launching planes, they weren't shooting guns, you know, anti-air guns, as the formation went through their evasive maneuvers. But the skipper apparently kept the crew informed about

what was happening through announcements on the 1MC, which, you know, as any Navy person knows, that's the Shipboard Public Address Circuit. Now, I'm not exactly sure how much word was passed over the 1MC during the battle, but Charles Spalding gave us some specific examples of the announcements, such as, the Kitkin Bay is under fire. Of course, you can hear the shells landing on either side of the tube. And they're pretty close, but they're doing no good. Our fellows are really putting it out on the five-edge. And one that I found most disconcerting was when they went out and said, Salvo just exploded about 100 feet off the port side. Now, I tell you, if I was below decks at that point in time and not on a watch, I might consider looking for light

at that point in time. At what point did the Japanese break off the attack, and what happened next? You know, from about 850 to 910, the Kitkin Bay was under almost constant fire, with rounds landing on both sides and the stern of the ship, quite close, I might add, as indicated by one of the 1MC announcements I just recited, 100 feet. The five-inch crew actually said that one round landed just 20 yards after their position, which probably was a bit disconcerting to them. And they had been ordered to cease fire because they had to save some ammo from an expected destroyer attack. They described it as 20 minutes of hell. The captain kept swinging the ships heading from 200 to 270 in an effort to forestall what everyone really considered to be inevitable, a repeat of

the Gambier Bay. But all of a sudden at 910, with the nearest Japanese cruiser just 12,000 yards off the port beam, the firing stopped. At 921, the Japanese cruisers turned away. It's just incredible. The Japanese basically snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in that maneuver. And what had happened is that Admiral Kurita, whose flagship had been turned away by the constant aircraft attacks during the battle, had caught up to the battle scene and had assessed that his ships were basically being led into a situation where they would meet the same fate as the Southern Force. And he elected to turn away his ships to save what was left, all of them which were badly battered by the efforts of the screening force and the planes. He had no way of knowing how close they were to

wiping out Taffy III. So he broadcast his recall order at 9.14. It was just truly amazing. And after they realized that the Japanese force was disengaging, that's when my dad sprang into action. He had his planes moved to the flight deck. They were still in the hangar deck. And they had them loaded with torpedoes. And as you may remember, they had only been loaded with 50 gallons of gas. So they had them loaded up with gas, finished their fueling, and they launched at 1015. Now, Dad was the flight leader of the five-plane group, which included a plane that had formed up with him from Taffy II. As they were chasing down the retreating ships, they came upon a Tony-class heavy cruiser, later determined to be the Chikuma, that Dad described in his

after action report is circling at a high rate of speed. And since the ship was dangerously close to Taffy 3, Dad directed his attack on that ship. So they were divided into two sections, and he instructed Lieutenant J.G. Kalb to take his section of three planes and attack from the starboard quarter, and he would take Lieutenant J.G. Buttle and attack from the port quarter in what's known as an anvil attack. Now, as I mentioned earlier, I'd been able to find my dad's aircraft action report on Fold3. And so this is how he described the attack in his aircraft action report. He said, I turned 90 degrees to port in a steep dive. I remember thinking that I wouldn't get down fast enough for a torpedo run, so I pushed over to at least a 60-degree dive as I

was standing on the rudder pedals. We dove out of the sun and from the top of a cloud bank. I was the first plane to drop. I was not using a site as long ago we quit using sites and made our practice drops by using the position of the nose of the plane. Imagine that. I got lined up without turning as I pulled out of my dive, and when it looked right to me, I released. The cruiser hadn't fired a shot until after I released the torpedo. After the release, I made a flipper turn to the left with a pull-up and a slight dive that I would consider unsafe at another time. The other planes were releasing as I was making my flipper turn, causing the cruiser to continue a tight starboard turn to avoid their three torpedoes. This placed the cruiser broadside

of the torpedoes launched by Lieutenant J.G. Buttle and myself. Both of those torpedoes hit directly amid ships and exploded in fairly close succession. Lieutenant J.G. McDermott made a glide bombing run, catching the cruiser in a four and a half line of sight, his third bomb directly hitting on the bow. So that's how Dad described it in his after action report. Now he stayed on the scene for another 10 minutes after the attack, during which time the cruiser went nearly dead in the water and was listing to port. So when dad left the scene, the ship was adrift and the decks were awash. So he had stopped the ship. And she'd be sunk three hours later when TBMs from Taffy 2 launched three torpedoes into her and she sank in 15 minutes. Now dad would later be recognized

along with two other Taffy 3 pilots, the squadron commander Dick Fowler and our close friend and fighter pilot Don Isted with an 80 cross for their actions during the battle. What was the result of the battle then? Well overall it was a great victory for the U.S. Navy and the results show the American forces lost 10 ships while the Japanese lost 26. Even more telling though was the tonnage loss. The Americans lost 37,000 tons of warships while the Japanese lost 306,000 tongues. The Battle of Lady Gulf would really be the last time that the Imperial Japanese fleet would ever sail as an effective fighter. One more question for you, if you don't mind the follow-up. And then, excuse me if I put my foot in this one, but did your dad get the opportunity to

see this presentation before you've given it? I don't know how long you've been giving this presentation. No, he didn't. You know, it's unfortunate. He was like most veterans. I mean, you know, I sat down with Cecil Franks, who had been at the Battle of Guadalcanal and the Battle of Peleliu, two of the ugliest Marine Division, First Division encounters of the war. And they just didn't talk about it. You know, when you read about the battles, you know what these guys went through. And Dad was the same. I mean, he just, you know, didn't talk about it until really later in life when it really became the four stories I mentioned, Battle Lady Gulf, the nuclear explosion, the uh ufo um you know these were basically the only things he really remembered which shows

how indelibly they were uh ingrained in his brain but he never got to see this but he lived it yeah well yeah i will say it's a it's a hell of a tribute that you put together so you definitely need to be commended for that sir um i was at pelu in 2004 for the 60th anniversary celebration once you've kind of seen the terrain and uh what what people were fighting it gives you a different appreciation that doesn't always come across in the history books yeah but let me share one one more thing with you i mean please um dad never got to see the presentation but when i made flag uh we have a we had a at the supply core workshop every year we introduced the new flag officers so when i

made flag, I had my opportunity to be introduced, and so I got up there, and I brought my mom and dad and my fiancee up on the stage with me, and they held the flag while I got up and made my remarks, and I started my remarks talking about how I was humbled to be in the presence of certain people, one of them being my dad, and I said, you know, my father, a 31-year naval aviator and a winner of the Navy Cross at the Battle of Lady Gulf. And I started to go on with my comments, and suddenly there was this applause. And it started from the back of the room, and it just welled up to the front of the room. And it just continued.

And it got louder, and there were hoots and hollers and things like this. And I stepped back up to the podium, and it just got louder. So I stepped back from the podium, and it just went on and on. And, I mean, I was a bit shell-shocked by the whole thing, but, you know, it was just wonderful. And as we were leaving the stage, my dad came up behind and said, you know, thank you for that. So, you know, I was able to give him his tribute in his lifetime. Well, unfortunately, that's all we have time for today, sir. I'd like to thank my guest for Admiral Retired, Tom Andrews.

So, Admiral, where can we find you online, and do you have any other projects that you're working on? Well, you know, thank you for asking. I mean, you know, I'm a director of the Treasure Island Museum here in San Francisco, and, well, you know, we've got a hundred-year history at Treasure Island and Yerba Buena Island, so I'm trying to make sure that the Treasure Island Museum adequately recognizes that hundred years there, and so we're working on a couple things. We've got the museum is expanding, and we're going to have a kiosk there that's going to be dedicated to the Navy's presence on the island. And then the developer, actually, I don't know if you've been to Yerba Buena Island recently, but it's basically been denuded, and they're building, you know, a lot of stuff up there. But on the very top of the island, there's going to be a park, and as part of the park, they're going to have a tribute to the Port Chicago 50. And I don't know if you know, but the court-martial of the Port Chicago 50 occurred on Yerba Buena Island. And we've actually, through a whole lot of research and a little bit of luck, found out where it was held.

And the parking lot leading up to the park at the top is where Building 97 used to stand, and that was where the court-martial was held. And so we're going to try and get a monument to the Port Chicago 50 there. And then on the top of the island at the park, there's going to be four panels. They're going to talk about the Port Chicago story and the Port Chicago 50. So, you know, that's one of the current projects we're working on here. No, that's great, sir. I'll include a link to the Treasure Island Museum website as well in our show notes. But thank you again for joining us, sir.

To the listeners, thank you for tuning in. We'll see you next time. Thank you. © BF-WATCH TV 2021