Hancock (CV 19) - Naval Cruise Book

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On the Prowl

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Ol3O the van of the enemy force passed the outlying picket torpedo boats near the southern tip of Dinagat Island where two attacks were pressed home with some damage to the enemy. The Japanese commander ignored the PT sting on -his exposed flanks and continued northward at high speed. As the heavy enemy ships neared Hibusan Island, Destroyer Squadron 54 opened fire while two more destroyer squadrons, flanking the channel, leaped from a lethargic four to thirty knots and joined in the fray with five-inch batteries pouring a stream of shells at the enemy column. As the destroyers developed their torpedo attack, closing the range at more than l3OO yards a minute, the long-silent guns of Oldendorf's old battleships sent salvo after salvo of l4- and I6-inc-h shells roaring overhead to hit the YAMASH l RO and FUSO. Caught in column formation, while the heavy American,forces steamed at a bare five knots across the channel mouth, the enemy could bring only his forward guns to bear as the broadsides of the California, Mis- sissippi, West Virginia, Tennessee, Colorado and Pennsylvania fell in perfect straddles. American destroyers finished off the job as dawn broke over a crippled Japanese destroyer, lone remnant of the fleeing enemy. Transports unloaded at the nearby Leyte beachhead at Tacloban on October 25th un- hindered by the Jap battleships and four destroyers-the backbone of the southern force lay at the bottom of Suriago Strait. y Before the Attack

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f 1 l i X L Q -fr, - l ., 4 4 Jap 540-Poiifhcler Pliwiged Through This 20mm Platform Without Exploding CVE's, supporting the landings at Samar, sent air groups into the Sulu Sea after the fleeing survivors of the night battle, leaving only anti-submarine patrols in the vicinity. Steaming eastward through San Bernardino Strait, a central enemy force launched a surprise attack against the thin-skinned CVE's as air strikes were frantically recalled to fend off the threat of total annihilation. The six jeep carriers wheeled into the wind and retired at flank speed from a force of four battleships, about eight cruisers and as many destroyers. The plucky carriers had not the speed of their larger sisters and were soon flanked by the fast enemy cruisers and battleships. The valiant destroyer screen laid down a torpedo attack under smoke screen cover from which the Hoely Johnston and the DeRoberts failed to return. Early in the action the Gambier Bay went down under a rain of shells from the enemy cruisers and every ship was holed again and again