Japanese admiral (1889?1977)
Takeo Kurita
(
Japanese
:
栗田 健男
,
Hepburn
:
Kurita Takeo
, 28 April 1889 ? 19 December 1977)
was a
vice admiral
in the
Imperial Japanese Navy
(IJN) during
World War II
. Kurita commanded
IJN 2nd Fleet
, the main Japanese attack force during the
Battle of Leyte Gulf
, the largest naval battle in history.
Biography
[
edit
]
Early life
[
edit
]
Takeo Kurita was born in
Mito city
,
Ibaraki Prefecture
, in 1889. He was sent off to
Etajima
in 1905 and graduated from the 38th class of the
Imperial Japanese Naval Academy
in 1910, ranked 28th out of a class of 149 cadets. As a
midshipman
, he served on the
cruisers
Kasagi
and
Niitaka
. On being commissioned as
ensign
in 1911, he was assigned to
Tatsuta
.
After his promotion to
sub-lieutenant
in 1913, Kurita served on the
battleship
Satsuma
,
destroyer
Sakaki
and cruiser
Iwate
. Kurita became a
lieutenant
on 1 December 1916, and served on a number of ships: protected cruiser
Tone
, destroyers
Kaba
and
Minekaze
. He also served as either the chief
torpedo
officer or
executive officer
on
Minekaze
,
Yakaze
, and
Hakaze
. In 1920, he was given his first command: the destroyer
Shigure
. In 1921, he assumed command of
Oite
.
[1]
Promoted to
lieutenant commander
in 1922, Kurita captained the destroyers
Wakatake
,
Hagi
, and
Hamakaze
. As
commander
from 1927, he commanded the destroyer
Urakaze
, 25th Destroyer Group and 10th Destroyer Group.
[1]
As captain from 1932, he commanded the 12th Destroyer Group, the cruiser
Abukuma
, and from 1937 the battleship
Kong?
.
[1]
Kurita became a
rear admiral
on November 15, 1938, commanding the 1st Destroyer
Flotilla
then the 4th Destroyer Flotilla.
[1]
He was in command of the 7th Cruiser Division at the time of the
attack on Pearl Harbor
.
[2]
World War II
[
edit
]
Early campaigns
[
edit
]
Kurita's 7th Cruiser Division participated in the invasion of
Java
in the
Dutch East Indies
in December 1941, and in the
Indian Ocean Raid
where he led a fleet of six heavy cruisers and the light carrier
Ry?j?
that sank 135,000 tons of shipping in the
Bay of Bengal
.
[2]
During the
Battle of Midway
(serving under
Nobutake Kond?
), he lost the cruiser
Mikuma
. Kurita was promoted to
vice admiral
on 1 May 1942, and was reassigned to the 3rd Battleship Division in July.
In the
Guadalcanal Campaign
, Kurita led his battleships in an intense bombardment of
Henderson Field
on the night of 13 October, firing 918 heavy
high explosive
shells at the American airfield. This was the single most successful Japanese attempt to incapacitate Henderson Field by naval bombardment and allowed a large transport convoy to resupply forces on Guadalcanal the next day relatively unmolested. Kurita later commanded major naval forces during the Central
Solomon Islands campaign
and during the
Battle of the Philippine Sea
. In 1943, Kurita replaced Admiral Kond? as the commander of
IJN 2nd Fleet
.
Battle of Leyte Gulf
[
edit
]
It was as
Commander-in-Chief
of the IJN 2nd Fleet dubbed "Center Force" during the
Battle of the Sibuyan Sea
and the
Battle off Samar
(both part of the
Battle of Leyte Gulf
) for which Kurita is best known. The IJN 2nd Fleet included the largest and most heavily armed battleships in the world,
Yamato
and
Musashi
. Additionally, the IJN 2nd Fleet included the older battleships
Nagato
,
Kong?
, and
Haruna
, 10 cruisers and 13 destroyers. Critically, however, the IJN Second Fleet did not include any
aircraft carriers
.
Kurita was a dedicated officer, willing to die if necessary, but not wishing to
die in vain
. Like
Isoroku Yamamoto
, Kurita believed that for a captain to "go down with his ship" was a wasteful loss of valuable naval experience and leadership. When ordered by Admiral
Soemu Toyoda
to take his fleet through the
San Bernardino Strait
in the central
Philippines
and attack the American landings at
Leyte
, Kurita thought the effort a waste of ships and lives, especially since he could not get his fleet to
Leyte Gulf
until five days after the landings, leaving little more than empty transports for his huge battleships to attack. He bitterly resented his superiors, who, while safe in bunkers in Tokyo, ordered him to fight to the death against hopeless odds and without air cover. For his part, Toyoda was aware that the plan was a major gamble, but as the Imperial Japanese Navy fleet was running out of fuel and other critical supplies, he felt that the potential gain offset the risk of losing a fleet that was about to become useless in any event.
1. Ambush in the Palawan Passage
[
edit
]
While his fleet was en route from
Brunei
to attack the American invasion fleet, Kurita's ships were
attacked
in the
Palawan Passage
by U.S. submarines.
USS
Darter
damaged the heavy cruiser
Takao
and sank Kurita's flagship, the heavy cruiser
Atago
, forcing him to swim for his life while
USS
Dace
sank the heavy cruiser
Maya
. Kurita was plucked from the water by a destroyer and transferred his flag to the
Yamato
, but Kurita's dunking did him little good, especially since he had only recently recovered from a severe case of dengue fever, and no doubt contributed to the fatigue which may have influenced his subsequent actions.
[3]
2. Battle of the Sibuyan Sea
[
edit
]
While in the confines of the
Sibuyan Sea
and approaching the San Bernardino Strait, Kurita's force underwent five aerial attacks by U.S. carrier planes which damaged several of his ships, including
Yamato
.
[4]
Constant air attacks from Admiral
William "Bull" Halsey
's
3rd Fleet
scored two bomb hits on
Yamato
, reducing her speed, and numerous torpedo and bomb hits on
Musashi
, mortally wounding her. They also scored a number of damaging near misses on other vessels, reducing fleet speed to 18 knots.
[5]
Knowing that he was already six hours behind schedule and facing the possibility of a sixth attack in the narrow confines of the San Bernardino Strait, Kurita requested air support and turned his fleet west away from Leyte Gulf.
[6]
Thus began a chain of events that continues to engage historians and biographers to this day. Halsey, believing that he had mauled Kurita's fleet and that the Japanese Center Force was retreating, and believing that he had the orders and authorization to do so, abandoned his station guarding General
MacArthur
's landing at Leyte Gulf and the San Bernardino Strait, in order to pursue Admiral
Jisabur? Ozawa
's Northern Fleet of Japanese carriers that were sent as a decoy to lure the Americans away from Leyte. But before doing so, in fact before Ozawa's force had been sighted, Halsey had sent a message announcing a "battle plan" to detach his battleships to cover the exit of the strait. With the decision to attack Ozawa, this battle plan was never executed and the heavy ships went north with the carriers. The battle plan called for detaching the battleships to guard San Bernardino Strait, which meant that Halsey's flagship, the battleship
USS
New Jersey
, would have been detached too, leaving him behind while Vice Admiral
Marc Mitscher
chased the carriers. Unfortunately for Halsey, after an hour and a half without further air attacks Kurita turned east again at 1715 towards San Bernardino Strait and the eventual encounter with Kinkaid's forces in Leyte Gulf.
[7]
3. Battle off Samar
[
edit
]
Vice Admiral
Thomas C. Kinkaid
, Commander
7th Fleet
and responsible for protecting the landing forces, assumed that Halsey's "battle plan" was a deployment order and that Task Force 34 (TF 34) was actually guarding San Bernardino Strait. Kinkaid thus concentrated his battleships to the south in order to face the Japanese "Southern Force". During the night of 24?25 October 1944, Kurita changed his mind again, and turned his ships around and headed east again, toward Leyte Gulf. On the morning of 25 October, Kurita's fleet, led by
Yamato
, exited San Bernardino Strait and sailed south along the coast of
Samar
. Thirty minutes after dawn, the battleships of the Imperial Japanese Navy sighted "
Taffy 3
" ? a task unit of Kinkaid's covering forces that consisted of six
escort carriers
, three destroyers and four
destroyer escorts
, commanded by Rear Admiral
Clifton Sprague
. Taffy 3 was intended to provide shore support and anti-submarine patrols, not to engage in fleet action against battleships.
Believing he had chanced upon the carriers of the American 3rd Fleet, Kurita immediately ordered his battleships to open fire. Recognizing that his best chance depended upon destroying the aircraft carriers before they could launch their aircraft, Kurita gave the order for "general attack" rather than take the time to reform his ships for action with the enemy. Kurita then compounded his error by ordering his destroyers to the rear to prevent them from obstructing his battleships' line of fire, preventing them from racing ahead to cut off the slower American carriers. Concern that his destroyers would burn too much fuel in a flank speed stern chase of what Kurita presumed were 30-knot fleet carriers also played a part in Kurita's decision.
[8]
However, at the moment Taffy 3 was sighted, Center Force was in the midst of changing from nighttime scouting to daytime air defense steaming formation. Kurita's ships thus charged uncoordinated into action and Kurita quickly lost tactical control of the battle, a situation not helped by poor visibility, intermittent rain squalls and a wind direction favorable to the Americans, who immediately began to make smoke for additional concealment.
Kurita's forces mauled Taffy 3, sinking the escort carrier
Gambier Bay
, the destroyers
Hoel
and
Johnston
, and the destroyer escort
Samuel B. Roberts
, and inflicting significant damage on most of the other ships. But continual air attacks by aircraft from Taffy 3 and Taffy 2 stationed farther south and a determined counterattack by the U.S. escorts served to further confuse and separate Kurita's forces. Kurita, whose flagship
Yamato
fell far behind early in the battle while avoiding a
torpedo
salvo from USS
Hoel
, lost sight of the enemy and many of his own ships. Meanwhile, the courageous efforts of the Taffies had cost him three heavy cruisers:
Chikuma
,
Suzuya
, and
Ch?kai
. Many of his other ships had also been hit and most had suffered casualties from the relentless strafing. After about two and a half hours in action with Taffy 3, Kurita ordered his force to regroup on a northerly course, away from Leyte.
By this time, Kurita had received news that the Japanese Southern Force, which was to attack Leyte Gulf from the south, had already been destroyed by Kinkaid's battleships. With
Musashi
gone, Kurita still had four battleships but only three cruisers remaining, all of his ships were low on fuel and most of them were damaged. Kurita was intercepting messages that indicated Admiral Halsey had sunk all four carriers of the "Northern Force" and was racing back to Leyte with his battleships to confront the Japanese fleet, and that powerful elements of 7th Fleet were approaching from Leyte Gulf. After steaming back and forth off Samar for two more hours, Kurita, who had been on
Yamato
'
s bridge for nearly 48 hours by this point, and his chief of staff
Tomiji Koyanagi
decided to retire and retreated back through the San Bernardino Strait.
Kurita's ships were subjected to further air attack the rest of the day and Halsey's battleships just missed catching him that night, sinking the destroyer
Nowaki
, which had remained behind to save the survivors from
Chikuma
. Kurita's retreat saved
Yamato
and the remainder of the IJN 2nd Fleet from certain destruction, but he had failed to complete his mission, attacking the amphibious forces in Leyte Gulf. The path had been laid open to him by the sacrifices of the Northern and Southern Forces, but closed again by the determination and courage of the Taffies.
After Leyte and postwar
[
edit
]
Kurita was criticized by some elements in the Japanese military for not fighting to the death. In December, Kurita was removed from command. In order to protect him against assassination, he was reassigned as commandant of the
Imperial Japanese Navy Academy
.
[9]
[10]
Following the
Japanese surrender
, Kurita found work as a
scrivener
and
masseur
, living quietly with his daughter and her family. He was found by an
American naval officer
after the war where he was interviewed for the Analysis Division of the
U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey
.
With Kurita's address in hand, a young American naval officer got out of a
jeep
and spotted the unimposing figure tending to his garden chores. Years later, he still vividly recalled the moment: "It really made an impression of me. The war was just over. Less than a year before Kurita had been in command of the largest fleet that was ever put together, and there he was out there chopping potatoes."
[11]
Kurita never discussed politics or the war with his family or others, except to conduct a brief interview with a journalist,
Masanori It?
, in 1954 when he stated that he had made a mistake at Leyte by turning away and not continuing with the battle, a statement he later retracted. In retirement, Kurita made twice-yearly pilgrimages to
Yasukuni Shrine
to pray for his dead comrades-in-arms. In 1966, he was present at the deathbed of his old colleague,
Jisabur? Ozawa
, at which he silently wept.
It was not until he was in his 80s that Kurita began to again speak of his actions at Leyte. He claimed privately to a former Naval Academy student (and biographer), Jiro Ooka, that he withdrew the fleet from the battle because he did not believe in wasting the lives of his men in a futile effort, having long since believed that the war was lost.
[12]
Kurita died in 1977 at age 88, and his grave is at the
Tama Cemetery
in
Fuchu, Tokyo
.
Notes
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
Nishida, Hiroshi.
"Kurita Takeo"
.
Imperial Japanese Navy
. Archived from
the original
on 2014-03-14
. Retrieved
2007-02-25
.
;
Nishida, Hiroshi.
"Offensive Forces"
.
Imperial Japanese Navy
. Archived from
the original
on 2013-01-30
. Retrieved
2007-02-25
.
- ^
a
b
L, Klemen (1999?2000).
"Rear-Admiral Takeo Kurita"
.
Forgotten Campaign: The Dutch East Indies Campaign 1941?1942
. Archived from
the original
on 2020-10-08
. Retrieved
2021-03-30
.
- ^
Ito, Masanori (1956).
The End of the Imperial Japanese Navy
. New York: W.W, Norton. p. 166.
- ^
Ito,
The End of the Imperial Japanese Navy
, p.127.
- ^
Ito,
The End of the Imperial Japanese Navy
, p.128.
- ^
Ito,
The End of the Imperial Japanese Navy
, p. 129.
- ^
Ito,
The End of the Imperial Japanese Navy
, p.132.
- ^
Ito,
The End of the Imperial Japanese Navy
, p.172.
- ^
Okumiya, Masatake (?宮正武) (1987). "第四章 第三節 不?に批判されている人? ― 南雲忠一中?、栗田健男中? [Chapter 4 Section 3 Unfairly criticized people-Lieutenant General Chuichi Nagumo and Lieutenant General Takeo Kurita]".
太平洋??の本?の?み方
[
The Real Reading of the Pacific War
] (in Japanese). Tokyo: PHP Institute. p. 344.
ISBN
4-569-22019-3
.
- ^
Takagi, Yukichi (高木?吉) (1959).
太平洋海?史
[
Pacific Naval History
] (in Japanese) (revised ed.). Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten.
ISBN
4-00-413135-9
.
- ^
Goralski 323
- ^
Thomas, Evan
(October 2004).
"Understanding Kurita's 'Mysterious Retreat'
"
(PDF)
.
Naval History
.
United States Naval Institute
. Archived from
the original
(PDF)
on 6 September 2017
. Retrieved
6 September
2017
.
References
[
edit
]
Further reading
[
edit
]
- Cutler, Thomas (2001).
The Battle of Leyte Gulf: 23?26 October 1944
. Annapolis, Maryland, U.S.: Naval Institute Press.
ISBN
1-55750-243-9
.
- D'Albas, Andrieu (1965).
Death of a Navy: Japanese Naval Action in World War II
. Devin-Adair Pub.
ISBN
0-8159-5302-X
.
- Dull, Paul S. (1978).
A Battle History of the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1941?1945
. Naval Institute Press.
ISBN
0-87021-097-1
.
- Field, James A. (1947).
The Japanese at Leyte Gulf;: The Sho operation
. Princeton University Press.
ASIN
B0006AR6LA
.
- Friedman, Kenneth (2001).
Afternoon of the Rising Sun: The Battle of Leyte Gulf
. Presidio Press.
ISBN
0-89141-756-7
.
- Halsey, William Frederick (1983).
The Battle for Leyte Gulf
. U.S. Naval Institute
ASIN
B0006YBQU8
- Hornfischer, James D. (2004).
The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors
. Bantam.
ISBN
0-553-80257-7
.
- Hoyt, Edwin P.; Thomas H Moorer (Introduction) (2003).
The Men of the Gambier Bay: The Amazing True Story of the Battle of Leyte Gulf
. The Lyons Press.
ISBN
1-58574-643-6
.
- Lacroix, Eric; Linton Wells (1997).
Japanese Cruisers of the Pacific War
. Naval Institute Press.
ISBN
0-87021-311-3
.
- Morison, Samuel Eliot (2001).
Leyte: June 1944 ? January 1945 (History of United States Naval Operations in World War II
, Volume 12. Castle Books; Reprint
ISBN
0-7858-1313-6
- Potter, E. B. (2005).
Admiral Arleigh Burke
. Naval Institute Press.
ISBN
1-59114-692-5
.
- Potter, E. B. (2003).
Bull Halsey
. Naval Institute Press.
ISBN
1-59114-691-7
.
- Sears, David
The Last Epic Naval Battle: Voices from Leyte Gulf
. Praeger Publishers (2005)
ISBN
0-275-98520-2
- Willmott, H. P. (2005).
The Battle Of Leyte Gulf: The Last Fleet Action
. Indiana University Press.
ISBN
0-253-34528-6
.
- Woodward, C. Vann (1989).
The Battle for Leyte Gulf (Naval Series)
. Battery Press
ISBN
0-89839-134-2
Military offices
|
Preceded by
|
Commander-in-chief of the
2nd Fleet
9 August 1943 ? 23 December 1944
|
Succeeded by
|