How the Battle of Surigao Strait Brought Revenge for Pearl Harbor
- At the Battle of Surigao Strait, a line of American battleships, raised from the mud of Pearl Harbor, decimated a Japanese task force.
This article appears in: December 2008
By David Alan Johnson
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At 2:43 pm on October 24, 1944, one day before the Battle of Surigao Strait, Rear Admiral Jesse B. Oldendorf received a dispatch from Vice Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid, commander of the Central Philippines Attack Force. The message was straightforward and direct: “Prepare for night engagement,” and was duly logged aboard Oldendorf’s flagship, the heavy cruiser USS Louisville. Admiral Oldendorf, commander of the Leyte invasion fire support warships, was not surprised by the order. Naval intelligence had already been apprised of the fact that a Japanese force was on its way toward Leyte Gulf
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I can’t imagine the terror that these men suffered through. A tremendous loss of life is just sad.
I assume that FDR, and all the politicians and bureaucrats of Japan and USA, bear a heavy share of the blame for these deaths and injuries.
So sad. And, so wasteful.
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Reinke Faces Life 