Horror aboard USS Suwannee
26th October 1944: A graphic account of the terrible conditions aboard one of the first ships to fall victim to a Japanese-ordered Kamikaze attack
The Battle of the Leyte Gulf, the clash between the US Navy and the most important elements of the Imperial Japanese Navy off the Philippines, continued.
The Japanese were now desperate to prevent further US advances and threw the greater part of their remaining Navy into the attack. Without the Philippines, they would be cut off from their fuel supplies.
Isolated from the rest of the ship with only the reflection from the gasoline fires above and a few flickering battle lamps for light, I saw my wounded partially covered with wreckage …
The mismatch between the two sides' resources was now so significant that the US Navy had more ships than the IJN had planes. So they resorted to desperate measures. The battle saw the first organised use by the Japanese of 'kamikaze' tactics - their planes would be used in suicide attacks on Allied ships.
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