The Battle of the Sibuyan Sea: Leyte Gulf

In this episode we're talking about one of the major engagements of the Battle of Leyte Gulf.
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The views and opinions expressed in this video are those of the content creator only and may not reflect the views and opinions of the Battleship New Jersey Museum & Memorial, the Home Port Alliance for the USS New Jersey, Inc., its staff, crew, or others. The research presented herein represents the most up-to-date scholarship available to us at the time of filming, but our understanding of the past is constantly evolving. This video is made for entertainment purposes only.

[@GeneCash]

The Darter & Dace are the unsung stars... not only did they sink things, but the early intelligence on the Japanese movements was worth its weight in gold.

[@phillipbouchard4197]

As usual Ryan you are correct in your opinion that Musashi was the most heavily damaged Battleship of W.W. 2. Lessons learned from the Battle were applied against her sister ship Yamato which told Aviators to concentrate attacks on one side of the ship to accelerate the tendency to capsize.

[@Ganiscol]

I dont think so. Bismarck was pummeled for hours and took over 400 shells and a bunch of torpedos before she sank. And if you believe in the thesis that the crew scuttled her, then she technically wasnt even sunk by the enemy directly. 😅

[@jtharp]

My grandfather was wounded on Princeton, so anything covering her I always find super interesting. I managed to talk to him quite a bit about the day she sunk while he was still around, but his recollection was a little different. It's incredible for me to see the actual footage knowing he's in some of it, albeit imperceptibly, and to learn the details surrounding that entire battle, especially related to Princeton.

[@ph89787]

And now the Azur Lane version. Mitscher: Alright, well that’s the only mission for today. So, uh what do you girls want to do. Intrepid: Can we have a piñata party? Halsey: Don’t see why not. (Musashi piñata drops down and TF 38 breaks out the baseball bats). TF 38: Yaay!

[@niclasjohansson4333]

Scharnhorst is another battleship that took a lot of damage before going down 11 21" torpedoes and numerous shell hits ! The carrier Hornet also took a hell of a beating before going down, loads of torpedoes and a few bombs ! Another US carrier, the Wasp, a ship smaller than the Yorktowns and suposedly with a "poor tds" took 3 21" torpedoes, burned for hours and wrecked further by massive internal explosions, but still did not go down until after a US destroyer scuttled her with another 3 torpedoes !

[@SeminarChauffeur]

Really interesting history for me to hear as I live in Mindoro island which forms the west coast of Sibuyan sea.

[@aw34565]

USS Bismarck Sea was lost on 21st February 1945. She was the last aircraft carrier in U.S. service to sink due to enemy action.

[@gregp6210]

The Battle of the Sibuyan Sea was a major failure of the USN. The job was to put enough torpedoes into most or all the 5 IJN battleships and battlecruisers to achieve a fleet mission kill, disabling them to the point they could not continue to Leyte Gulf -- not hard to do because Kurita was a smart fellow and knew the war was lost and was fine with going back to port. Had that happened no Battle off Samar next day. Instead the Avenger pilots ended ganging up on the easy target that Musashi had become leaving the 4 other IJN capital ships fully operational. I have read that as the first wave of carrier planes was returning the saw and radioed the second wave and suggested they go after the big badly damaged batship, bad idea since it was not longer a threat. Has it was Halsey was misled by the reports. Apparently the log of M cited ~11 torp hits which was probably the correct figure, explains why she took so long to sink that being after sunset. Only around a dozen out of the hundreds of USN aircraft were shot down -- no proximity fuses for the IJN dual purpose, no radar assistance, no 40 mm, etc., the beehive shells were useless.

[@196cupcake]

Yeah, makes sense, but they'd be kicking themselves if they spread out the damage, and then they were all able to limp away and then get repaired.

[@GeneCash]

@@196cupcake "limp away and then get repaired" - but that's kind of the point he's making... you do a mission kill by stopping the ships from their missions of destroying the landing if they have to go home for repair.

[@gregp6210]

@@196cupcake The opinion of the Avenger pilots was not important, their instruction was to achieve mission kill on the Kurita battle fleet, that was their job. In any case, the 2 Kongo batcruisers were extremely vulnerable, the K would be sunk not long after by a single solid torpedo hit. And it took just 2 torp hits to put the Fuso under, so the Nagato was in extreme danger too. (USN torps had been fitted with Torpex warheads, at least 50% more powerful than TNT, and our aerial torpedoes had big warheads.) So 1-3 hits per the older ships may well have prevented them from getting back to base. The Y's may not have been sunk, but it is questionable whether the IJN could have repaired them that late in the war. And it did not matter. After the American invasion of the Philippines there was no point in the IJN fleet staying south were there was oil, and back in Japan there was not enough fuel to operate big ships.

[@196cupcake]

@@gregp6210 We pretty much agree. It's a matter of who knew what when.

[@redtailpunk]

i dont think anyone can really argue that any single battleship took a greater beating possibly ever. the only one i could think of is maybe seydlitz, but i'd argue that the weaponry and offensive tactics (ie carriers/air power) advanced much more so than armor/passive defense, so i think musashi took the greatest beating of the best (contemporary) weaponry as far as the "age of battleships" goes as it were. love your videos, uss new jersey and crew!

[@danquigg8311]

potentially another informative video

[@Philistine47]

It's really unfortunate that _Musashi_ sponged up so many torpedo hits. Properly distributed, the number of torpedoes that (probably) went into her could easily have done for both her and _Yamato,_ with enough left over to also bag either the _Nagato_ or both remaining _Kongos._

[@Knight6831]

As Sibuyan Sea was where Musashi was sunk and technically what got Musashi in the end was the flooding that got her

[@danquigg8311]

Flooding? ya think so?? name a ship that sunk WITHOUT flooding.

[@Knight6831]

yeah cause in the end Musashi sank because she took on too much water as the counter flooding only delayed the inevitable what the crew of the Musashi hadn’t quite realized, during the air attack against her when attacking a Yamato, the USN had absolutely no idea what it was doing when attacking as they were relying on swarming attacks from all sides unaware it would not be quick in putting a Yamato on the bottom. The air attacks on Musashi began at 10:25am and Musashi goes down at 19:36pm, she lasted 9 hours and 11 minutes before she sank.

[@johnshepherd9676]

​@@danquigg8311 Hood and the three battlecruisers at Jutland. They blew up before sinking.

[@DevonRomero-s1b]

@@johnshepherd9676right, but they didn’t take as much punishment from the enemy before they sank.

[@DevonRomero-s1b]

It’s hard to think of a battleship that took on more punishment than the Musashi. There are other battleships that sank in more devastating ways, though the punishment they took doesn’t compare to the Musashi. The Hood for instance, blew up completely, but not from several hits. The two battleships that come to mind would be the Tirpitz, and the Warspite, but I don’t think either of those took on more than Musashi did.

[@niclasjohansson4333]

If you count the "weight of explosives" i would argu Tirpitz took more to sink, but Warspite is not even close !

[@philiphumphrey1548]

​@@niclasjohansson4333The damage to tirpitz was cumulative and spread out over months between the raid by Fleet Air Arm Barracudas and the two raids by the Lancaster's of 617 Squadron. If you include the earlier X craft raid, Tirpitz suffered an awful lot of explosive.

[@niclasjohansson4333]

@philiphumphrey1548 Yes, Tirpitz was attacked a total of 26 times (at least) over her lifespan, the first time before it was commisioned ! By submarines but mostly by air, and the last 3 times by Lancasters dropping "Tallboys", 28 planes in the first attack, 38 the second time, and 34 the final time. And in that last time the ship was hit by 3 bombs as well as 2 mear misses, now a tallboy contains 2400 kg Torpex, and the final version of the MK 13 torpedoe used to sink Musashi packad 270 kg of the same stuff, so i say that the alredy damaged Tirpitz took an even heavyer beating before sinking ! And during the first attack by Lancasters there was 1 direct hit and 3 near misses, so Tirpitz might also be the ship that survived the most damage, depending on how you want to look at it ?!

[@Nixontheman]

Great job 👍

[@PaulBeaudoin]

Kirishima! OK, maybe she took the greatest amount of damage in the shortest time, before sinking...

[@bigsarge2085]

Musashi, from what I've read, seems to have taken the most punishment before sinking.

[@leftyo9589]

end of the day , it really doesnt mater which one took more punishment, only that they are all at the bottom of the ocean. a sunk battle ship is 100% damaged, doesnt make a difference if it was 1 hit like the hood, or a huge number like bismark, musashi, or yamato. sunk is sunk!

[@thekidfromcleveland3944]

American damage reports: "were you killed? Japanese: "Yes. But i lived"

[@stevewindisch7400]

Helldivers from Enterprise put four 1,000 lb. armor piercing bombs into Mushashi. Of course she was involved.

[@rogerbarnes9904]

Not in one straight battle but during her whole lifetime it is difficult to argue against Nevada not soaking up the most punishment

[@davemccracken3457]

How much more damage did Musashi and Yamato take than Bismarck did? I realize Bismarck's damage was mostly surface shells rather than air attack. Most accounts I have seen just gloss over how much damage she took before sinking.

[@peterkoch3777]

Rumour has it, that Bismarck was scuttled by the crew. But that would have taken away from the british victory, so she was reportedly "sunk".

[@niclasjohansson4333]

Bismarck was hit by a least 7 torpedoes and hundreds of shells from 3 different battleships and 2 cruisers.

[@stevenstalzer142]

I thought of Bismarck as well. Towards the end it was essentially just a free-for-all of the ships present firing at will on her, with her capacity to resist completely gone. Some accounts exist of crewman mounting turrets and attempting to signal for surrender, but being ignored. Either way, it’s generally agreed she took hundreds of hits before sinking or being sunk.

[@VirgoShelter]

​@peterkoch3777 I mean ever if Bismarck was scuttle it was because she had no hope surviving the Rodney and co.

[@niclasjohansson4333]

Most of the torpedoes that hit Musashi hit the forward parts of the ship, and from both sides over a fairly long period of time, so many torpedoes hit already flooded compartments, and thereby not realy contributed to the sinking of the ship !

[@GeneCash]

Yeah, but considering the accuracy of torpedoes then, you're happy if you GET a hit... picking where it hits was not really an option. They hit the front because you lead the ship, so there's a tendency to hit it forward.

[@robertmoyse4414]

I agree that Musashi absorbed the most damage in one battle but Bismarck probably came close. If you add up cumulative damage then Tirpitz took even more and Warspite must have absorbed her own bodyweight in repairs.

[@StillCurtain88]

Bismarck

[@normcfu]

During the war, did the Americans know of the Yamato and Musashi? Did they know their armament and tonnage? Did they have pictures to show pilots what they looked like?

[@peterkoch3777]

The Navy intelligence had broken japanese krypto and spied a lot... so yes, they pretty much knew about these.

[@michaelsommers2356]

The USN knew the ships existed, and knew their names, but didn't know much about them. At least early in the war. My source is a reproduction of an ONI document published under the title _Japanese Naval Vessels: World War II Recognition Guide, Volume 1._ It carries the date "41-42". It was originally classified CONFIDENTIAL, so it is possible that the navy had other information more highly classified. At any rate, this books say the two ships were 45,000 tons (actually about 63,000), had a length of 870' (really 863') and beam of 139' (really 128'), and could do 38 knots (correct). The document says the main armament was 9 16" guns, vice 9 18.1". It got the secondary armament basically correct.

[@DaveSoCal]

Kurishima ?

[@dw-bn5ex]

Command failure for Halsey. Again.

[@merlinwizard1000]

2nd, 14 October 2024