"Battle of Surigao Strait" Topic

"The Battle of Surigao Strait was one of four major actions that comprise the larger grand naval battle known collectively as the Battle of Leyte Gulf in late October 1944. Although we are now sixty years removed from events, there has not yet appeared a full study of the Battle of Surigao Strait. This despite the fact that it was the last battleship-vs-battleship action in World War II, and in fact, to date. (Given the dominance of air power, and now even potentially from space, Surigao Strait may ultimately prove to be the last capital ship surface action at all.) Further, it was at Surigao that a remarkable and highly symbolic historical coincidence came about --- where some of the very battleships sunk at Pearl Harbor at the opening of the Pacific War returned from the muddy bottom to deliver reprisal. Arriving at the Philippines as part of General Douglas MacArthur's triumphant return, the venerable battleships of Kinkaid's Seventh Fleet would be given an opportunity denied to their younger and more powerful cousins of the New Jersey-class: battleship-vs-battleship action. Further adding to the irony and symbolism was the fact that the allied forces at Surigao were under command of Rear Admiral Jesse B. Oldendorf -- next to last commander of the fabled USS Houston of the doomed U.S. Asiatic Fleet, and in position to avenge his former command's fate at Bantam Bay…."
Main page
ww2db.com/surigao

Amicalement
Armand

A glorious page in US Naval History, to be sure.