Japan's 1944 Naval Battle Strategy Drifts into U.S. Hands
"At 10 p.m. on March 31, 1944, two Japanese four-engine Kawanishi HSK2 flying boats (patrol bombers) set off from Palau in the Caroline Islands to Davao, Mindanao, in the Philippines, normally a three-hour flight due west. One of them carried Adm. Mineichi Koga, commander in chief of the Japanese Combined Fleet. Another carried Koga's chief of staff, Rear Adm. Shigeru Fukudome.
Carrier strikes by American forces in late March prompted Koga to abandon Palau as his headquarters. Now he planned to set up operations at Davao, where he would prepare the Japanese Combined Fleet for operations against the American Navy in a great decisive battle.
Koga had become commander in chief of the entire Japanese fleet on April 21, 1943, replacing Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto, who had died three days earlier. He took over his new duties at Truk, the main Japanese mid-Pacific naval base in the Caroline Islands on April 23, with the Musashi serving as his flagship…"
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