Halsey's Decision: Organizational Failure at Leyte Gulf
Brooks, David L.
At 0646 Fanshaw Bay makes an “unidentified surface contact” on her radar and her radio watch reports “Japs gabbing” on the fighter-interception net. And then at 0647 the A/S patrol radios: “I can see pagoda masts, and I see the biggest red meatball flag I ever saw on the biggest battleship I ever saw.” <p>
Ziggy Sprague knows his ships are in trouble. His 20-knot carriers and his paltry 5-inch guns firing a 54-pound shell with a range of about nine nautical miles, which could not penetrate bat