Leyte Gulf - USS Natoma Bay CVE-62

torpedoes on our six carriers broken out and put in
readiness. This takes some time, getting the delicate
mechanisms properly set and adjusted, so Stump had this done
during the night.
I remember very well getting out of the sack about 4
o'clock and going to my ACI office to read the night's
dispatches, work up my daily dope sheet and get ready for my
pre-dawn briefing of the pilots. Then I went out onto the
catwalk and walked back to the pilots' ready room. It was
raining at the time, and I got good and wet. I remember
telling the fighter pilots that they would be launched
before dawn to patrol over the beachhead at Leyte, but that
the torpedo pilots could settle down to acey deucy until
about 10 o'clock, when I figured the Admiral would send them
out for the cripples left by Oldendorf.
After briefing the pilots I then went to the open bridge
to make my morning report to the captain. It was dark and
raining, and I ducked under the canvas near the conn, where
my roommate, the navigator, had the deck. Before I could ask
where the skipper was on the bridge, the navigator said "The
Jap fleet's out here." My emotions were conflicting. My
professional feelings were conflicting. My professional
feelings, as the man who was supposed to have all the hot
word, were hurt that this guy should be telling me such
news. I ought to have been telling him. As the ACI officer I
tried to reason what Japs they were. All I could think of
was that Oldendorf had been run over and the Japs had come
from Surigao Strait. I was still laboring under the pleasant
delusion that Halsey had destroyed the main body. Just then
a radio communication came in on the TBS, which means "Talk
between ships", from Admiral C. A. F. Sprague, who was in
charge of the northern group of jeeps. He said "Some body is
shelling me - heavy ships." Then he added, "Their gunnery is
very poor. We haven't been hit yet." Dawn was just breaking
on what is now called the greatest naval battle of all time.
In order to give his jeeps a little time, Admiral
Sprague ordered his destroyers to make torpedo runs,
individually, against the Japs. This was obviously a
desperate move, practically suicidal, as far as the
destroyers were concerned. As the destroyer Heerman
44 Leyte Gulf