While the slow pre-Washington Treaty battleships, capable of barely 22 knots on a good day, were assigned to the Seventh Fleet under Kinkaid, Halsey had at his disposal the services of all the new "fast battleships" built after the Washington Treaty. The North Carolinas and South Dakotas had a maximum speed of 28 knots, while the fabulous Iowas could boast speeds in excess of 33 knots. Six fast battleships were scattered among Task Groups 38.2, 38.3, and 38.4. Halsey himself was aboard the New Jersey, the flagship of the Third Fleet.

These battleships were deployed to use their massive anti-aircraft capabilities to protect the vulnerable carriers. And as such they served well. Although there had not been a need to send battleships to engage an enemy surface force since Guadalcanal, plans were made nonetheless to create a special unit consisting of all of the Fast Battleships. This unit, bearing the name Task Force 34, would be under the command of Vice Admiral Willis A. "Ching" Lee – the very man who had lead the South Dakota and Washington into their successful engagement with the Kirishima off Guadalcanal back in 1942.

Messages had been sent by Halsey in Third Fleet and overheard by Kinkaid in Seventh Fleet regarding the creation of Task Force 34. Kinkaid had assumed that these messages indicated that Task Force 34 had been assembled, and was guarding the San Bernardino Straight to the north of the island of Samar. So when Third Fleet radioed Nimitz that it was "proceeding north with three groups", Halsey intended the wording to indicate that he was taking everthing. Kinkaid, in Seventh Fleet, assumed that "three groups" meant the three carrier groups, less the battleships of Task Force 34, which he assumed were on station in San Bernardino straight. At a conference at 4:00 AM, Kinkaid asked "What are we forgetting?" and a staff officer recommended that they actually confirm that Task Force 34 had actually been formed and that it was indeed patrolling San Bernardino Straight. But the message was delayed for several hours, due to the complexity of the command structure of the two separate fleets. Halsey did not receive the message until three hours later - his first indication that something was amiss.

As Kurita came crashing down on Ziggy Sprague's Taffy 3, Kinkaid was sending frantic messages seeking help for the disaster that he was sure was about to befall him. The first message stated "Urgently need fast BBs Leyte Gulf at once" (BB was the naval abbreviation for "battleship.")  At 9:00 was another message, "Our CVEs being attacked by 4BBs, 8 cruisers plus others. Request (Admiral) Lee cover Leyte at top speed. Request fast carriers make immediate strike." Halsey returned messages stating the position of his forces, to show Kinkaid that his assistance was impossible due to his position so far to the North. In utter desperation, Kinkaid sent in the clear (uncoded) a message "Where is Lee? Send Lee!" Halsey was at this time quite concerned, and as he was about to respond, he received another message. This one was not from Kinkaid, it was from his commanding officer, Admiral Chester Nimitz in Hawaii.

This message was not sent in the clear, it was encrypted. And as an encrypted message, it had nonsense phrases selected from a codebook appended to the beginning and end of the message set apart by a pair of repeated characters, in an attempt to throw off any enemy deciphering of the message. For example, if a commander wished to send a message to instruct his forces to attack the enemy at dawn, he would send something like "RAIN MAKES MUD PUDDLES QQ ATTACK THE ENEMY AT DAWN LL PUPPY DOG TAILS". In the course of naval transmissions, the enlisted men responsible for receiving these messages would customarily clip the padding before delivering the message to the intended recipient. When Nimitz grew confused about the situation off Samar, he requested that Halsey be given a gentle nudge, to ask what the location was of Admiral Lee and his fast battleships.

The message sent by Admrial Nimitz and received aboard the New Jersey was "TURKEY TROTS TO WATER GG WHERE IS RPT (repeat) WHERE IS TASK FORCE THIRTY FOUR RR THE WORLD WONDERS". When the message was delivered to Halsey, the padding "Turkey trots to water" had fortunately been removed, but the signalman recording the message failed to remove "the world wonders" from the end of the message. Halsey read the message as a stinging slap from his friend and advocate, and with great emotion threw his cap to the deck. And then, reluctantly, he ordered his battleships to proceed South in an attempt to respond to Nimitz and to save Kinkaid. Unfortunately, due to his northern position, he would arrive off Leyte a day after the Japanese had left. Had Halsey stayed on station off San Bernardino Straight, he would have had his massive surface battle. Had he continued on to the north, a different yet still massive surface battle would have resulted. But, instead, his fleet of fast battleships sailed ineffectually between the two engagements, unable to participate in either.

And so, an era came to a close. The battleship would never again fire her guns at an enemy ship. And yet, even as the age of the battleship ended – fully eclipsed by the power of the Aircraft Carrier – the battleship had lived up to her potential. True, the massed air attacks from a dozen carriers had sunk the Musashi. But they had not sunk the other four battleships – they steamed resolutely on. Only Kurita’s disengagement at the last minute saved the day for the Americans. As for Ozawa’s decoy force, it was the four carriers that were quickly sunk – the battleships Ise and Hyuga did not succumb to air attacks. It was the battleship that Halsey had chosen as the instrument of the total destruction of Ozawa’s force – much as Kinkaid had used his much older battleships to totally smash Nishimura.

But these facts were lost in the wash. The carrier would be the new queen of the seas, for within a year, the war would be over. The mighty Yamato would go down much as her sister the Musashi had done – receiving concentrated attacks directed solely against her from the bulk of the Pacific Fleet. The other Japanese battleships, lacking sufficient fuel to put to sea, were picked off by American aircraft while in port or under repair.

The Nagato, though badly mauled by attacking aircraft, would be the sole Japanese battleship to survive the war. She would come within sight of American battleships at last, but not as an adversary, nor as a friend, but simply as a fellow victim of the atomic bomb tests conducted at Bikini. Joined by her distant cousins the American battleships Arkansas, New York, Nevada and Pennsylvania, the Nagato would be sunk at Bikini in July 1946 near the Arkansas and the cruiser Prinz Eugen (companion of the Bismarck on her fatal voyage). Incredibly, the New York, Nevada, and Pennsylvania would survive the blasts of two atomic bombs, proving just how tough battleships - even old ones - could be, when faced with the newest and most powerful of weapons. But in the end, these three battleships would not live too long to enjoy their victory. All three of the veteran battleships that survived Bikini were ultimately sunk as target ships in 1948.

Author’s Note:

Many works contributed to the writing of this article and provided different aspects of the battle. But for a full and complete telling of the story, there is perhaps no better work than The Battle of Leyte Gulf by Thomas J. Cutler, a 379 page paperback by Pocket Books, ISBN 0-671-53670-2.