Three Minutes and One Second

On October 17, 1944, General Douglas MacArthur's troops began landing on islands in Leyte Gulf in the Philippines, triggering a last ditch effort by the Japanese to halt and turn back the westward sweep of the Americans. It was a battle fought over thousands of square miles by hundreds of opposing ships and aircraft—by any standard the greatest sea battle in history and the last of its kind.

Supporting the landings by bombarding Japanese shore installations was the USSWest Virginia, a battleship sunk at Pearl Harbor then refloated and completely rebuilt and modernized. Commanding one of the ship's two directors, or radar systems, which controlled her main battery of eight 16-inch guns, was Robert O. Baumrucker '31, a full lieutenant and an experienced fire control gunnery officer with over two years of Navy duty.

Through October 24 West Virginia drew air attacks, her first since Pearl Harbor, but she escaped damage. Late that day, informed of the approach of a Japanese surface force up through Surigao Strait, her crew went to battle stations at 2300 hours. Shortly thereafter equipment failure in one director left Baumrucker's unit in sole control of aiming her main battery. West Virginia took her place at the head of the line of six battleships deployed across the mouth of the strait. She was flanked on both sides by cruisers, destroyers, and PT boats.

The heavily outnumbered Japanese force, the southern arm of a gigantic pincers movement, was ordered to break through the American defense regardless of cost and destroy the shipping that supported MacArthur's landings. Luckily the enemy didn't know that the advantage the U;S. held in numbers was substantially diminished by ammunition shortages caused by the shore bombardment assignment.

A hundred miles down the strait torpedo attacks by our PT boats had begun at 2215 and were to be continued over the next five hours by several American destroyer divisions. Despite heavy losses, the Japanese once again demonstrated their ability to accept tremendous defeats and still keep coming. They advanced to within conservative firing range of our battleships at 0345 on October 25. For some 30 minutes Baumrucker's radar had been tracking Fuso, the leading Japanese battleship designated as West Virginia's initial target.

Now, 44 years later, Baumrucker is reminded that at precisely 0352:10 West Virginia opened fire at a range of 22,400 yards—the approximate straight-line distance between Dartmouth Hall and the Woodstock Inn—with a salvo from all eight guns of the main battery. Eight one-ton armor-piercing projectiles straddled the target with numerous hits. Four more full salvos followed, each a straddle, and each scoring hits. The last of these full salvos was at 0355:11. Three minutes and one second of some shooting!

Fuso returned sporadic and ineffective fire until about 0400. Completely ablaze, she fell out of line and sank at 0418. When the American cease-fire came at 0402:10 all of the Japanese ships were sunk, on fire, or in retreat.

Of course there is,a lot more to the story of Surigao Strait, and even more about the northern arm of the Japanese pincers movement. But in those three minutes and one second the threat to the Leyte landings posed by that southern Japanese force had been eliminated—with pinpoint firepower that the reduced ammunition supplies necessitated. And the West Virginia had played a lead role in the last naval engagement fought by line-of-battle ships.

Ed. note: Ralph Maynard '31 suggested this article and gathered much of the material for it. He comments, "After World War III read up on the battle for Leyte Gulf, and subsequently learned about Bob Baumrucker's involvement. It wasn't until much later that I was able to ask him if his ship had been scheduled to provide bombardment of shore positions during the invasion of Japan projected for March 1946. My reason: the armored (tank) division I was with returned to the U.S. from the European theater in mid-1945 to prepare for the invasion of Honshu, and it would have been comforting to know that somebody with Baumrucker's expertise was preparing the way for us. Bob reported he had not seen any plan, but kindly consented to share his recollections of Surigao with me and the readers of the magazine. His classmates in '31 remember Bob as a pioneer slalom skier who 60 years ago—on March 8, 1928—won the first slalom event in the world under international rules in which time alone determined the victor. All previous races also counted style points. Before and after the Surigao engagement Bob combined a career in advertising and public relations with the writing of articles and books on hunting, fishing, World War II, skiing, and South Africa."

Aboard the West Virginia in Surgao Strait,1944. Lt. Baumucker comes up from the mainbattery director. A U.S. Navy photo.