Kurita wasn’t sure how he would re-form and enter Leyte Gulf in any event. The Center Force was strung out and scattered across some thirty miles of ocean. Reassembling into battle formation would take time that he probably did not have. From his expansive flag quarters aboard the Yamato, he did not know what his cruiser skippers knew: that they opposed mere escort carriers, and that they had nearly succeeded in cutting off Sprague’s flight, forcing the Americans toward shore, where they could be encircled and destroyed in passing by the rest of the Center Force. Their transmissions to him had
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