Being Oct 23, 2004 and the 60 year anniversary of this battle I have been going thru some of my book and magazine articles the covered parts of this battle and have had my curiosity piqued in a few areas.
The first of which is the skirmish between the submarines Dace and Darter with Kurita's Center Force moving through the Palawan Passage. Why did Kurita not use a destroyer screen in the vanguard of his force while transiting an obvious choke point that is the perfect spot for a submarine ambush. I know that the Japanese doctrine called for using submarines to attack warships so this should have been something that Kurita had expected. Instead he heads through with his flagship a heavy cruiser, the heavy cruiser Myoko and a light cruiser, Noshiro in the lead. His destroyers were on his flanks which while protecting against a flank attack left the entire frontal area open. For submarines to attempt a flank attack in the narrow waters of the passage with Palawan on Kurita's starboard side, and an area on the charts marked as "Dangerous Ground" on Kurita's port side would have been tantamount to asking for their boats to have run aground or sunk just after making their attacks. Lt. Cmdr. Thomas Cutler(ret), in his book "The Battle of Leyte Gulf" even has a quote from Kurita's diary in which he considered his formation "an alert formation against submarines." While this may have been true in open waters it certainly was not the case in the narrow confines of the Palawan Passage.
Now, after the skirmish in which the Darter and Dace succeed in sinking the heavy cruisers Atago (Kurita's flagship) and Maya while heavily damaging the heavy cruiser Takao, Kurita makes what I percieve to be his next error in judgement. Given his initial orders, which basically made this an all out, last ditch effort for the Japanese Navy, why did Kurita detail 2 destroyers to escort the damaged Takao back to Brunei? Prior to his departure from Brunei, Kurita himself had asked "Would it not be shameful to have our fleet remain intact while our nation perishes?" thus acknowledging that the loss of units due to battle was to be expected and even an honorable death in the eyes of the Japanese culture. Yet Kurita, after suffering a very damaging submarine attack and with at least two more days before he plans on attacking the Leyte landings to go, deprives his force of 15% of his destroyers and antisubbmarine units. In my mind while this is the benevolent course of action in order to ensure the survival of his sailors on board the Takao it is completely at odds with Japanese culture. Did Kurita after years of war finally loose his warrior ethos or is this simply an error in the judgement of a man tired from years of command and battle?

__________________
Bill Murray
Why do we press harder on the remote control when we know the batteries are getting weak?