Note 26 — Chapter XVI · The Fall of Ormoc

At 0820 the Japanese launched a strong aerial offensive against the American vessels in Ormoc Bay. The enemy air attacks continued for nearly nine and a half hours. The Fifth Air Force, beginning at 0700, gave air cover throughout the day and “did an excellent job.”26 Upon a number of occasions, however, the enemy airplanes slipped through the antiaircraft fire and the air protection and hit the shipping. Japanese suicide aircraft struck and badly damaged five vessels. At 0945 the destroyer Mahan and the high-speed transport Ward received such damaging blows that they later had to be sunk by gunfire.27 The Japanese made sixteen different raids on the shipping, during which an estimated forty-five to fifty enemy aircraft attacked the formation. Thirty-six of these were believed to have been shot down.28