Japan:
Myōkō-class heavy cruiser
Nachi under attack by USN aircraft, 5 November 1944
Nachi sinking with the bow and stern blown off, 5 November 1944
While under repair at Manila on 29 October 1944
Nachi and
Kumano were attacked by aircraft from USN
Task Force 38.
Nachi was hit by a single bomb to her aircraft deck, and this, as well as strafing attacks, killed 53 crewmen and further delayed repairs.
On 5 November, again in Manila Bay,
Nachi was attacked by three waves of U.S. planes from the
aircraft carriers USS Lexington and
Ticonderoga. She escaped the first wave undamaged, but was hit by five bombs and two or three torpedoes in the second wave while attempting to get underway. During the third wave,
Nachi was hit by five torpedoes in her port side, which severed her bow and stern, and by an additional 20 bombs and 16 rockets.
Nachi's flag commander, Vice Admiral
Kiyohide Shima, was ashore for a conference at the time of the attack, but arrived at dockside in time to see his flagship blown apart.
The original wartime caption of a picture taken of the sinking
Nachi by
Lexington aircraft reads,
Note by target coordinator: We circled down to 20 feet to make sure there were absolutely no survivors. Fifteen or twenty oily figures were served with .50-caliber just to make sure.
Of the crew, 807 were lost, including the
captain, while 220 survived and were rescued by the destroyers
Kasumi and
Akebono.
