Seems that the Japanese commander thought with all these planes and small ships attaching them, they thought there must be more US carries or capital ships in their vicinity. They had no radar to check so they turned back to protect their remaining capital ships. Fog or war is tough to deal with when you are in the mist of battle.
Yep. And the Japanese were taking damage. The attack of the aircraft, DDs and DEs, and even the baby carriers, did cause serious damage to the Japanese ships so the Japanese had good reason to think they were tangling with a larger force, especially carrier wise.
When making a decision to carry on an attack, after meeting serious resistance, there can be a very thin line between victory and defeat. Unit commanders have to be, or should be, taking into consideration the price they are paying for the battle and what they are buying, verses with drawing to fight again another day. This is especially true for naval forces where ship losses can take years to replace, if they can be replaced at all.
During WWI, Admiral Jellico was in charge of the British fleet that would meet the German Navy. Churchill said that Admiral Jellico as "the only man on either side who could lose the war in an afternoon."
Jellico was criticized for not being more aggressive during the Battle of Jutland. After the Germans had been forced to retreat, the criticism was that Jellico should have gone after them. The British had to turn away from the Germans when the Germans had fired a screen of torpedoes to allow them to put time and distance between the Royal Navy and the German Navy. The turn away from a torpedo attack was the doctrine and plan so Jellico did what was needed. The critics say that Jellico should have pursued the fleeing Germans even though they had a good head start and a battle would have been fought at night, which would have been a confused mess, and certainly caused friendly fire incidents. The US had this happen in WWII in at least one gun battle around Guadalcanal. Jellico knew all he had to do was turn back the Germans and preserve the British fleet. As long as the British Fleet was preserved, the UK could stay in the war. Without the fleet....
While Jellico would certainly have liked a Mahanian Great Battle of Annihilation to put him on the panthion of Great Admirals along side Nelson, Jellico accepted what he had accomplished. If Jellico had pursued he might have lost enough ships to have lost the war. Jellico made the right decision. If Admiral Beatty had been in charge, not sure the out come would have been as good for the Allies....
Later,
Dan
