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During the Battle of Leyte Gulf on 23-26 October 1944, a decoy Japanese carrier fleet lured US Navy Admiral William ‘Bull’ Halsey’s Third Fleet north, leaving the protection of Seventh Fleet, conducting amphibious landings on Leyte, significantly reduced. Meanwhile, another Japanese fleet surprised Seventh Fleet, threatening the invasion forces with destruction. Big Japanese warships engaged small American vessels at close range off Samar; only the courage of American crews saved the day.
It had been assumed that Task Force 34, comprising Third Fleet’s non aviation warships, was guarding the landings, as it should have been. Instead, aggressive Halsey, eager for a clash, had taken it north with the rest of Third Fleet. While the battle raged, a worried Admiral Chester Nimitz decided to contact his subordinate Halsey. His question: ‘Where is Task Force 34?’
Nimitz’s message was given to a Navy Yeoman for encrypted radio transmission. The Yeoman attached ‘TURKEY TROTS TO WATER’ and ‘THE WORLD WONDERS’ to the message, both examples of meaningless ‘padding’ phrases that were routinely attached to messages to make them more difficult for the Japanese to decipher. However, decoders aboard Halsey’s flagship USS New Jersey erroneously supposed ‘THE WORLD WONDERS’ could be a message component, and it was not deleted. Thus, Halsey was given: ‘Where is, repeat, where is Task Force 34, the world wonders?’ The message was read by Halsey as a withering chastisement. The Yeoman would subsequently say that the offending phrase had simply ‘popped’ into his mind. Stunned and incensed by the (misperceived) insult, sarcastically implying he had ignored his duty, Halsey angrily stamped on the message. After an hour passed, he sent warships back south, but they missed the fight.
