was a vice admiral in the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) during World War II. Kurita commanded IJN 2nd Fleet, the main Japanese attack force during the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the largest naval battle in history. Biography Early life Takeo Kurita was born in Mito city, Ibaraki Prefecture, in 1889. He was sent off to Etajima in 1905 and graduated from the 38th class of the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy in 1910, ranked 28th out of a class of 149 cadets. As a midshipman, he served on the cruisers and . On being commissioned as ensign in 1911, he was assigned to . After his promotion to sub-lieutenant in 1913, Kurita served on the battleship , destroyer and cruiser . Kurita became a lieutenant on 1 December 1916, and served on a number of ships: protected cruiser , destroyers and . He also served as either the chief torpedo officer or executive officer on Minekaze, , and . In 1920, he was given his first command: the destroyer Shigure. In 1921, he assumed command of . Promoted to lieutenant commander in 1922, Kurita captained the destroyers , , and . As commander from 1927, he commanded the destroyer , 25th Destroyer Group and 10th Destroyer Group. As captain from 1932, he commanded the 12th Destroyer Group, the cruiser , and from 1937 the battleship . Kurita became a rear admiral on November 15, 1938, commanding the 1st Destroyer Flotilla then the 4th Destroyer Flotilla. He was in command of the 7th Cruiser Division at the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor. World War II Early campaigns Kurita's 7th Cruiser Division participated in the invasion of Java in the Dutch East Indies in December 1941, and in the Indian Ocean Raid where he led a fleet of six heavy cruisers and the light carrier that sank 135,000 tons of shipping in the Bay of Bengal. During the Battle of Midway (serving under Nobutake Kondō), he lost the cruiser . Kurita was promoted to vice admiral on 1 May 1942, and was reassigned to the 3rd Battleship Division in July. In the Guadalcanal Campaign, Kurita led his battleships in an intense bombardment of Henderson Field on the night of 13 October, firing 918 heavy high explosive shells at the American airfield. This was the single most successful Japanese attempt to incapacitate Henderson Field by naval bombardment and allowed a large transport