Microsoft billionaire finds wreck of legendary Japanese battleship Musashi: [truncated]

Microsoft's co-founder has used his own submarine to find the wreck of the Japanese Navy's biggest warship - which has lain undiscovered at the bottom of the ocean for the past 70 years. Paul Allen revealed his amazing discovery to the world on Tuesday, by posting a photo to Twitter of the World War II battleship Musashi's rusty bow, which bore the Japanese empire's Chrysanthemum seal. The Musashi - which, along with its sister ship Yamato, was the heaviest and most powerfully armed battleship ever constructed - was sunk by the U.S. Navy in 1944, taking with it more than 1,000 crew members. But despite numerous eyewitness accounts, its exact location had remained a mystery - until now.

BTW I wonder why the article keeps mentioning ‘combined US/Australia’ forces.

While it's certainly absolutely reasonable to say that the Australian force was significantly smaller than the US one, it was significantly more than just a token force - two heavy cruisers - HMAS Australia and HMAS Shropshire, and eleven smaller vessels of the Royal Australian Navy were part of the combined force. But what actually generally leads to it being referred to as a combined force is the presence of the combined US/Australian Task Force 74 as part of the overall fleet. Task Force 74 was under the command of an Australian, Commodore (later Vice Admiral Sir) John Collins. Australia was hit by the first known Kamikaze attack in history, and Commodore Collins was severely wounded. HMAS Australia's Captain, Captain Emile Dechaineux, one of Australia's greatest naval heroes was killed.

Only one ship of the (British) Royal Navy was present - HMS Ariadne, which had been placed at the disposal of the US Seventh Fleet.

Ship for ship the Australians matched any similar ship in the US navy, no doubt. The Australian navy distinguished itself in the Pacific war.

But the US had nearly 300 warships at Leyte gulf.

I agree the US force at the Battle of Leyte Gulf was larger than Australia's by a very significant margin. But I still think it's an error to describe the Australian force as a token force. Australian ships were integrated into the US Seventh Fleet - in fact, most of the Royal Australian Navy was part of the US Seventh Fleet at the time. And the force was regarded at the time as a combined task force. That was actually fairly rare.

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