Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz and Admiral Halsey ordered the US Navy attack on the remaining capital ships of the JIN. In an earnest effort to demoralize Japanese leadership and end the war, the US military branches were in something like a competition to sink the last floating battleships of the Japanese Imperial Navy. Nearly twenty planes from US Navy aircraft carriers and two Army Air Force B-24 bombers were shot down in the vicinity of Kure, Japan, just a few weeks before the end of World War II.