Leyte Gulf

Leyte Gulf is a somewhat exposed anchorage on the eastern edge of the Philippines, with a small port at Tacloban on Leyte. It was the site of an American invasion in October 1944 that led to a full-scale naval battle between the U.S. and Japanese fleets.

Battle of Leyte Gulf

By 12 September 1944, the Allies were firmly established in the Marianas and western New Guinea and were poised to seize Morotai, Peleliu, Yap, and Ulithi. The Philippines had been chosen over Formosa in July 1944 as the ultimate objective of the Southwest Pacific and Central Pacific counteroffensives, and their liberation would cut the remaining sea lanes between Japan and the resources of the Netherlands East Indies.

MacArthur originally planned to invade Mindanao at Sarangani Bay on 25 October 1944, in order to secure airfields from which to cover the invasion of Leyte on 15 November. However, Halsey encountered very little air opposition during his carrier strikes in the area in mid-September 1944, and a pilot from Hornet who had crashed on Leyte and been spirited out by guerrillas reported that there were few Japanese on the island. Halsey proposed Mindanao be bypassed and Leyte seized with naval air cover alone. This suggestion was adopted at the OCTAGON conference on 15 September 1944, and the invasion date for Leyte was advanced to 20 October 1944. 

The invasion would be a massive operation, supported by most of the naval power of Kinkaid's 7 Fleet and Halsey's 3 Fleet. Unfortunately, command arrangements for the Leyte campaign were muddled, as the Philippines lay close to the theater boundaries for the Southwest Pacific Area, Pacific Ocean Areas, and China-Burma-India theaters. Although MacArthur commanded Kinkaid's 7 Fleet in immediate support of the landing operations, distant cover was provided by the fast carriers of 3 Fleet, which was the main striking force of Pacific Fleet under Nimitz. There was not even a direct communication channel between Halsey and Kinkaid, and messages relayed through Manus sometimes took hours to arrive. This divided command would have important consequences during the battle. In particular, Halsey was under orders to make the destruction of the Japanese Fleet, not the protection of the amphibious forces, his highest priority. 

Another command complication was that the amphibious elements of 3 Fleet were transferred to 7 Fleet for the landings. This left Halsey with little more than Task Force 38 under his command, and Halsey could not resist the temptation to bypass the highly competent Mitscher and issue orders directly to the individual task groups within Task Force 38.

The Japanese anticipated that the next Allied move would likely be against either the Philippines, Formosa, or the Ryukyus and, if successful, would cut off Japan's supply of oil. Faced with this looming disaster, the Japanese prepared a set of contingency plans (Sho Go, "Victory Operation") for committing their entire remaining naval strength against the Allied move. However, the unexpected swiftness of the Allied offensive caught the Japanese off-balance and poorly prepared.

The Japanese contingency plan for the defense of the Philippines, Sho Ichi Go ("Victory Operation One"), was activated on 22 October 1944, when word reached Tokyo that the Americans had begun landings at Leyte. Because of massive attrition at the Battle of the Philippine Sea and over Formosa and a shortage of fuel to complete the training of new pilots, the Japanese had virtually no aircraft or pilots for Ozawa's remaining carriers. However, the Japanese Navy still had powerful surface forces (under Kurita) built around the Yamato and Musashi. These were based at Singapore in order to be close to their fuel supplies, while the carrier forces remained in the Inland Sea to conduct as much pilot training as the fuel supply permitted. In order to give Kurita a chance to reach and destroy the American amphibious force, Ozawa was ordered to deliberately allow his force to be spotted and pursued by Halsey. While Halsey was thus diverted to the north, Kurita was to split his force, taking the main body through San Bernardino Strait north of Leyte Gulf while a detachment under Nishimura would enter Leyte Gulf through Surigao Strait to the south in order to trap the Allied transports between them. Nishimura was  to be joined by Shima, who was coming south with a small force of cruisers and destroyers that had eluded a trap set by Halsey off Formosa. Meanwhile, a small detachment from Kurita's fleet was assigned to transport reinforcements from Manila to Leyte.

Because of their lack of carrier aircraft, the Japanese were forced to rely primarily on land-based aircraft. There were several hundred aircraft scattered throughout the Philippines, but serviceability rates were low and not more than about 200 aircraft participated in the battle. These would be employed primarily in strikes against the American carriers, rather than as air cover for the Japanese naval surface forces, because it was believed that the inexperienced Japanese pilots would have a better chance of protecting the fleet by disabling the American flight decks than by attempting to intercept American air strikes. Postwar, staff officers from 2 Air Fleet claimed that they always kept ten fighters above Kurita's force, but Kurita claimed that he never saw any air cover.

The Japanese plan was overly complex and went badly from the start. It relied too heavily on close coordination of widely separated forces who communications proved highly unreliable during the battle. Furthermore, the Japanese command structure was  at least as muddled as that of the Allies. Ozawa should have been the overall commander of the operation, but the reduction of his carrier fleet to adecoy force left Kurita as commander of the most crucial fleet element. Nishimura was an unimaginative officer with a death wish who did not get along with Shima, who commanded the weaker force but was slightly senior. This may explain why the plan did not call for Shima and Nishimura to join forces until the last moment. What is harder to understand is why the Japanese did not assign Shima to carry out the transport mission from Manila to Leyte in place of a detachment from Kurita's force.

Kurita's force was discovered off Palawan on 23 October 1944 by submarines Darter and Dace, which sank Atago and Maya and severely damaged Takao. Kurita also detailed two destroyers to escort Takao to safety, which took them out of the battle. The American submarine commanders found their approach simplified by the low speed of Kurita's force, just 16 knots, and by Kurita's failure to station any picket destroyers ahead of his main force. Furthermore, Kurita had chosen a narrow passage west of Palawan that was out of range of Allied airreconnaissance but gave him little room for maneuver. The contact report from the American submarines was the first indication to Allied intelligence that the main strength of the Japanese Navy was coming out to contest the Leyte landings. However, Darter ran aground in the poorly charted reefs of Palawan while maneuvering for a second attack (there had been no opportunity for a navigational fix in over 24 hours) and had to be scuttled, her crew being taken off by Dace.

That same day, submarine Bream spotted and torpedoed Aoba with Sakonju's Transport Force. Only one of the six torpedoes in the salvo hit the cruiser, but this was sufficient to cripple the cruiser, which was never repaired.

On receiving Darter and Dace's contact report, Halsey immediately alerted the fleet and recalled McCain's Task Group 38.1, which was on its way to Ulithi for rest and replenishment. The next four days saw the largest fleet action in history. Historians have generally divided the battle into four major engagements and a number of lesser engagements.

Naval Historical Center #NH 63432

Battle of the Sibuyan Sea. All through 24 October 1944, Kurita's force was hammered from the air by strikes from Halsey's carriers. The giant battleship Musashi sank after taking 17 bomb hits and 19 torpedo hits. Her commander attempted to beach her, but she capsized at 1935 with the loss of 1,096 of her crew. Battleships Yamato and Nagato each took two bomb hits that inflicted significant damage to their upper works, hindering fire control and communications, and heavy cruiser Myoko took a torpedo hit that damaged two shafts and forced her to withdraw   Fighter protection from land bases was nonexistent, and the Japanese antiaircraft fire, while voluminous, was largely ineffective. Just 18 Allied aircraft were shot down out of 259 sorties against the Japanese force.  At 1600, Kurita finally reverse course while broadcasting pleas for air cover.

National Archives #80-G-270357

The American carriers also came under attack from land-based aircraft and Ozawa's small force of carrier aircraft. While the American combat air patrol was driving off three Japanese strikes of about 50-60 land-based aircraft, a single Judy dive bomber broke through the cloud cover and put its bomb through the flight deck of light carrier Princeton. The blast ignited gasoline in the hangar deck and the flames began detonating torpedoes loaded on TBF Avengers. The crew fought the fire for almost six hours before the flames reached the torpedo magazine and a massive explosion blew up the stern of the ship. There were heavy casualties on cruiser Birmingham, alongside assisting with firefighting, and Princeton was scuttled shortly thereafter.

Meanwhile, Ozawa was trying to be detected by the Americans, unaware that his radio transmitter was malfunctioning and preventing his radio traffic from being heard by either friend or foe.  However, he had launched his own strike, which was broken up by the American Hellcats some 45 miles (70 km) northeast of Sherman's task group. This suggested to the the Americans that the Japanese carriers were somewhere to the north, and a search plane finally spotted Ozawa at 1540. Halsey, overestimating the damage to Kurita's force and believing it was retiring for good, took off in hot pursuit of Ozawa with all his forces. Now it was the Americans whose plans were thrown into confusion. Halsey had transmitted a contingency plan for detaching his battle line as Task Force 34 to guard San Bernardino Strait. However, with Kurita seemingly in retreat, Halsey decided this was unnecessary. But the original message was the only one seen by other senior commanders (such as Kinkaid with 7 Fleet in Leyte Gulf), and they were left with the mistaken impression that San Bernardino Strait was being watched.

At 1935 a night reconnaissance flight from Independence found that Kurita's force had returned to a course for San Bernardino Strait. It is unclear why Halsey did not then detach Task Force 34 to cover the strait. Mitscher, possibly smarting from having been bypassed all day by Halsey (who issued orders directly to Mitscher's task group commanders), declined to radio such a recommendation to Halsey. Three of Halsey's task force commanders also wondered at the order, and Bogan went so far as to contact Halsey's staff with the information that the navigation lights in San Bernardino Strait were lit. He was brushed off, and made no further protest. Lee, the battle line commander, correctly deduced that Ozawa's force was a decoy with little striking power, but his signal to Halsey warning that Kurita was likely to come out of San Bernardino Strait was also brushed off. Halsey's failure to guard the strait must be judged one of the great blunders of the Pacific War.

Battle of Surigao Strait. Nishimura's force was sighted around 0950 on 24 October, but no strikes were launched against him and no further sightings were made that day. However, Kinkaid correctly guessed Nishimura's intentions to come through Surigao Strait during the night. Thinking his rear was covered, Kinkaid ordered Oldendorf to take the heavy units of 7 Fleet to lay an elaborate trap for Nishimura's force. Nishimura's ships were attacked by waves of PT boatsand destroyers even before coming within range of Oldendorf's waiting battle line. Only one Japanese destroyer escaped out of the original force of two battleships, a cruiser, and four destroyers.  American losses were limited to one PT boat sunk and several damaged and serious damage to destroyer Albert W. Grant, which was caught in the crossfire between the two forces and hit by shells from both sides. Shima, who had already had a destroyer crippled by the PT boats, encountered the shattered remnants of Nishimura's fleet, suffered a collision between Nachi and Mogami, and prudently withdrew.

Battle off Samar. Meanwhile, Kurita had reversed course again and slipped through San Bernardino Strait, albeit seven hours later than the Japanese had originally planned. He found to his surprise that the strait was unguarded. As dawn broke, his lookouts spotted several escort carriers protected by destroyers and destroyer escorts, which he mistook for fleet carriers protected by cruisers and destroyers. The American ships were completely outgunned and at least twelve knots slower than Kurita’s cruisers, but fought fiercely, and American aircraft in the area made repeated passes against Kurita’s ships even after expending whatever munitions they were carrying. Kurita believed he was up against much stronger forces than was the case, and he retreated back through San Bernardino Strait after sinking three destroyers and an escort carrier. He left one of his own cruisers sinking.

At about the same time, land-based air units carried out the first kamikaze attacks of the war, sinking the escort carrier St. Lo and badly damaging two others.

Battle of Cape Engano. Meanwhile, Halsey was in the process of annihilating Ozawa’s force (he had already sunk Chitose and Chiyoda) when a message reached him from Nimitz in Hawaii. The original message was a simple query: “Where is Task Force 34?” However, Nimitz’ communications technician, perhaps sensing a certain urgency in the query, saw fit to slightly strengthen the message. A further gaffe occurred due to a poor choice of padding: Like all coded U.S. messages, the message had been padded at its beginning and end with phrases that were supposed to be nonsense. The end padding sufficiently resembled part of the message that it was left in place by Halsey’s decoders, and the message ultimately handed to Halsey read: “WHERE IS RPT WHERE IS TASK FORCE 34 XX THE WORLD WONDERS”. Halsey reportedly threw his hat on the deck and started weeping with rage, then returned with his battleship force and one of his carrier task forces to San Bernardino Strait — too late to catch Kurita, although Halsey's carrier task force was able to sink a cruiser and two destroyers from Kurita's fleeing force. It hardly mattered; the Japanese Navy was practically finished as a fighting fleet. Halsey's other two carrier task groups were able to finish off carriers Zuiho and Zuikaku and sink an additional cruiser and two destroyers from Ozawa's force before they, too, were forced to break off the pursuit.

The Battle of Leyte Gulf was a decisive American victory, yet it did not reflect all that well on the Americans, who had overwhelming superiority in numbers. Halsey's blunder (few historians now call it anything else) was the most serious mistake on the American side, but most of the men of 3 Fleet were exhausted from prolonged operations, and it showed. The air strikes against Kurita on 24 October 1944 scored only 45 hits with 259 strike aircraft. On the other hand, the Japanese performance was even worse than that of the Americans. Kurita badly mismanaged the battle off Samar even before giving the command to withdraw, and the Japanese gunfire against the American escort carriers was notably inaccurate. The battle resembled the final round of a heavyweight prize fight, with both boxers exhausted and barely able to remain on their feet.

Japanese order of battle, 18 October 1944

Allied order of battle, 18 October 1944