significance of the battle of leyte gulf

Although the course of Leyte Gulf was very much shaped by command decisions made at the highest levels of both the U.S. and Japanese fleets, these decisions still had to be carried out by countless individuals, often under the most trying of circumstances. This remained true even as naval actions in the Pacific shifted from carrier duels in open waters to support missions for land-based operations such as the invasion of the Philippines. 9 Annex M to Commander, Allied Naval Forces, Southwest Pacific Area, Operation Plan 13-44, 26 September 1944, RG 38, National Archives: 2; Vego, Battle for Leyte, 103105. Amazingly, no one among on board the surviving ships thought to warn Shima what awaited him at the other end of the strait. For more on MacArthur and Halsey, see Paul Rogers, The Bitter Years: MacArthur and Sutherland (New York and Westport, CT: Praeger, 1991), 188. At Sibuyan Sea and Surigao Strait, the U.S. Navy executed its plans to near perfection, using its superior firepower and positioning to inflict significant losses on the Japanese forces. It would only be after the war, when Halsey published his autobiography laying the blame squarely at the feet of Kinkaid, that the controversy became public and turned into a battle in its own right.91True to form, Halsey refused to back down, maintaining to the bitter end that he had made the right call. While Halsey would maintain until the bitter end that his mission was an offensive one, he did ruefully concede at one point that, I wish that Spruance had been with Mitscher at Leyte Gulf and I had been with Mitscher in the Battle of the Philippine Sea.92On this count, he was not alone, as many among and outside Seventh Fleet held a rather similar attitude,93 particular those who had survived the fateful consequences of Halseys actions. 118 Shelley Mydans to ADM Thomas C. Kinkaid, 11 September 1947. 121 Commander Task Unit 77.4.3, Actions Against the Japanese Main Body, Enclosure (A), 2. Once word arrived that some of Enterprises planes had come into contact with Nishimuras force, Kinkaid sent a message to Oldendorf at 1443, ordering him to Make all ready for night battle.42 Consisting of 40 ships, Oldendorfs squadron already significantly outnumbered the seven ships of the incoming Southern Force. Although the Navys strategic planning had already paid considerable dividends, it remained to be seen whether or not it would hold up under pressure, particularly once the Japanese put their own plans into effect. Thus, it is not necessarily surprising the two came to have differing as perceptions as to what their respective missions were. Built to go head to head with any ship afloat, the majestic battleship was nonetheless rendered impotent by the lack of air support and the repeated air attacks against it. Indeed, to do so would go against the very core of his command philosophy. . Recognizing that he was at a severe disadvantage, the Japanese admiral retired westwards at 1600, both in the hopes of avoiding further damage and giving the impression that he was in full retreat. 96 Cutler, The Battle of Leyte Gulf, 5758. Naval Academy Library, 18788. Thus, with great reluctance, he ordered part of TF 34 (including his own flagship New Jersey) to detach itself and turn south. Battle of Leyte Gulf - New World Encyclopedia At 0742, Sprague ordered his screen to make another torpedo attack, this one to include the smaller destroyer escorts (codenamed the little wolves). Even bearing this in mind, the innately pugnacious admiral still had to weigh these considerations against the possibility that Kuritas Center Force would return and try to slip through the San Bernardino Strait. 99 Commander Task Unit 77.4.3, Actions Against the Japanese Main Body off Samar Island, 25 October 1944, Special Report of., Enclosure (C), RG 38, National Archives, 1. (Washington, DC: Center for Military History, 1994): 32830; Milan Vego, The Battle for Leyte, 1944: Allied and Japanese Plans, Preparations, and Execution (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006), 5359. For them, glory was not something to be pursued, but rather, something that they would have thrust upon them. Mike Cheek, his intelligence officer, told Moulton, Theyre coming through [the San Bernardino Strait], I know, Ive played poker with them.Unable to convince Moulton, he took the matter to Halseys chief of staff, Rear Admiral Robert Carney, hoping to persuade him to wake the admiral. Unfortunately, Halseys subordinates were either unwilling or unable to express their concerns, something which may have been the product of the admirals own forceful personality and an unwillingness to solicit opinions from those outside of his inner circle. 35, USSBS No. 42 Quoted in Kenneth I. Friedman, Afternoon of the Rising Sun (Novato, CA: Presidio, 2001), 197. Lieutenant (j.g.) Indeed, the opening stages of the Philippines invasion went about as smoothly for the Allies as could be hoped for. The Allies started the battle to cut the way between Japan and its colonies in . The stage was being set for the Battle of Leyte Gulf. Joined by Vice Admiral Kiyohide Shimas Second Striking Force, they would attempt to draw off the ships covering the Allied landings. 3The Philippines, Formosa [Taiwan], central Japan, and northern Japan were all considered possible routes. Box 7, Kinkaid Papers: 46. 79 Cutler, The Battle of Leyte Gulf, 208-213. Responding, the Imperial Japanese Navy launched plan Sho-Go 1. At her commissioning ceremony, her commanding officer, Commander Ernest E. Evans, channeled the spirit of John Paul Jones, declaring, This is going to be a fighting ship. Indeed, air power arguably became even more important at this stage in the war, for although the Japanese had sustained irreversible losses to their naval aircraft at the Battle of Philippine Sea, they still commanded significant shore-based air power that could be brought to bear against the Navy, particularly now that the action had moved from isolated atolls to large islands in closer proximity to the Japanese mainland.25Consequently, any successful defense of the Leyte landings would depend just as much on the Navys ability to neutralize the Japanese aircraft as it did their ships. 55, USSBS No. However, he knew that he could no longer ignore the dire situation in the south. Having spent most of the night following reports of the action taking place in Surigao Strait, the admiral was prepared to finally retire for the night when his chief of staff, Captain Richard Cruzen, observed, Weve never asked Halsey directly if Task Force 34 is guarding the San Bernardino Strait.Realizing that he had, in fact, not received any confirmation from Halsey to that effect, Kinkaid dashed off a message to Halsey requesting confirmation. One might assume that this force was intended to reinforce Nishimuras, but for whatever reason, there was no actually coordination between the two.40Indeed, Kurita was not even aware that Shima had been assigned to the operation until after he had drawn up his plans for Nishimura.41 As a consequence, Nishimuras Southern Force would enter the strait ahead of the Second Striking Force. H-038-1 Leyte Gulf Synopsis - NHHC According to General Richard Sutherland, MacArthurs chief of staff, his boss was beside himself with fury, charging Halsey with failure to execute his mission of covering the Leyte operations. 70 Quoted in Thomas, Sea of Thunder, 218. The destroyers were the first to attack, launching wave upon wave of torpedoes that would slam against the hulls of the vulnerable Japanese ships. Around 0850, she observed Gambier Bay (CVE-73) taking severe damage from a Japanese cruiser. VII Saturday Evening Post (26 July 1947): 6372. In the months following Pearl Harbor, he had led a series of daring raids against Japanese-held islands, provided naval support for the famed Doolittle Raid, and commanded the Navys successful operations in the eastern Solomons. Upon receiving word that the Center Force had entered the Sibuyan Sea on the morning of 24 October, he ordered his aircraft to launch at 0833 with the admonition, Strike! To the west lay the Center Force, which had been bloodied, but now appeared to have resumed its approach toward the San Bernardino Strait. As he reflected at another point in his memoir, Neither land nor sea battles are any longer won (if they ever were) by the unaided genius of any individual who suddenly changes the whole course of action by some order that proves to be so clear and so unanswerable as instantly to decide the outcome.65Left unsaid was the fact that while battles might not be won by the unaided genius of individuals, they could indeed be lost on account of it. While they publicly exuded confidence, those involved in the operation privately knew it was a desperate gambit, with Ozawa admitting to Allied interrogators after the war that he did not have much confidence in being a lure, but there was no other way than to try.6Others were even more fatalistic, including Kurita. The CINCPOA report on the operation praised Oldendorf as a man holding a handful of aces or trumps, who played them with consummate skill.63For his part, Oldendorf merely noted, Luck plays a part in any battle. To a large extent, this was quite true, but, as we shall see, the battleships still had at least one more engagement to fight, one that would end on a decidedly more triumphant note for the U.S. Navy. It remains the largest and most complex naval battle in history. Ships are, from left to right: Musashi, Yamato, a cruiser, and Nagato. To the north, just off Luzon, lay the Japanese carrier fleet that had served as the heart of Japans naval might since the wars beginning. H-038-1: Battle of Leyte GulfA Synopsis. 49 Commanding Officer (USS Louisville), Action Report, U.S.S. The fleet actions are examined to determine the operational failures and to validate current operational principles. XII Leyte, History of U.S. Vego, Battle for Leyte Gulf, 22. Ever eager to go on the offensive, Halsey ultimately chose the former course, a decision that would eventually come to overshadow nearly everything that had been achieved at Sibuyan Sea. The first sign of trouble came at 0637, when Fanshaw Bay (CVE-70) intercepted a Japanese transmission. For them, the model of a successful officer was one who had been in the thick of the action, fighting ship-to-ship engagements with, at best, a small number of ships. Meanwhile, Ozawas Mobile Strike Force (the Northern Force) would proceed southwards from Japan in the hopes of luring away Halseys Third Fleet. In its earlier iterations, the Sh-1 plan had not actually called for a separate force to attack Leyte through the Surigao Strait. Hoping to bolster his fatigued commanders resolve, Admiral Soemu Toyoda, Commander in Chief of the Combined Fleet, sent Kurita a message at 1800, exhorting, Trusting in Divine guidance, resume the attack.36. Lieutenant Commander Copeland of Samuel B. Roberts would never forget the sight of the bloody and bare-chested Evans waving to him from the fantail as Johnston undertook her final charge toward the Japanese destroyers.110In signing what Samuel Eliot Morison described as her own death warrant,111 Johnston helped to temporarily stall the Japanese offensive against the carriers. SAMUEL B. ROBERTS (DE-413), on 25 October 1944, RG 38, National Archives, 14. His assertiveness may have also been tempered by previous experiences, namely, the Battle of the Philippine Sea, in which his attempts to urge Spruance to go on the offensive received a cold reception.81Whatever the case may be, this was precisely the wrong time for him and Halseys other commanders to show deference and assume that the admiral had all the information or that any effort to persuade him would be useless.Just as a ship requires its crew to assume a questioning attitude and provide forceful backup, so too do senior commanders need their subordinates to speak up when they appear to have overlooked something. 107 Guy Nasuti, Samuel B. Roberts I (DE-414), Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships: https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/nhhc/research/histories/ship-histories/danfs/s/samuel-b-roberts-de-413-i.html. Following the Battle of Sibuyan Sea, Halsey had a critical decision to make, one which, in his view had the potential to not only influence the outcome of the Battle of Leyte Gulf, but the war itself. Although the Japanese hoped that this battle would revive their flagging fortunes, in the end, it would be prove to be their navys death knell, leaving the Allies in command of the Pacific and well situated to recapture the remainder of the Philippines. If all went according to plan, the Center and Southern forces would meet in Leyte Gulf and overwhelm the landing ships of Seventh Fleet.29, Despite their best efforts, the Japanese quickly lost the element of surprise when U.S. submarines Darter (SS-227) and Dace (SS-247) espied the Center Force off Palawan on 23 October. Battle of Leyte Gulf | Facts, Casualties, & Significance 19 William Halsey and Joseph Bryan III, Admiral Halseys Story (New York & London: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1947), 210. Probably taken before the squadron's planes attacked the Japanese carrier force off Cape Engao. 120 Matome Ugaki, Fading Victory: The Diary of Admiral Matome Ugaki, 19411945. 36 Quoted in Thomas, Sea of Thunder, 224. The Japanese battleship Musashi under heavy attack during the Battle of the Sibuyan Sea, 24 October 1944 (80-G-281765). Battle of Leyte Gulf: Submarine Activity: October 23, 1944 Trailing the Japanese armada detected the previous day by USS Darter (SS-227), Japanese heavy cruiser Aoba is torpeoded and damaged by USS Bream (SS-243) off Manila Bay, Philippine Islands. 72 Halsey and Bryan, Admiral Halseys Story, 128. Some have speculated that he was smarting from Halsey having shunted him aside to assume direct control over carrier operation, while others, such as Burke, have drawn attention to the fact that he was in rather poor health by this point in the war. While at least some of this outcome can be attributed to last-minute revisions to the Sh-1 plan and poor coordination among the Japanese forces, it was also a rare example of a meticulously drawn-up battle plan being executed to near perfection. Wasting no time, the first strike group launched their attack at 0810. Although planning for the operation had begun in July 1945, the decision in mid-September to move up the invasion from December to October gave Kinkaid and his staff only five weeks to come up with a workable plan. Whether they were in the thick of combat or not, it was their efforts that made the largest naval battle in history also into one the U.S. Navys greatest triumphs. Renowned military historian, Hedley Paul Willmott, examines this decisive naval engagement in. 8 This was the so-called Z plan, which was obtained after Admiral Mineichi Kogas plane crashed and his chief of staff, Shigeru Fukudome, fell into the hands of Filipino partisans on 31 March 1944. Learn More Visit NHHC Directions and Access . 8-44 and that any restrictions imposed by covering the SOUTHWEST PACIFIC Forces were unavoidable.74 MacArthur also admonished Hasley that, The basic plan for this operation in which for the first time I have moved beyond my own land-based air cover was predicated upon full support by the Third Fleet; such cover being expedited by every possible measure, but until accomplished our mass of shipping is subject to enemy air and surface raiding during this critical period; consider your mission to cover this operation is essential and paramount.75None of this seems to have made a deep impression on Halsey. Suffice to say, this is exactly what the IJN intended to do. The Battle for Leyte Gulf, October 23-26, 1944, was history's largest naval engagement. Controversial even at the time it was made, Halseys decision is a cautionary tale that highlights the need to maintain flexibility of thought in the heat of battle. There, it would languish for over two hours.98This delay would prove costly, for by the time Halsey responded, Kinkaid and Seventh Fleet had clearly established that TF 34 was not, in fact, guarding the strait. This battle was significant because a possession of a Guadalcanal air base was important to control of the sea lines of communication between the United States and Australia. 69 It is possible that Seventh Fleet could have provided air support for TF 34, but such a contingency may not have been planned for. As the hours wore on and he began to take losses of his own, his doubts only began to grow and his judgment of the situation became shakier. Despite efforts from both their screening vessels and aircraft, the escort carriers did not escape their pursuers unscathed. St. ?37Such questions only intensified when two air squadrons from Enterprise (CV-6) spotted Nishimuras Southern Force steaming through the Sulu Sea at 0820 sans any carriers.38It would not be until 1245, when Langley (CVL-27) detected fighters inbound from the north, that they realized that the Japanese carriers were approaching from the north. 27 For a broader discussion of the battle, see Prados, Storm over Leyte, 11851. They found their mark, setting Japanese cruiser Kumano aflame. Cutler, The Battle of Leyte Gulf, 9596. 21 Since the Seventh Fleet would be primarily in charge of landing operation, Vice Admiral Theodore Ping Wilkinsons Third Amphibious Force was temporarily placed under Seventh Fleets command. Keyes, who was visiting Hollandia at the time, told Kinkaid, Ive been here for your briefings. Over two years would pass until the Allies reached their. More strikes would be launched over the remainder of the day, but, for all intents and purposes, the Battle of Cape Engao had become a cleanup operation. 66 Halsey and Bryan, Admiral Halseys Story, 216. 7 Masanori Ito and Roger Pineau, End of the Imperial Japanese Navy (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1962), 120. With the operation having lost a significant number of aircraft even before it had begun, Kurita lacked the air cover necessary to fend off the swarms of bombers that Halsey launched at his force that day. Paper Wars. Mortally wounded himself, Carr nonetheless repeatedly attempted to load a final round into the gun, even as others sought to attend to him. Its 282 vessels (including 216 American, 2 Australian, and 64 Japanese ships) outnumbered the ships of the 1916 Battle of Jutland. As he later wrote in his autobiography, If any principle of naval warfare is burned into my brain, it is that the best defense is a strong offensethat as Lord Nelson wrote in a memorandum to his officers before the Battle of Trafalgar, No Captain can do very wrong If he places his Ship alongside that of an Enemy.72. Over the course of the battle, the Japanese sent three waves of 50 to 60 shore-based planes, all of which were fearlessly met by aircraft from Third Fleet. First kamikaze attack of the war begins - HISTORY 93 See, for example, COMMO Oscar Smith (Ret.) In an age in which fleets were regularly attacking each other from hundreds of miles away with technology undreamt of in the 18th and 19th centuries, relying on the wisdom of Horatio Nelson might seem imprudent, but in fairness to Halsey, he was not the only officer of his generation who had worshipped at the twin altars of Nelson and Mahan. In the U.S. Navys history, few battles are as significant or as controversial as that of Leyte Gulf (2326 October 1944). The Battle of Leyte Gulf : The Last Fleet Action - Google Books Despite these early successes, however neither Halsey nor his staff could rest easy. To further tilt the odds in their favor, Kinkaid also detached a group of torpedo boats to patrol the southern end of the strait. The battle marked the end of centuries of naval warfare tradition in that it was the last sea battle between forces employing battleships. 50 Oldendorf and Daniel, As Seen from the Bridge, 186. In 1959, reflecting on the Battle of Leyte Gulf from a distance of 15 years, TIME declared that the World War II engagement between the Japanese navy and U . 44 Jesse B. Oldendorf and Hawthorne Daniel, As Seen from the Bridge: Glimpses along the Sea Road to Tokyo, as Seen by an Admiral Enroute. Vice Admiral Gerald F. Bogan attempted to report this information to Halsey, but, as the admiral was resting, one of his staff brushed him off.
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