Battle of Leyte Gulf

Script:

On October 20th of 1944, after American troops stormed ashore on the island of Leyte in the Pacific Theater, the landings intended to liberate the Philippines sparked a last-ditch effort by the Japanese to halt the American’s push for their home islands. Japan’s defensive response off the previously little known island of Leyte began three days later, during the Battle of Leyte Gulf, in what stands to this day as the largest naval battle in world military history. As the three-day battle unfolded, some 200,000 men fought for supremacy of the sea, with no quarter given or asked for by either side, while the Japanese used the occasion to introduce their newest and most desperate terror weapon, the Kamikaze attack.

On the same day that American troops swept across the island of Leyte, ten miles offshore, more than 700 warships and troop transport ships carried 170,000 men of the U.S. 6th Army, in a singular mission to liberate the Philippines, beginning with a pre-invasion naval and air bombardment intent on obliterating Japanese defenses atop an invaded nation made up of 7,641 islands clustered in three major island groups—Luzon, the Visayas and Mindanao. As for the pre-invasion attacks on Leyte, American servicemen recalled years later that the bombing just got worse and worse, heavier and heavier, until it came to an end like somebody pushed a stop button. Others aboard assault craft that closed on the island remembered how mortar and artillery shells exploded in the waters around their boats, while bullets pinged off their metal hulls.

The first men to hit the beach found themselves under heavy fire from Japanese positions, pinned down until an officer led a charge inland, off the exposed chaos of the beach. Rushing inland, fighting men of the 6th Army broke the back of Japanese resistance, as four U.S. divisions swept ashore along a 20-mile stretch of Leyte beachheads, including General Douglas MacArthur, who came ashore surrounded by media and aids. In early 1942, the Japanese bombed Manilla, after it had been declared an open city, forcing a humiliated Douglas MacArthur to escape the Philippines before his 80,000 American and Filipino force surrendered at Bataan. While the Japanese were woefully unprepared for such a massive surrender, some 50,000 wounded, diseased-ridden and starving Allied prisoners began a disorganized, ill-supplied march through blazing heat to inadequate prison camps 100 miles to the north, kicking off the Bataan Death March, which would last for several brutal days to come.

Upon his return, MacArthur made his now historic radio broadcast from a Leyte invasion beach.

Insert broadcast. “People of the Philippines, I have returned. By the grace of Almighty God, our forces stand again on Philippine soil.”

While MacArthur’s words failed to mention all the American men who had paid the ultimate price since his retreat from the Philippines, the recapture of the island nation was not so much a matter of personal honor, but one of military necessity, since the Philippines presented a geographic blockade of Japan’s much-needed oilfields on their captured possessions of Malaya and Indonesia, which they relied on not only for fossil fuel, but for rubber, bauxite, tin and other minerals necessary for their war machine. As a result, the 115-mile-long island of Leyte had been picked as an ideal insertion point for U.S. forces, which was equal distance from the Japanese strongholds of Luzon to the north, Mindanao to the south and Mindoro to the west, and with Japanese defenders now driven back into the mountainous center of Leyte, American forces poured onto Leyte’s now well-defended beachheads.

Meanwhile, 50 miles out to sea, at the entrance to Leyte Gulf, sixteen small U.S. escort carriers provided air support for the amassing troops on Leyte, while larger and faster carriers and battleships of the 3rd Fleet—made up of nearly 100 combat ships and 1,000 aircraft—provided covering positions along the northeast coast of the Philippines. In charge of this mega fleet was the most aggressive admiral in the U.S. Navy, William “Bull” Halsey, leading the Japanese to focus their attention on the smaller and less defended transport fleet, with the hope of dismantling the American’s invasion plans into a protracted and costly war. 

To achieve their aim, japan’s most powerful Center Force fleet made up of five battleships, ten cruisers and fifteen destroyers would approach Leyte Gulf from the southwest via the San Bernardino Strait, while the Southern Force made up of three heavy cruisers, two battleships and fourteen destroyers would approach the Leyte Gulf from the south to trap the Americans in a pincer maneuver, at the same time employing a massive deception plan meant to lure Halsey away from the main naval force by bringing a decoy force of aircraft carriers from the north.

However, as the first day of the battle began in the dead of night on October 23rd, two U.S. submarines threw Japan’s battle plans into absolute chaos. Hunting for enemy ships west of the Philippines in the Sibuyan Sea, U.S. submarines Dace and Darter made radar contact with a mass of Japanese warships, each firing ten torpedoes at the enemy ships at 5:32 A.M, which sank two Japanese heavy cruisers, while a third Japanese cruiser was badly damaged by another direct hit. Aboard one of the sinking ships was 56-year-old Vice Admiral Takeo Kureta, and when he was forced to swim for his life, Japan’s naval force was now leaderless.

The American submarine attack threw the Japanese into chaos for much of the day, until Admiral Kureta was plucked from the sea twelve hours later, before ordering his fleet to continue to Leyte Gulf as planned. The following morning at 8:22 A.M., Japan’s Center Force was spotted by a U.S. Navy patrol plane, obliging Halsey to signal his carrier groups to, in his words, “Strike. Repeat, strike and good luck.” As carrier-based fighters took to the sky, Japanese bombers flew out from bases in the Philippines to launch a counterattack, dropping a single bomb on the aircraft carrier USS Princeton, whose ammunitions and gasoline stores quickly intensified the fire fight. Just as the USS Birmingham pulled alongside the doomed Princeton, the aircraft carrier exploded violently, killing or wounding 200 men aboard the Princeton and more than 450 aboard the Birmingham. 

An hour later, U.S. aircraft caught up to the ships of Japan’s Center Force, diving in for their attack passes as the super battleships Yamato and Musashi threw up a wall of anti-aircraft fire. Despite the punishing anti-aircraft fire, American fighter pilots hit the Musashi with a staggering seventeen bombs and nineteen torpedoes, and with her bow completely blown open, the Musashi quickly capsized and sank, taking the lives of more than 1,000 men. After the sinking of her sister ship, the Yamato desperately began zigzagging to avoid bombardment by American war planes, until a fighter pilot dropped a bomb on the ship that blew a hole beneath the waterline, flooding the ship with 3,000 tons of water before the vessel could be stabilized by her crew.

While the Yamato at first limped on toward Leyte Gulf, at 3:30 that afternoon, the savage air attacks proved to be too much for Center Force, prompting Admiral Kureta to order his fleet to head west away from Leyte, still some 300 miles away. In response, Halsey ordered all four task groups to head north in pursuit of Japan’s Northern Force, and when Admiral Kureta saw that no more enemy aircraft attacked his fleet, he ordered his ships to resume their course for Leyte Gulf at dawn on the morning of October 24, with the hope of rendezvousing with the Southern Force to trap the invasion fleet in their planned pincer movement.

At 2:00 A.M. on the morning of October 25th, warships of the U.S. 7th Fleet lay in wait for Japan’s Southern Force, in a task force consisting of six battleships, four heavy cruisers, four light cruisers, 28 destroyers and 39 PT boats. Five of the 7th Fleet’s battleships had been sunk during Japan’s unprovoked attack at Pearl Harbor, which had now been refloated and repaired, with crews eager to seek revenge on the Empire of Japan. The PT boats attacked first in the blinding darkness, making no hits on the the enemy while they endured intense and equally blind counterfire from Japanese warships. After the PT boats broke off their attack, the lead ships of Japan’s Southern Force sailed straight into a pincer attack by 28 American destroyers stationed on either side of the narrow strait. Dodging return fire from the Japanese, the USS Melvin lit up the night with star shells and searchlights, before firing torpedoes that penetrated the battleship Fuso’s magazine, which blew the ship in two before sinking forty minutes later. 

At 3:16 in the morning, the West Virginia picked up a radar signal for the remaining ships of the Southern Force at a range of 24 miles, firing her eight sixteen inch guns after the enemy had closed to 22,800 yards, striking the Yamashiro with her first salvo, before firing a total of 93 shells at the enemy ship. At 3:55, the California and Tennessee fired 63 and 69 shells respectively at both the Yamashiro and the Mogami, while twelve fourteen-inch shells fired by the USS Mississippi would prove to be the last salvo ever fired by a battleship against another battleship in naval warfare history. 

Coming up in support of the Japanese efforts were three cruisers and four destroyers of the second group of Southern Force warships, who nearly ran aground on Panaon (pan on) Island after failing to factor the outgoing tide into their approach. Trapped like sitting ducks, the battleship Yamashiro was blown to pieces, while the cruiser Mugami was pounded into a drifting wreck. While both combatants were unable to identify enemy ships due to excessive radar reflections from the many nearby islands, PT-137 managed to hit the light cruiser Abukuma with a torpedo, forcing her to fall out of formation with the remainder of the fleet. The American cruisers equipped with the latest radar proved to be the most deadly during the Battle of Surigao Strait, firing more than 2,000 rounds of armor piercing six and eight inch shells, while the USS Louisville fired 33 salvos of ten eight inch shells each. When the battle was over, the Americans had only suffered 39 combat deaths, while the resurrected ships sunk at Pearl Harbor successfully exacted their revenge.

By sunrise, the second group of Japan’s Southern Force were in full retreat, while under cover of darkness, the Japanese Center Force had sailed through the San Bernardino Strait, after Halsey had sailed north, leaving a small group of escort carriers and destroyers in defense of the northern entrance to Leyte Gulf. Known by their group call signs, Taffy 1, 2 and 3 was made up of sixteen small unarmored escort carriers of 28 aircraft each, protected by a screen of lightly armed and unarmored destroyers and smaller destroyer escorts. Taffy 3 pilots had been tasked with strafing the beaches and enemy airfields on Leyte Island in support of MacArthur’s troop landings, while keeping their eyes open for enemy submarines and aircraft, and when Taffy 3 pilots spotted Japanese warships at 6:43 in the morning, they soon reported a Japanese force far superior in firepower than the ships of Taffy 3. 

Knowing they were clearly outgunned, the ships of Taffy 3 tried to escape at full speed, yet when the destroyer USS Johnston saw huge enemy shells crashing down around the carrier Gambier Bay, Johnston’s captain, Lt. Commander Ernest E. Evans, turned back on the approaching enemy warships for a David and Goliath style torpedo run. Evans sacrificial run at the enemy pitted his five-inch guns against 14, 16 and 18-inch guns of the enemy, yet he managed to hit the Japanese cruiser, Kumano. When Taffy 3’s commanding officer, Admiral Clifton Sprague saw the impact of Evans’ attack, he ordered all his escorts to attack the enemy with torpedoes. When a 14-inch shell pierced the deck above the Johnston’s engine room, at first the wounded ship limped back out of the fight, but when he met the other ships on their attack run, he turned about to give support. 

Two other Taffy 3 destroyers, Hoel and Heermann, and the destroyer escort Samuel B. Roberts attacked with suicidal determination, and as the ships approached the enemy columns, Lt. Cdr. Robert Copeland of the Samual B. Roberts told all hands that the coming fight would be “a fight against overwhelming odds from which survival could not be expected.” The Hoel and Roberts were subsequently hit multiple times before sinking, while the Johnston continued to fight until it was sunk by a group of Japanese destroyers. 

Taffy 3 warships fired relentlessly at superior enemy ships. As the battle ensued, the cruiser Fanshaw Bay made five hits on an enemy cruiser, while the Kalinin Bay hit a Myoko-class heavy cruiser with two hits to the No. 1 and 2 turrets. Gambier Bay made three hits on an enemy cruiser, while the White Plains reported hit on multiple targets. As the American ships at last turned away from battle, the Gambier Bay came under intense fire by the Yamato’s enormous guns, sustaining multiple hits before capsizing at 9:07. 

After the naval bombardments, Rear Admiral Thomas Sprague—no relation to Clifton—ordered his three task units to launch all aircraft on his sixteen carriers, sending up 450 planes for strikes on enemy ships, and since the Japanese force lacked any fighter aircraft of its own, the Americans aerial attacks inflicted severe damage to the Japanese fleet. During the attacks, however, the Japanese unleashed a group of 24 Japanese pilots flying out of Luzon, who committed the first kamikaze attacks of the Second World War, which would only intensify in the coming months as American forces closed in on the home islands of Japan.

For the Japanese, Kurita’s “general attack” order proved to be a chaos inducement, when his ships broke into division and attacked independently of each other, while communication problems further weakened the Japanese ability to fight, and when the Yamato turned north to evade torpedo strikes, it soon found itself lost from the main battle group. In response, Kurita abruptly broke off his attack by sending out the message, “all ships, my course north, speed 20,” in an apparent attempt to regroup his disorganized fleet. Having begun the battle with five battleships, Kurita limped back to his base with only the Yamato and Haruna still in battle ready condition.

After Halsey successfully fell for Japan’s Northern Force deception, intended to lure the American fleet away from protecting the transports at the landing beaches on Leyte, the Battle of Cape Engano took place on October 25th and 26th, at a location coincidentally named after the Spanish word for deception. Overwhelmingly stronger than the Japanese Northern Force, Halsey went to battle with five large fleet carriers, five light carriers, six battleships, eight cruisers and 41 destroyers, with just shy of 1,000 aircraft flying from ten carrier decks. At dawn on the 25th, 180 American aircraft were sent aloft, sighting the enemy at 07:10, before launching 527 sorties that sank the aircraft carrier Zuikaku, the light carriers Chitose and Zuiho

the destroyer Akizuki, while badly crippling the light carrier Chiyoda and the cruiser Tama.

Shortly after 08:00 hours on October 25th, the U.S. Seventh Fleet sent out desperate calls for help when Taffy 1, 2 and 3 were engaging Japan’s Southern Force in the Battle of Surigao Strait, leading Admiral Thomas C. Kincaid to write: “My situation is critical. Fast battleships and support by air strikes may be able to keep enemy from destroying CVEs and entering Leyte,” and after Halsey failed to respond to Kincaid’s plea for help, Admiral Chester Nimitz, from his command 3,000 miles away, intervened with a scathing cyphered message to Halsey, and while Halsey’s decision to send assistance was delayed by three hours, he eventually ordered Task Force 34 to head south toward Samar, but not without an additional delay of two and a half hours spent refueling the group’s destroyers. 

In the final actions of the Battle of Leyte Gulf, Halsey ordered Task Force 38 to the remnants of Japan’s Northern Force, finishing off the light carrier Chiyoda at 17:00 hours, followed by the destroyer Hatsuzuki at 20:59. At around 23:10, the American submarine Jallao torpedoed and sank the light cruiser Tama, which concluded the Battle of Cape Engano as well as the larger Battle of Leyte Gulf. 

While the Americans lost one light carrier, two escort carriers, two destroyers, one destroyer escort and a PT boat, at a cost of 1,600 airmen and sailors killed, the Japanese lost one fleet aircraft carrier, three light aircraft carriers, three battleships, six heavy cruisers, four light cruisers and nine destroyers, and while an exact death toll for the Japanese is unknown, the Imperial Japanese Navy suffered the greatest loss of ships and crew in its history. 

After the Philippines were at last taken by the Americans in December of 1944, Japan’s loss of its vital oilfields in occupied Southeast Asia further weakened its ability to wage war, making the Battle of Leyte Gulf, a turning point moment in the Allies push for Tokyo.