Leyte Gulf, battle of

Leyte Gulf, battle of, series of naval actions during the Pacific war which took place on 24/25 October 1944 when Japanese naval forces attempted to destroy US landings on the Japanese-occupied Filipino island of Leyte (see Philippines campaigns). It was the biggest naval battle ever fought and saw the introduction in numbers of kamikaze pilots (see Map 64).

Once the C-in-C of the Japanese Combined Fleet, Admiral Toyoda, knew where the Americans intended to land he implemented the SHO-GŌ (Victory Operation) Plan. This envisaged Admiral Halsey's much more powerful Third US Fleet which included 16 carriers, being lured north out of the way while a pincers movement crushed both the landing forces and Vice-Admiral Thomas Kinkaid's smaller Seventh US Fleet guarding them. It nearly worked, for a change in the key of the Japanese naval code (see ULTRA, 2), and strict adherence to radio silence, denied the Americans any foreknowledge of Toyoda's plans.

In tactical command of this, the last throw of the dice for the Japanese Navy, was Vice-Admiral Ozawa. His Mobile Force contained nearly all the warships Japan had left afloat including the two giant 72,800-ton battleships Yamato and Musashi, five other battleships, and sixteen cruisers. It was divided into two striking forces, commanded by Vice-Admiral Kurita and Vice-Admiral Shima Kiyohide, and Ozawa's decoy force, which included four carriers. Ozawa's task was to lure Halsey northwards while the two striking forces formed the pincer. Part of Shima's force, along with some of Kurita's ships commanded by Vice-Admiral Nishimura Shōjō, was ordered to penetrate the Gulf via Surigao Strait, while Kurita himself approached via San Bernardino Strait. The rest of Shima's force was employed in escorting reinforcements to Leyte, and this later lost two ships to US aircraft.

Halsey's Third Fleet comprised Vice-Admiral Marc Mitscher's Task Force 38 (see Task Force 58) which was protected by Vice-Admiral ‘Chink’ Lee's battleships and cruisers. Despite losing the carrier Princeton to land-based aircraft three of TF38's four task groups (the fourth had withdrawn to refuel) launched air strikes against Kurita on 24 October as he crossed the Sibuyan Sea. They sank one battleship and damaged other vessels, and made Kurita temporarily reverse course. This caution put him behind schedule, but over-optimistic reports of the damage he had sustained led Halsey to assume that Kurita was no longer a menace. So when Ozawa was sighted he sent both TF38 and Lee north to destroy him.

The trap was set, but one arm of the Japanese pincers soon crumbled when Nishimura, followed at a distance by Shima, entered Surigao Strait that night and was attacked first by PT boats, then by destroyers, and finally by Kinkaid's battleships and cruisers. Nishimura was killed and eventually only one destroyer from his force survived. Shima prudently retired without fighting, but later lost two ships in air attacks. However, the other arm of the pincer, formed by Kurita's force, which emerged next morning from San Bernardino Strait, was not detected until it encountered one of Kinkaid's escort carrier groups under Rear-Admiral Clifton Sprague off Samar Island. Surprise was mutual, but Kurita, judging American forces in the area to be much stronger than they were, ordered his ships to attack independently. This proved to be an error, for in the battle which followed—the first daylight surface naval action of the Pacific war since the Java Sea battle in February 1942—two Japanese cruisers were sunk by aircraft, and another was crippled by destroyer's torpedoes. But the heavily outgunned Sprague lost two of his escort carriers (one of them to a kamikaze), two destroyers, and one destroyer escort, and other ships were damaged. The situation appeared desperate when, to the amazement of the Americans, Kurita, plagued by doubt and hesitation, and probably short of fuel, broke off the engagement and retired through the San Bernardino Strait.

When Halsey received Kinkaid's first call for help he ordered one of Mitscher's task groups south to attack Kurita. But bent on totally annihilating Ozawa, whose four carriers had been sunk by Mitscher, he did not detach Lee to block Kurita's escape. However, just when Lee's battleships were within range of the remnants of Ozawa's force, Halsey was forced by Kinkaid's plight to send Lee south. It was a decision he later bitterly regretted. For though a smaller force did pursue Ozawa, sinking two more ships while a US submarine torpedoed another, the Japanese escaped total destruction, while Lee was too late to trap Kurita.

After the war the Japanese navy minister said the Japanese defeat at Leyte was ‘tantamount to the loss of the Philippines. When you took the Philippines, that was the end of our resources.’ See also sea power.

Bibliography

Falk, S. , Decision at Leyte (New York, 1966).