A bill sponsored by Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY) has passed the House and is currently in the Senate for committee review and an eventual vote. H.R. 7608 is entitled the “State, Foreign Operations, Agriculture, Rural Development, Interior, Environment, Military Construction, and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Act.”
The bill provides fiscal year 2021 appropriations for the Department of State, Department of Agriculture, the EPA, various foreign relations initiatives, and related programs. It is the “related programs” that has those who care about American history concerned. If one peruses the 772-page bill, they will find buried way down in the middle somewhere Sec. 442. It reads as follows:
<blockquote>REMOVAL OF COMMEMORATIVE CONFEDERATE WORKS
Notwithstanding any other provision of law or policy to the contrary, within 180 days of enactment of this Act, the National Park Service shall remove from display all physical Confederate commemorative works, such as statues, monuments, sculptures, memorials, and plaques, as defined by NPS, Management Policies 2006.</blockquote>
On the surface, this appears to be just an implementation of the drive to remove Confederate monuments and memorials from the public square. The mantra from the activists in favor of moving out these homages to the Confederacy has been that they should be moved to museums as they are a part of history.
Unfortunately, where Confederate monuments are concerned, there is no solution which would seem to satisfy all. And for those on the far-left, for whom it is always about the next crusade as they continue to march toward that unreachable mirage of a terrestrial Utopia, even allowing monuments to those who fought, and suffered, and died in battle where the combat actually took place is just too much. And H.R. 7608 is a manifestation of this vision of an American landscape wiped clean of any vestiges of one-half of the most consequential and cataclysmic event in U.S. History.
There are some twenty-five Civil War battlefields or related historical sites that would be subjected to the axe of H.R. 7608. That is because hallowed grounds like Antietam, Gettysburg, Chickamauga, Vicksburg, Manassas, Petersburg, etc., are under the auspices of the National Park Service. If this bill is passed, as it now reads and can be interpreted, within six months of its passage every monument to Confederate participants on the very locations of some of the biggest and bloodiest battles in American history would be removed.
One can make a reasonable argument for taking down Confederate statues from the public square. After all, should African Americans on their way to work or just strolling the streets be forced to do so in the shadow of those who fought for an upstart nation that, had it been victorious, would have kept their race in chains?
But once removed, what are we to do with these monuments? Some have argued, as stated earlier, that they should be relegated to museums where they lose the aura of celebration and instead become tools for learning and remembering our past. There are, however, real logistical issues here. Even if a museum wanted them, it is not easy to store many tons of brass and stone.
It would seem, then, that the battlefields are the most logical refuge for these orphans of our past. Those who venture to Gettysburg, Antietam, or Shiloh do so precisely to learn about the fighting that took place there, and what it meant to American history. And it is, quite simply, impossible to give an accurate and full account of these engagements without telling the story of the men on both sides of the lines, both individual commanders, and the many units from so many states who did combat.
How can one, for example, possibly understand the story of Gettysburg without delving into the mind of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee? He was the man whose decisions, more than any others’, shaped the nature and ultimate outcome of the three-day bloodbath. It was Lee who invaded Pennsylvania, Lee who gave the nod to his generals to attack the Union Army outside of Gettysburg that first fateful morning, and it was Lee who then stayed to fight what would shape up to be the first major Confederate defeat of the war. And no better way can one understand the mind of Lee, to see what he saw, than to stand beneath his monument on Seminary Ridge, astride his horse Traveler, and gaze with him across the mile-wide open field toward that Union line where he sent so many of his soldiers to their dooms. The equestrian statue of the rebel leader is powerful in its sense of longing and regret. One can almost hear him as his battered and bloody survivors stream past him having had their grand assault violently repulsed saying to his men, “This has been all my fault.” Lose Lee and you lose the very essence of the Battle Of Gettysburg. The same can be said for his commanding officers, each with their own part to play in the drama. It is so with every battle of the war. Take away Albert Sydney Johnston and P.G.T. Beauregard, and you lose Shiloh. Banish Stonewell Jackson and James Longstreet to the ether, and 2nd Manassas just ceases to be.
And furthermore, how can one recount a true narrative of these battles while the voices of those men in the rank and file who fought for the South are muted and their visages erased? The story of these historic places is one of men, often in their teens, scared out of their wits, covered in grime and dust, and the caked blood of their comrades who’d already fallen all around them, who engaged in some of the most brutal and up close and personal modes of warfare one can imagine. Their emotions and experiences at those moments of terror knew no politics. A survivor of Antietam later recalled that at one point the action was so severe, his senses so overloaded, that the landscape appeared to briefly turn red. One imagines that during combat so intense, no Southerner loading, ramming, and firing as the balls whizzed all around him, was thinking of the larger question of slavery or free navigation of the Mississippi. As one Union private, David Thompson, 9th New York Volunteers, wrote after walking the still-smoldering Antietam battlefield after the bloodiest day in American history had ended:
<blockquote>All around lay the Confederate dead…clad in “butternut”&#8230;As I looked down on the poor, pinched faces…all enmity died out. There was no “secession” in those rigid forms, nor in those fixed eyes staring at the sky. Clearly it was not their war.</blockquote>
The fact is the Civil War did happen. And some 300,000 Southern men died fighting for their cause, even if it was, as Ulysses Grant said, “one of the worst for which people have ever fought. And one for which there was the least excuse.” But that doesn’t diminish the very real suffering of the Confederates who fought over these blood-soaked grounds. And even if one doesn’t wish to give those men at Gettysburg, who lined up and stared across an open field to the other side where they saw a solid line of blue with artillery lined hub-to-hub up on Cemetery Ridge just waiting for them, any credit at all for their feat, at least allow their story, on that place, to be told in toto to weave the complete tapestry of this great human tragedy that affected so many on all sides. And still does.
Speaking on behalf of Gettysburg in particular, Les Fowler, president of the Association of Licensed Battlefield Guides, has made a plea to the Senate to modify this bill to preserve the battlefields as they are. “We urge the U.S. Senate to strip out this provision that would destroy the unequaled collection of monuments, Union and Confederate, that set Gettysburg apart as the great battlefield park and top visitor destinations…The monuments representing all of the soldiers who fought here are a crucial component of interpreting these sacred grounds.”
Another veteran battlefield guide, Deb Novotny, makes a broader appeal. “The monuments serve as tools for us to tell the story not only of this battle but of the struggle of our nation to heal itself after the war.”
Some 75,000 Confederate troops engaged the Union Army at Gettysburg. That salient fact of history cannot be avoided or discarded. How does one go about erasing their memories from a place like this? If there remain any places in the country where it is contextually fitting to remember them, while acknowledging the moral bankruptcy of the broader notion for which they took up arms, it is on the fields where they fought and strove and perished.
It is said that the ghosts of soldiers, Confederate and Union alike, walk the now quiet fields of battle, unable to find peace with their violent deaths on the receiving end of enemy bullets, bayonets, shell fragments or solid shot that cut their lives short. They are a part of these places.
The cause of the Confederacy should be remembered for what it was: a new nation dedicated to the proposition that the black man was inferior to the white man and, as Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens said: “slavery—subordination to the superior race—is his natural and normal condition.” But the battlefields, where those twisted notions went to die, and where all sides of those particular isolated events must be heard to gain a true understanding of what happened there, should not be the place to make such a symbolic rejection to what is an obviously revolting raison d’etat. The battlefield belongs to the soldiers who fought there. And it belongs to all who wish to travel to these grounds and hear all the voices from the past tell us what they saw and did there. History is not always pleasant. But it must be remembered. Otherwise we are living in a land of make-believe. That is not the country I want us to be.
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Cannon at Gettysburg

SCHAEFFER: Civil War Battlefields: The Left’s Next Target In The War On History

American Civil War

American History

Leftism

A week of celebrations of Civil Rights icon Rep. John Lewis were recently held across two states and the nation’s capital, and were attended and viewed by many thousands. A decent man gone home to his God, having left the world a better place than that into which he was born in those trying times of racial inequality and Jim Crow. But John Lewis was not the only decent American to pass away recently. Unlike the revered Congressman, these many other decent and beloved people were permitted no such closure ceremonies…
It was hard not to be moved and impressed by the outpouring of farewells for Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), the Civil Rights era icon and Congressman who passed away on July 17 at age 80 after suffering pancreatic cancer.  His memorial service, held in Georgia, was the culmination of a six-day celebration of his life.  Along with family and friends, Lewis’ funeral was attended by three former Presidents, world dignitaries, and 50 members of Congress; they included House  Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), prospective Biden running-mate Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA),  Sen. Corey Booker (D-NJ), House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) and House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-SC).
The formal remembrance took place at the Ebenezer Baptist Church after which John Lewis was laid to rest at the South View Cemetery.  A week of celebrations of the bona fide Civil Rights hero across two states and the nation’s capital, and attended by many thousands, was over.  A decent man gone home to his God, having left the world a better place than that into which he was born in those trying times of racial inequality and Jim Crow.
But John Lewis was not the only decent American to pass away recently.  Indeed, tens of thousands have also died over the past few months.  And they were just as important to their loved ones, friends, and admirers as Mr. Lewis was to his.  But unlike Mr. Lewis, they were permitted no such closure ceremonies…let alone a week of memorials attended by <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/28/politics/john-lewis-capitol-lying-in-state/index.html">thousands</a>.  This is due to the draconian dictates of state and federal officials that prohibit large gatherings, such as the very ones we saw for Mr. Lewis (let alone the riots and protests).  Many were not even permitted to visit their dying loved ones in hospital, so great has been the fear of this virus that kills less than one percent of those infected, as estimated by <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scenarios.html">the CDC</a>.
Maybe these unsung tens of thousands did not live lives as consequential as did John Lewis, but for those who cared about them, whose lives were touched by those lost to all sorts of killers from old age, to cancer, to heart disease/strokes, car accidents, and, yes, Covid-19, the loss is just as real, just as important, and just as worthy of remembrance and celebration.  But apparently they don’t matter nearly as much.  At least not to those who make and enforce the laws.  To wit, those in power.
If you or I lived in Washington D.C. and were to travel to Georgia, upon our return, by law, we would be required to self-quarantine for fourteen days.  This measure has been instituted by Mayor Muriel Bowser, who forcefully offers: “Our message remains the same: stay home.  Staying at home is the best way to flatten the curve and protect yourself, your family, and our entire community from COVID-19.”  The law applies to anyone not engaged in “essential” travel, government functions, or working at “essential” businesses.  Nor can D.C. citizens take part in any recreational activities not allowed by the Mayor’s Office.
Furthermore, anyone who willfully violates the stay-at-home order may be guilty of a misdemeanor and, upon conviction, subject to <a href="https://coronavirus.dc.gov/maskorder">$1,000</a> fines.  Wow.  So Mayor Bowser is serious about clamping down on this disease, no matter who it inconveniences…or how many funerals it prohibits.
As Georgia is one of the states deemed “high-risk”, it would stand to reason then that the bevy of Congresspersons returning from their colleague’s funeral in Atlanta would have had to comply and immediately go into quarantine for two weeks.  After all, although I am not a virologist, I think it is safe to say that a virus doesn’t know whether it is floating around a Congressman’s funeral, the seat of a bus, a coffee shop, a hair salon, or a restaurant.  But apparently Mayor Bowser must know something we don’t about science because upon their return from Georgia, that hot-bed of plague and infestation so deemed by D.C.’s own mayor, the 50 members of Congress were exempt from the quarantine protocols because &#8220;government activity is essential.&#8221;
Susan Castillo, Press Secretary for Mayor Bowser, explained: “Government activity is essential, and the Capitol of the United States is exempt from the Mayor’s Order.”  When asked by a journalist if attending Lewis’ funeral constituted “government activity,” Castillo said yes.  When further pressed if attendees at non-government funerals in high-risk areas would have to quarantine upon returning to D.C., Castillo again answered: “Yes.”
Got that?  And you thought we were a nation where, as the Democrats have repeated ad nauseum re: Bad Orange Man “no one is above the law.”
I recently attended a funeral for a man whose life was so decent and honorable, and who was so well-loved and respected by family, friends, and co-workers, that he could have easily filled to overflowing the viewing room.  Instead only eight — eight — were allowed to attend what passed for a wake.  And then for only two hours.  Later, when we arrived at the cemetery, only three cars with that magic eight number were even permitted on the grounds.  His own siblings, beloved grandchildren, friends for over a half-century, and those who came to pay their respects were not even privy to the brief prayer offered by a priest in the presence of just his two adult children and wife of over 60 years before his casket was unceremoniously whisked inside the sepulcher by a cemetery staff anxious they not break any laws and suffer the consequences.  The tiny group was left standing awkwardly in the carport of an empty mausoleum driveway.
That was it.  That was a good person’s final send-off.  No doubt there are literally tens of thousands of similar stories out there.  Too bad.  But hey, whatterya gonna do?  After all, there’s only room for 535 in Congress.
I am not saying John Lewis’ tribute was undeserved.  He was a truly brave man — a term I do not use lightly. In 1965, he was literally clubbed nearly to death by Alabama state troopers while peacefully (in the real sense of the word) marching for the sublime cause of racial equality, justice, and equal representation under the law.  And he was only 23 at the time; heck, at that age I was still grappling with such important matters as whether to be a Cubs or White Sox fan.  Mr. Lewis’ legacy is not in doubt.  The point is that everyone matters to God in Heaven and to someone on this Earth.  Thusly, everyone deserves to be sent off into the next life in the proper fashion that adheres to their faith and as per their wishes and those of their next of kin.
But such is not the case for any but the chosen few.  Consider the mere eight mourners allowed to view my loved one.  Now contrast that with the crowds gathered for Mr. Lewis from Alabama to D.C. to Georgia.  One could see that, despite “social distancing protocols,” other than a few chairs scattered here and there in the most controlled and intimate settings throughout the week, that there was no such thing.  One can pull up photos of Mr. Lewis’ fraternity brothers standing by his flag-draped coffin at Troy University standing shoulder-to-shoulder, some without masks, some wearing them, and of the latter at least one wearing it improperly.  Meanwhile, upon the passing of lesser mortals throughout the nation no such farewells of any kind are permitted.
This tale of two funerals — one for the powerful insiders for whom the term “public service” is an oxymoron, and one for the average Joe or Jane — is but an illustration of the larger issues raised in this pandemic without end…at least until Trump is defeated.  The arbitrary nature of so many restrictions were exposed quite clearly in a May ruling by <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/05/27/americans_dont_get_ruled_143306.html">Illinois Judge Michael McHaney</a> who blocked Illinois Governor Pritzker’s stay-at-home orders.
<blockquote>Since the inception of this insanity, the following regulations, rules or consequences have occurred: I won&#8217;t get COVID if I get an abortion, but I will get COVID if I get a colonoscopy. Selling pot is essential, but selling goods and services at a family owned business is not. Pot wasn&#8217;t even legal and pot dispensaries didn&#8217;t even exist in this state until five months ago and, in that five months, they have become essential, but a family-owned business in existence for five generations is not.
A family of six can pile in their car and drive to Carlyle Lake without contracting COVID but, if they all get in the same boat, they will. We are told that kids rarely contract the virus and sunlight kills it, but summer youth programs, sports programs are cancelled. Four people can drive to the golf course and not get COVID but, if they play in a foursome, they will. If I go to Walmart, I won&#8217;t get COVID but, if I go to church, I will. Murderers are released from custody while small business owners are threatened with arrest if they have the audacity to attempt to feed their families.</blockquote>
Then McHaney gets to the heart of the matter.
<blockquote>When laws do not apply to those who make them, people are not being governed, they are being ruled.  Make no mistake, these executive orders are not laws. They are royal decrees.  Illinois citizens are not being governed.  They are being ruled.  The last time I checked, Illinois citizens are American citizens.  And Americans don’t get ruled.</blockquote>
The judge speaks for the people of Illinois, but the broader principle applies to every American who has been deprived final moments with cherished loved ones while politicians are treated to pomp and circumstance and public gatherings. This is an experiment in the limits of raw power being carried out by ruthless people for whom unbridled power is the end in and of itself, not the means to making this a better country.
Two days after returning from the Lewis funeral, a mask-less Nancy Pelosi was out in public speaking with reporters on Capitol Hill.  Quarantine for thee, not for me.  And as with so much of what has happened to this country over the course of this Coronavirus outbreak, the flaunting of protocols to accommodate one Congressman’s funeral, and then applying exemptions to government officials and those connected to them so they may engage in conduct that would have the average American fined and even arrested, has laid bare the schism and the myth of America. The simple fact is there are two sets of laws, two sets of dictates, even two sets of standards of behavior laid down by those in power today.  The average American is being told he/she must obey the law or be nakedly exposed to the wrath of a government led by the small-minded and the cynical who have somehow been allowed to wield far too much power where Civil Liberties are concerned.  But then there are those on the inside for whom terms like “social distancing” and “mandatory self-quarantining” are cute notions, but not intended for them.  Such an obvious double-standard will sow the seeds of resentment for years to come.
More from Brad Schaeffer: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/schaeffer-the-truth-about-the-black-lives-matter-organization">The Truth About The Black Lives Matter Organization</a>
Brad Schaeffer is a commodities trader and writer whose articles have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, New York Daily News, National Review, Celeb Magazine, Zerohedge, Frumforum, and other news outlets.  He is the author of the acclaimed World War II novel Of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Another-Time-Place-Brad-Schaeffer/dp/1682616630">Another Time And Place</a> (Post Hill/Simon &amp; Schuster, 2018).

Nancy Pelosi

SCHAEFFER: Quarantine For Thee, Not For Me

Coronavirus

COVID-19

John Lewis

At present, no organization has more sway in the United States, not just in shaping opinion, but changing behaviors and lives, than Black Lives Matter. A recent Rasmussen poll found that 62% of likely voters now have a “favorable” opinion of BLM. This is almost a reverse of opinion only six months ago.
It is both fascinating and troubling to see this transformation. Fascinating in that, like so many political movements, its emergence usually is the reaction to some larger underlying shift in the national order that the existing parties have failed to address. The Republican Party, for example, was spawned from the growing abolitionist sentiment in the country — one the Southern Democrats vehemently resisted to the point of taking up arms.
But unlike the nascent GOP, Black Lives Matter, the organization that has co-opted the self-evident slogan, is based not just on deception, but outright, demonstrable lies. And even more troubling still is the willingness with which the American people, gutted of any proper historical understanding for generations by failed education, the activist media, and cowardly politicians of both mainstream parties are willing to carry water for this mendacious group.
Consider the genesis of the Black Lives Matter organization itself. On February 26, 2012, 17-year-old African-American Trayvon Martin was intercepted by George Zimmerman, a man of mixed race, who was the neighborhood watch coordinator for his community. An altercation occurred, Zimmerman claimed Martin attacked him and in the scuffle Zimmerman fatally shot the boy.  A tragedy all around, no doubt. Zimmerman was acquitted; he was found to have indeed acted in self-defense. Bowing to national public outcry a federal investigation was launched as well — and it reached the same conclusion. But that did not matter. By then Trayvon Martin had become a household name — a martyr, a symbol of a false narrative laced in fallacious inductive reasoning that it was “open season” on young blacks by non-blacks. The 2013 acquittal inspired a Facebook posting that included the phrase “black lives matter” and the “Movement for Black Lives,” which eventually fell under the catch-all banner “Black Lives Matter,” was born.
The movement was spurred on by the shooting of Michael Brown by police Officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri on August 9, 2014. It was widely reported that Wilson shot Brown while the man was helpless, with his hands raised in the air, and pleading “Don’t shoot!” That narrative took hold and spread like wildfire, and soon a terrible untruth began to spread among both the black community as well as white guilt-ridden leftists who are always happy to cheer them on from behind the walls of their all-white enclaves. The storyline went that Brown’s death was emblematic of a widespread problem that black people have confronted for years: brutality and injustice at the hands of systemically racist police. Soon even NFL players got into the act, many striding onto the field with their hands up in a gesture of solidarity.
Once again, the shooter was acquitted. But unlike the Martin case, where some doubts will always linger, the matter of Brown’s demise was a clear case of police self-defense. The Brown as sainted victim narrative was a lie. Brown was six-foot-five, 285 pounds. Al Sharpton, C.E.O. of Race Hustlers, Inc., eulogized him as a “gentle giant.”  His family said he didn’t have a violent bone in his body. This would come as a surprise to the store owner trying to prevent Brown from stealing a box of cigars the night he died. When confronted, the stoned (as the autopsy showed) Brown can be seen on surveillance video grabbing the diminutive store owner and slamming him into a shelf.
While walking down the middle of the street soon after, Brown was intercepted by Officer Wilson who pulled up next to him in his squad car. The “gentle giant” then proceeded to reach into the cruiser for Wilson’s gun. Wilson shot him in the hand and then pursued on foot. Brown then turned around and charged the policeman who shot the NFL linebacker-sized man coming straight at him, killing him. More than a half-dozen black onlookers witnessed the episode. Despite enormous pressure to affirm the lie, they agreed Brown never put his hands up, and never said “Don’t Shoot.” An <a href="https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/opa/press-releases/attachments/2015/03/04/doj_report_on_shooting_of_michael_brown_1.pdf">FBI investigation</a> and a Grand Jury each affirmed Officer Wilson’s story. No matter. Benjamin Crump, the Brown (and Martin) family lawyer declared “family and supporters will not be persuaded by the autopsy report or eye-witness statements.” A lawyer really said that. Is it any wonder then that Ferguson erupted in riots based on a lie? President Barack Obama could have dampened the rioters’ anger by making an address supporting the Ferguson police who did no wrong here. Instead he framed the incident as part of wider fears of being guilty of “<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/black-lives-matter-releases-policy-agenda-n620966">walking while black</a>.” Healer indeed.
BLM now had its cause…any black man shot by police under any circumstance. It also had its villain: the nation’s 800,000 law enforcement officers. Other incidents followed. In Baltimore in 2015 Freddie Gray was arrested for carrying a knife. He suffered injuries while being transported in the van to central booking, fell into a coma, and died days later.  He was heard by witnesses banging the sides of the van and the officers had to restrain him with cuffs and leg shackles. Once again, the arresting officers were <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/federal-officials-decline-prosecution-death-freddie-gray">cleared by an Obama Justice Department investigation</a>. Again, it did not matter and five days of violence and looting in Baltimore followed in protest of systemic police racism. So what if the arresting officers were black, the Baltimore City Council was almost all black, and the mayor was black?
In 2016 the BLM organization released a 24-page mission statement entitled “<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/black-lives-matter-releases-policy-agenda-n620966">A Vision for Black Lives: Policy Demands For Black Power, Freedom and Justice</a>.” Lurking within its many pages, graphics and diagrams one can find its policy goals. Some are generalities like “End the war on black people.” (Given that the vast majority of <a href="https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2018/crime-in-the-u.s.-2018/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-6.xls">homicides among black people</a> are carried out by other black people, I’m not exactly sure for whom this message is intended.) But some demands are more substantive, and worrisome:
<ul>
<li>Reparations for past and continuing harms. (This includes property as well as cash).</li>
<li>A reconstruction of the economy to ensure our communities have collective ownership, not merely access.</li>
<li>Independent black political power and black self-determination in all areas of society. (As in re-segregation?)</li>
</ul>
And today, of course, this list also includes the very dangerous #DefundThePolice demand.
Martin, Brown, Gray. Although useful, none could be the face of such a movement given the murky circumstances of their deaths. Then came George Floyd’s murder at the hands of Minneapolis policeman Derek Chauvin. Anyone who has seen that video should agree that Floyd is a victim of police brutality. It is one thing to draw a gun and open fire in the heat of the moment, where a split-second hesitation could either prevent a tragedy if the target is benign, or send you into the next life if he means you harm.  But for over eight minutes, in full view of bystanders and fellow officers who criminally did not intervene, and for all the amateur videographers to get the evidence, Chauvin kneeled on the man’s neck well after he was no longer a threat, despite Floyd’s begging him to stop uttering the now ubiquitous rallying cry “I can’t breathe.” This was murder. Suddenly all the wokeness, the simmering neo-Marxism, the nihilism, and the racism that feeds the BLM movement exploded onto the streets. Enter like clockwork Al Sharpton, to give the man’s eulogy as our city streets burned. In George Floyd, BLM finally had a beatified face to go with the charges of police “open season” on blacks.
This is an inflammatory accusation. And worse, easily debunked with hard data. In fact, the numbers show that widespread, systemic police brutality against blacks, especially unarmed blacks, is a myth. Nevertheless, it is one that BLM, both political parties, the media, even the public seem more than willing to accept — or if they do not accept it, are unwilling to confront the lie.
But here are the facts. And, as John Adams said, “Facts are stubborn things.”
In a recent <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-myth-of-systemic-police-racism-11591119883">Wall Street Journal op-ed</a>, Heather Mac Donald, author of The War on Cops: How the New Attack on Law and Order Makes Everyone Less Safe, sums up the data that is readily available to the curious:
<blockquote>In 2019 police officers fatally shot 1,004 people, most of whom were armed or otherwise dangerous. African-Americans were about a quarter of those killed by cops last year (235), a ratio that has remained stable since 2015. That share of black victims is less than what the black crime rate would predict, since police shootings are a function of how often officers encounter armed and violent suspects. In 2018, the latest year for which such data have been published, African-Americans make up 53% of known homicide offenders in the U.S. and commit about 60% of robberies, though they are 13% of the population.
The police fatally shot nine unarmed blacks and 19 unarmed whites in 2019, according to a Washington Post database, down from 38 and 32, respectively, in 2015&#8230;In 2018 there were 7,407 black homicide victims. Assuming a comparable number of victims last year, those nine unarmed black victims of police shootings represent 0.1% of all African-Americans killed in 2019. By contrast, a police officer is 18½ times more likely to be killed by a black male than an unarmed black male is to be killed by a police officer.</blockquote>
So, there it is. The cause of the utter chaos in our streets. One-tenth of one percent of blacks murdered in the USA last year. Black lives matter, yes, but apparently some matter a lot more than others. Otherwise we’d know the names of all 7,407 black homicide victims, not just those with political expediency. But we don’t. To paraphrase an old cynical saying attributed to many figures from Erich LeMarque to Josef Stalin: “One death is a tragedy, 7,407 a statistic.”
Still, do these numbers mean the Minneapolis police department, or many others no doubt, is not in need of reform? Of course not. Chauvin had a history of violence both as a cop and his second job as a bouncer, and never should have been on the force. And he should do hard time. However, demanding police reform is a far cry from removing the police altogether. But this, through defunding, is precisely what the Black Lives Matter organization wants.
So how is it, with such a prima facie dangerous agenda, that this organization has become so strong? How has such a radical message become, on the surface at least, mainstream? Because a mob, when uncontested, becomes just more brazen. There is no concerted push-back. Politicians are cowering. The mainstream media, already slightly to the left of Che Guevara, gleefully push the narrative, as sowing racial disharmony has been for decades a technique the Democrat Party uses to retain power. And since the media is now but an arm of that Democrat Party, this serves both interests well. Taking a step further, BLM, too, is now an extension of that political party. So a cynical and nationally destructive symbiosis has emerged.
Why do I equate BLM with the Democrat Party?  Because they are, literally, cyber-linked. Go to the Black Lives Matter website homepage and click “Donate.” That takes one to an organization called <a href="https://secure.actblue.com/donate/ms_blm_homepage_2019">ActBlue</a>, a registered 501 c3 non-profit Political Action Committee. So donations to BLM will go into ActBlue. Now, under terms and conditions, there is a fine print section which states that ActBlue adheres to Campaign Finance laws.
Question: If a donation goes to a cause to ostensibly support a social movement why are  the recipients of said funds required to comply with Campaign Finance restrictions?
Answer: Because the top 10 “causes” of Act Blue were either Democratic candidates (Bernie and Biden being first at over $300 million) or Democratic political committees.
It is said that movements for social justice, religion, and political reform — and this is all three rolled into one — start off as a cause, then become a business, and finally a racket. BLM has reached the racket stage.
So where, then, are the “law &amp; order” Republicans in all this? Remember them? The voices of the great “silent majority”? They are doing what they do best. Offering conservative lip service to their constituents while protecting the established order, and their corporate donors, as much as any Democrat. Democrans and Republicrats. All have bent the knee to the BLM organization that is now a multi-billion dollar political fund-raising machine. Although Democrats still do it best. When my governor, Phil Murphy, who banned  graduation ceremonies, public funeral services, and even haircuts for fear of COVID outbreaks, came to our town’s recent BLM protest and spoke before a packed crowd of 1,500 people for whom “social distancing” was a quaint notion, I saw first-hand just what shameless pandering for political points looks like. The image of Murphy, a Goldman Sachs alumnus, taking a knee for “equality” and “social justice” was one until recently only the Onion or Babylon Bee could concoct. But we are down the rabbit hole now. And as such both parties acquiesce to the lie that is tearing our country apart.
Sadly, no group will suffer more for our leaders’ complete abdication of responsibility than the very black lives all involved profess to hold sacred.  In New York City, once lauded under GOP mayors Giuliani and Bloomberg as “America’s safest big city,” homicides are <a href="https://www1.nyc.gov/site/nypd/news/pr0706/nypd-citywide-crime-statistics-june-2020">up 23%</a> from the first six months of 2019. In the last week of June and first week in July, <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-chicago-homicides-data-tracker-htmlstory.html">Chicago’s murders</a> were up 39% compared to the same 2019 weeks. One week in May in <a href="http://www.lapdonline.org/statistical_data">Los Angeles</a> saw murders up an astounding 250%. Atlanta, Washington D.C., New Orleans and others have seen similar surges in violent crime.
Adding to the agony, more and more victims are children. In Brooklyn over the July 4th weekend a <a href="https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/family-of-1-year-old-killed-in-brooklyn-drive-by-shooting-to-say-final-goodbye/2535445/">one-year-old boy</a> was killed by gunfire while resting in his stroller as his family picnicked. He was one of six children, all black, to die in a hail of bullets that weekend. In fact, most of the neighborhoods where the deadly violence has escalated, and those destroyed through arson, vandalism and looting, are minority neighborhoods. Clearly the lives of the 7,000+ black people murdered each year do not matter to these activists. What matters now is that the police have been compelled to all but abandon those who need their protections far more than the left-wing elitist interests feeding the BLM machine.
Brad Schaeffer’s is a commodities trader and author.  His articles have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, New York Daily News, National Review, and others. His acclaimed World War Two novel <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Another-Time-Place-Brad-Schaeffer/dp/1682616630">Of Another Time And Place </a>[Post Hill/Simon &amp; Schuster, 2018] is available for purchase or kindle/audible download.
The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

BLM Fist

SCHAEFFER: The Truth About The Black Lives Matter Organization

Black Lives Matter

Defund The Police

Law Enforcement

Race

Radical movements never end at the original demands.
Let’s harken back to a simpler, more innocent and yet paradoxically more emotionally resilient time, shall we?  Particularly the Fall of, say, 1988.  Imagine a fine autumn day on the great plains of Illinois. The sun blares down through the azure dome of the wide Midwestern sky to warm the faces of  75,000 fans crowded into the University of Illinois Memorial Stadium. (Yes, back then we filled the place.) A sea of orange and blue shimmers in the stands and the roar “I-L-L!  echoes from one side of the stadium, followed by the obligatory response of “I-N-I!” from the other.   Colorful pennants orbit the arena, swirling and snapping in the warm breeze.
It’s halftime during another Big Ten football Saturday at Urbana-Champaign and a celebrated ritual dating back to 1926 begins again. The Marching Illini band parts with military precision, clearing a path for a lone figure who seems to just materialize in the end zone and strut proudly to the center of the field.  He is barefoot, clad in buckskin and leather tassels, his face painted bright orange and blue, and he wears an impressive headdress of eagle feathers.
Chief Illiniwek bows to the throng of admirers as the calling of “Chieeeef!” fills the stands.  Our beloved mascot then dances to Native American music.  He skims across the field as he twists and turns and gyrates. It’s quite a feat of athleticism in fact. Then he suddenly leaps, touches his toes in an aerial split, and lands, bare feet together on the turf.  He stands and raises his arms up like a bishop bestowing a benediction, as the band belts out the Illinois anthem and we all join arm in arm and sway back and forth while singing: “Hail to the orange. Hail to the blue.  Hail Alma Mater ever so true. We love no other so let our motto be: ‘Victory Illinois…Var-si-ty!”  There is no mockery here. We feel no emotion but respect for and communion with the Native American tribe whose namesake we at the U of I adopted as our own.
I recount this little snippet of my youth because it ties into a larger movement building momentum for quite some time; it’s one that seeks to upend national tradition and even identity. A college in the heartland losing its mascot to p.c. sensibilities is just one of countless outbreaks of this spreading disease. And the latest, and most powerful wave of social justice fanaticism has injected the drive to stamp out so many vestiges of our national identity with “woke” steroids. It’s become obvious by now that the pretext of the BLM “police reform” has served as cover for the larger forces of bitterness, divisiveness, hyper-sensitivity, and outright nihilism rampaging through our country with impunity. One wonders how is it that what were, ostensibly, protests against specific acts of police brutality has now expanded into a movement to wipe out every memory and tradition and historical figure before Rosa Parks?  When exactly did expressing outrage over an obvious murder of one man by one cop morph into a crusade to upend the entire American experience root and stem and replant it in this new woke Year Zero?
Those of us who went to the University of Illinois back in the day might have seen this coming. Mascots, and the “offense” they give to select groups of self-appointed aggrieved, have been the canary in the coal mine for some time. That story I told you? No more. Chief Illiniwek and the halftime ritual that was one of the traditions that actually sold me on my alma mater? Gone. Buh-bye, Chief.
In fact, this college football season – if it happens at all – will mark the thirteenth year of the Chief’s banishment from our campus by the NCAA for being a mascot “hostile and abusive” to Native American sensibilities. (His last official performance took place in February 2007 at a home basketball game.)
How did this come to pass? It’s interesting and relevant to today in that it is a revealing microcosm of the greater movement of wiping out monuments and memories occurring nation-wide.  And how quickly, frighteningly so, attitudes can shift and lurch suddenly and violently leftwards almost overnight.
Apparently those who took it upon themselves to speak for an Indian nation long vanished found Chief Illinwek’s very existence so traumatizing, so insulting, that they forced the NCAA to coerce my school into killing this 80-year tradition or be banned from hosting any post-season activities.  So the political correctness wave that would eventually build to a tsunami washed over my school, sweeping away a most cherished tradition when it receded.  Courtesy of those who took it upon themselves to feel offense on behalf of others.
Nor did the leaders of this anti-Chief movement, like those tearing down statues today (more on that in a moment), have any grasp of the history of the very people for whom they assumed the mantel of feeling offense. Forget that the tribes of the Illinois confederacy were wiped out or displaced by the end of the eighteenth century by more powerful Native American enemies. Were any of the student protesters driving the movement to eradicate the Chief even descended from the Illini? Not to my knowledge. But, as we have learned from so many wealthy progressives who live in sheltered, often racially homogenous leafy neighborhoods far removed from the disastrous consequences of their own enlightened attitudes being translated into policy imposed on others, one’s direct standing on an issue matters little when there’s a p.c. crusade afoot.
The speed of the change in attitude was quite breathtaking where Chief Illinwek was concerned.  For decades the closest living descendants of the confederacy, the Peoria, who were relocated to Oklahoma in the nineteenth century apparently never had an issue with the Chief for over seven decades. As late as 1995, Don Giles, then Chief of the Peoria Tribe, said, “We’re proud that the University of Illinois…is drawing on that background of our having been there. And what more honor could they pay us?” But just five short years later, in 2000, the tribe’s position radically changed after the new chief, Ron Froman, met with several Native American student groups at the U of I. Froman apparently just needed to be told that he was offended, and even offered this historically dubious viewpoint: &#8220;I don’t think [the Chief’s creation] was to honor us, because, hell, they ran our butts out of Illinois.”  That the Illini were wiped out by rival tribes which included the Sauk, Fox, Sioux, Chippewa, Ottawa, Cherokee and others well before any white men could “run their butts out of Illinois” matters little when there’s a opportunity to manufacture synthetic outrage to help the indignation industry churn out its favorite product: identity politics.
We are seeing that same radical shift in attitude now, with monuments being torn down all over the nation. Mascots aside, the movement really  started off with the drive to banish Confederate memorials from the public square. This is a legitimate beef in my view. I cannot imagine being an African-American in 2020 having to every day pass by bronze or stone celebrations of the men who, had their side won the Civil War, would have happily overseen my continued enslavement. Indeed, men who fought to win independence for a new nation that referred to itself as “The Slave-Holding Confederacy” and made no bones about the fact that its government, as its Vice-President shamelessly declared, was “based upon this great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition.”  So, sure, I totally get that.
But, as with so many movements, it never ends at the original demands. The first question that would be asked by the masked marauders after they banished every mascot and tore down every last Confederate statue would be, “alright, who’s next?” This is because for many of them, the idea of “offense” is but a pretext to exercise their nihilistic impulses. It’s not mascots or the Southern Confederacy they hate per se. It’s the United States itself, our laws, our system of government, our mercantilism, our national pride, our civil rights, our traditions and history, our very essence.  We know this because we already know the answer to “who’s next?” Everyone! As the leader of the murderous Red Legs proclaimed in The Outlaw Josey Wales: “Doin’ right ain’t got no end.”  (This wholly un-self-aware line elicited a mocking belly laugh from the wise old Granny listening from her porch.  As it should have.)
And as we have learned, the mob’s zealous sense of moral supremacy is only matched by their shameful ignorance of the country that someone, or some institution, has taught them to hate so much.
The woke crowd is so militant in their anarchism that goes far beyond just protesting police brutality, or even “systemic racism” that they are literally upending or defacing statues of anyone who chose to be born before 1965.  And I do mean anyone. Consider this. In Boston, a monument to the 54th Massachusetts, the first African-American Union regiment armed and sent into battle in the Civil War, men who literally fought to preserve their own freedom, was recently defaced.  One might argue “yeah well they were only allowed to be led by white officers so it’s still a symbol of systemic—” Yawn! What these historical ignoramuses do not consider is that the white officers who volunteered to lead these men of color, from the idealistic Col. Robert Gould Shaw, son of a wealthy Bostonian who could have pulled the right strings to keep his son as far away from the front as possible, down to the company commanders all knew full well that if captured on the battlefield, the Confederates would not extend them the courtesy of prisoner status. Rather, the Confederate government had made it very clear in written proclamations that any white Union officer caught leading black troops would be considered leading a slave revolt, and summarily executed. Other than carrying the regimental flag, there was probably no more dangerous duty in the Civil War than being a white Union officer  leading black troops in combat. And they knew it. Yet they stayed, despite offers of transfers if they so chose. How many of the masked men who attack statues in the dead of night could have mustered even one iota of such courage or conviction to the cause of advancing racial justice?
Not to be outdone by their laughably foolish compatriots, another woke mob actually vandalized a monument to, ready for this one?&#8230;Frederick Douglass! Did any of these vandalizing buffoons even know who Douglass was? And why not? In their entire drift through our K-through-college graduate education system did they never learn of this extraordinary man who went from being a run-away slave to becoming the national face of abolition in the North? A man who met with presidents, governors, congressmen, and tirelessly, passionately lobbied for equal rights for his black brothers and sisters.  Indeed, the first black man to receive a vote for President at a major political party convention (Republican).  This man was, in fact, the absolutely antithetical embodiment of racism, then as well as now. They are like the peasants in Monty Python and the Holy Grail who, when presented with the evidence that the woman they’d captured was not a witch, nevertheless screamed, “Burn her anyway!” Yeah. Actually a part of me hopes that those fools who attacked the memory of Mr. Douglass had no idea who he was. Ignorance can be fixed with a few updated history texts and curricula. But if they did know him, and decided to burn him anyway then something much more seismic and existentially threatening to the very fabric of this nation is afoot. And it must be taken seriously.
Two generations of unrelenting and unchallenged leftist indoctrination in our schools, our universities, our media, our culture, have culminated in the scenes of brave African-American freedom fighters and a famous run-away-slave-turned-vocal abolitionist being attacked by people who claim to do so in their minority group’s name. There is something so unbelievable in this that one would think these stories ripped out of Babylon Bee or The Onion. If only.
Again, those in my college experienced the first red and itching lesions of the woke psoriasis now spreading across the body of this great nation back when The Chief became persona non grata…for giving offense to those no longer even here.
But not all is lost. Common sense does still sprout up here and there. Fortunately for the students of Florida State University, their Indian symbol, Chief Osceola, was allowed to live by the NCAA. Why? Because (get this now) the Seminole Tribe of Florida, who are still alive and well,  find nothing offensive about him. Who could have imagined that?
This does not mean that sensibilities, if wide-spread and reasonable, should be ignored. As I said, I do believe Confederate monuments fall under this category making them worthy of public re-examination and removal if it is so voted. And even where Native-Americans are concerned, are there some monikers that may be insulting?  Is the term “redskin” the equivalent of deeply offensive “darkie” in the eyes of Native-Americans?   After all, is it not often the Indian yin to the white man’s “paleface” yang? Polls are ambiguous, and one can find any to support the notion that it is or is not.  But in the realm of re-naming the Washington football team, especially one that represents our nation’s capital and thus all Americans in a way, maybe a compromise ought to be reached. My suggestion is to rename the team the Washington Red Tails, in honor of the Tuskegee Airmen, the all-black World War II fighter group who brazenly painted the tails of their aircraft scarlet to announce their presence before serving up a helping of pain stew to Hitler’s Luftwaffe. Not only does it honor a group that all Americans admire, but it even keeps the “Red” in the name. At least we can talk about it without burning down FedEx Field. 
That would be a rational approach. Indeed it would be a way to both honor our past, and celebrate our more diverse present. But rationality is the farthest thing from the mob’s mind. At first I would have called those who feel moral imperative to deface and destroy that which they do not understand, and do not care to, but just know that it offends them somehow, cry-babies. But that doesn’t give this new wave of social upheaval enough import, for it is much more of a threat to our national fiber than that. Any student of far-left or far-right revolutions, two sides of the same coin, whether they originated in Munich, Petrograd, or Beijing, knows the pattern.  The similarities in tactics and rhetoric between the fascism/communism of old, and the masked thuggery of today are eerie: public denunciations, cancelling out those they brand as enemies of the movement and ruining their lives, weaponizing the law in an uneven application to punish political adversaries, street violence, total disregard for the rule of law in order to achieve a new cultural Utopia. And those who have actually read a history book, which I can say with 99% confidence does not include the members of the woke mob, know that this pattern never ends well.  Nazism begat the Holocaust. Stalinism the Gulag.  Maoism the Cultural Revolution and Great Leap Forward. Throw in the Khmer Rouge for good measure and you have some pretty in-your-face lessons coming at you. But that is neither here nor there. There’s work to be done. A country to be erased and redrawn in the image of the many ‘isms’ that make up a faculty lounge lexicon.
So what was the canary in the coal mine of my university losing its mascot? What did Chief Illiniwek’s eradication portend? It showed that we have unleashed a wave of criminally uneducated, un-challenged children upon this land whose ignorance is matched only by their sense of absolute righteousness in their cause. And worse, those of us who managed to break free of the event horizon of the education and cultural indoctrination black hole are nevertheless left with a wariness to tread lightly and leave no offending footprints should someone, somewhere, with time on their hands and a Twitter mob at the ready, come a-calling. How can this but stifle healthy debate–which is the life-blood of a free people.
I may be labeled as racist for even expressing in an open forum these sentiments, but I’ll just call you an anti-German/Irish bigot and be on my way. Oh, and perhaps I’ll petition to ban any future airing of The Godfather for using the offensive term “Kraut-Mick.” Too bad if it’s your favorite movie. I have feelings to consider.
When I first pondered the Chief’s demise in 2007, I thought that maybe I was reading too much into what was then a novel p.c. wave. But now I know better. I see the anarchy across the land with its totalitarian proclivities as the demise of this nation should this dialogue-crippling and balkanizing movement continue. Thirteen years ago it targeted a venerated tradition at an island of learning in a sea of corn and soybeans that was doing no harm to anyone–save those who seek to re-create this country in their own narrow and paradoxically intolerant image. Now the dam has burst. And the wave has come to wash us all away.  But even in my last drowning breath I will defiantly cry out: LONG LIVE THE CHIEF!  And if this offends you, well, as Dennis Leary says: “Life’s tough.  Wear a helmet.”
Brad Schaeffer&#8217;s is a commodities trader and author.  His articles have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, New York Daily News, National Review, and others. His acclaimed World War Two novel <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Another-Time-Place-Brad-Schaeffer/dp/1682616630">Of Another Time And Place </a>[Post Hill/Simon &amp; Schuster, 2018] is available for purchase or kindle/audible download.
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The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Houston Cougars v Illinois Fighting Illini

SCHAEFFER: Chief Canary Of The Coal Mine

Education

Political Correctness

On Sept. 6, 1492, when Christopher Columbus’ flagship, the Santa Maria, with the smaller vessels Niña and Pinta in its wake, set sail from the Canary Islands in search of new lands, he embarked on a mission of discovery that the historian George Bancroft declared “the most memorable maritime enterprise in the history of the world.”  In this and his three subsequent expeditions over the course of a decade, he relentlessly explored and charted the Caribbean islands and on his final and, in many ways most daring, voyage in 1502, the mainland isthmus of Central America — setting the stage for the world-changing discoveries of Balboa and Magellan, who would soon follow his path. The importance of Columbus’ expeditions is not that he was “the first” European to set foot in the New World. Scholars agree that title most likely goes to the Norwegian explorer Leif Erikson who, while en route to Greenland from his home in Iceland sometime around A.D. 1001-1002, strayed off-course and instead landed on modern-day Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, where evidence of Viking settlements have been found. But the Norse, whatever their prowess as sailors, did not last as colonists and thus North America, and the Pacific Ocean beyond, remained unknown to Europeans for the next five hundred years. It would take the hazardous voyages of the Italian seaman Columbus and his crew, backed by the treasure of the Spanish court, to open up the New World and launch a decisive age, the effects of which are still shaping the modern world.
This image of the intrepid captain courageously braving the great unknown is, of course, not the way Columbus is often portrayed today. Instead, we see his statues being torn down by mobs for whom any moral purity begins with today’s sensibilities, as if this is some American version of Pol Pot’s Year Zero.  Columbus’ memorials have been vandalized, beheaded, and burned, much as superstitious villagers in the 13th century might have treated their local witch after a nasty wave of the smallpox. The ignorance on display is the same. One wonders how many of the masked nihilists in their obnoxious self-righteousness that only the unlearned can possess could even tell you the name of one of Columbus’ vessels, let alone the year in which he first set sail. (Something any first grader in my class could have told you.)
This is not to place Columbus on a pedestal higher than the height of the statue in the eponymous New York City circle. Clearly, the man was no saint and it does a service to history to humanize him…but he was no demon either. But that has not stopped our education system from utterly gutting this man’s reputation and presenting the entrails for ritual immolation upon the altar of P.C. wokeness. In my lifetime, just over a half-of-a-century, Columbus, the man for whom an entire country is named, has gone from being viewed as a noble explorer to a personification of the destruction of the indigenous Americans by Europeans bent on conquest, plunder, ecocide, and genocide. Now, he may not have been the most talented administrator as his brief stint running Hispaniola shows. But the picture that has been redrawn of him as a lascivious plunderer and murderer, one worthy of beheading in effigy, is off-sides. Russell Means, the late Native American activist, went so far as to attach the dreaded “H” word to him. “Columbus,” he seethed, “makes Hitler look like a juvenile delinquent.” Ouch! But such criminally ignorant histrionics bespeak more of emotional revisionism than they do a grounding in the historical record.
I&#8217;ve often wondered what is at the heart of this assault on Christopher Columbus’ memory for this was truly a man whose impact makes him one of the most important figures in history. I have a hunch that the drive to reshape him in an ugly light has to do as much with the context of his voyage as with its aftermath. And yet it is this very context that makes his voyages so immeasurably important to the very survival of the West itself. The oft-told story is that Columbus was seeking an all-water trade route to Asia. And that is true. But this prompts the question: why was an all-water route so vitally important in the first place? What forces were at work in the world to prompt this man to risk his reputation and even his life to sail into uncharted seas again and again in search of something that may or may not have existed?
In 1453, when Columbus was still a toddler, the Ottoman Turk armies under Mohammed II conquered the city-fortress of Constantinople, and extinguished the last vestiges of a Byzantine Empire that had lasted for a millennium. Despite – or perhaps because of – the courage of the last Emperor Constantine XI, who died in the breach of his city’s walls, the behavior of the Turks in the city was savage, even by the standards of the time. But more than just the calamitous loss of a city as the last expression of the West in Asia Minor, the closing of this gateway effectively cut Europe off from any direct access to Asia. Muslims now controlled all overland trade routes to the East, threatening all what was then called Christendom. Thus a new direct route was needed by necessity in order for trade to Asia to be safe from the Mohammedans who were busy washing the blood of thousands of innocents from their swords with the water of the Marmara Sea.
And so, in 1492, Columbus was on a mission to re-establish the West’s place as a global trader around the world. The Spanish Court, themselves having just defeated the last of the Muslim invaders at Granada that same year, were eager to do an end-run around their Eastern rivals. One wonders how much different the world would be today if the explorers from across the Atlantic who discovered the New World flew the crescent of Mohammed rather than the cross of Jesus, and with it carried the Western values that would shape the two continents. One certainly can guess that the protesters we see today in the streets of our cities, protected (to a point) by our Bill of Rights, courtesy of a Western legal and cultural inheritance, would not be so free to be so vocal — most certainly not the women — had a different brand of conquistadors who prostrated themselves before a different god laid claim to the New World.
I imagine that the progressive Left, with its unfriendly, often suicidally hostile view of Western culture, values, and traditions, would prefer we not be reminded by Columbus’ voyage that out of the undeniable violence and cruelties in his wake, as with the birth of so many great nations, a freer and more just world did, in fact, emerge over time; one that saw unprecedented advancements not just of technological and economic growth, but advancements in human dignity and civil rights. Especially courtesy of the most consequential nation to emerge as a direct result of Columbus’ voyages: the United States. The Declaration of Independence proclaimed that “all men are created equal.” The Emancipation Proclamation declared North America’s slaves were “henceforth and forever free.” And the Civil Rights movement a century later would see that real attempts to live out those lofty and morally superior ideals to any other potential colonizers’ should be matters of fact and law and not just noble aspirations.  No, for the nihilists attempting to justify their rampage, better to paint the unwashed Western bearded fiend in armor as the aggressor, the destroyer of the fantasy Eden that was pre-European America. This keeps the focus squarely where it belongs: on the sins of the West as represented in this preying man.
Actually, Columbus was not so much a preying man, as a praying man. And thus do we have another motivation for Columbus’ voyage that the education system has all but erased from the story. That is that Columbus was deeply religious, and he saw the New World as a place where more than just fortunes could be made. In describing his discovery to King Ferdinand of Spain, Columbus portrayed himself as a devout and sincere Christian who rejoiced in the souls that would be saved in this new land: “Let Christ rejoice on earth, as he rejoices in heaven, when he foresees coming to salvation so many souls of people hitherto lost.” Many of the islands Columbus discovered he named in homage to his Christian faith such as Trinidad (trinity), San Salvador (holy savior), Dominica (Sunday/“The Lord’s Day”), La Navidad (nativity/Christmas), Santa Cruz/St. Croix (holy cross), San Pedro (Saint Peter) and a host of others.
His sense of religious duty was very much apparent and so from its absolute beginning our nation’s narrative is one of a religiously rooted foundation. This is an uncomfortable idea for those whose religion seems to be secular wokeness, and thus must be stamped out. George Orwell said who controls the past controls the future, and who controls the present controls the past, and thus is it imperative for progressives to try and play down or even eliminate any reference to the role of religion in the genesis of this American “city upon a hill.” Again, this is part of the new Year Zero in America.
From academia, to pop culture, to media, the flow of information, the gateways to knowledge, are often manned by those who view our civilization in an unfavorable light and are blatantly contentious towards many expressions of our Judeo-Christian heritage. I do not deny their sincere empathy toward the indigenous people, many of whom suffered terribly at the hands of the conquistadors and colonists who followed in Columbus’ wake. But this tells only half the tale. As renowned author and law professor Dr. John Edsmoe points out, I do not lament the spread of Western civilization as reflected in “contributions to art, music, architecture, ethics, liberty, law, government, a Constitution that has served as a model across the world, an economic system that has produced the greatest good for the greatest number and the highest level of prosperity the world has ever known, and a spirit of ingenuity and achievement that led to unparalleled medical and technological advances.”
Still, if one wishes to see the memory of this incredibly brave and dedicated explorer and his world-changing voyage torn down, there are ways within the system of discourse and laws brought to the New World by Columbus’ descendants to achieve this. But the roving gangs prefer the Stalinist/Maoist approach: erase the man, like a one-time party insider now out-of-favor and deleted from old group photos. And if they in the process wish to demean Columbus in such a way as to unfairly paint him with the crimes of the conquistadors who followed and as a profiteer and racist, well, it’s a free country, isn’t it?  I guess the reaction to this viewpoint will tell me.
As for me, I will continue to honor this man, warts and all, who braved the uncharted realm not just for profit alone, but to spread the Gospel he fervently believed in as Truth, and Western traditions that have served us so well in the five-and-a-quarter centuries since he first set sail into the true unknown. To me, Columbus represents capitalism, Western exceptionalism, and faith in a higher power than ourselves. Indeed, he represents the best of us in some ways. Conversely, this man represents the worst of several worlds to certain segments of the nihilist, atheist mindset that have wormed their insidious way into the ranks of those who tell the story of who we were, and who we are, in the hopes of changing us into the secular grievance-driven and tribalist society that they believe we ought to be. They say to judge a man by his enemies as well as his friends. Given what I have seen of those who violently and with no regard for the law or even decency take Columbus to task without any sense of historical context, as well as their disdainful view of the values and traditions I hold dear, I will side with the man from Genoa and take on all comers.
Brad Schaeffer is a commodities trader and writer whose articles have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, New York Daily News, National Review, Celeb Magazine, Zerohedge, Frumforum, and other news outlets.  He is the author of the acclaimed World War II novel Of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Another-Time-Place-Brad-Schaeffer/dp/1682616630">Another Time And Place</a> (Post Hill/Simon &amp; Schuster, 2018).
More from Brad Schaeffer: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/schaeffer-united-states-exceptional-ask-japanese-brad-schaeffer">The United States IS Exceptional. Ask The Japanese.</a>
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Columbus Statue

SCHAEFFER: Christopher Columbus Deserves To Be Celebrated

Christopher Columbus

Controversies over both Kurita’s and Halsey’s conduct during the battle are the topics of military round-tables to this day.  It seems that with the passage of time their actions are being treated in a fairer reflection.  Kurita didn’t just “turn tail and skedaddle” as had been the popular narrative.  As we have seen it was more complicated than that. But perhaps a further explanation for Kurita’s failure might have to do with the overall Japanese military mindset at that time.  So geared toward the offensive, they seemed flummoxed when suddenly the tables were turned and they found themselves under merciless assaults, be they from Halsey’s marauding aircraft laying waste to the Sho-Go2 plan to Taffy 3’s ferocious destroyer and jeep carriers and combined Taffy air attacks.
MacArthur, the Allied general who understood the Japanese better than any other, told his officers once: “Never let the Jap attack you. When the Japanese soldier has a co-ordinated plan of attack he works smoothly.”  On the other hand, he added, “When he is attacked—when he doesn’t know what’s coming—it is not the same.”  Then they were vulnerable because of their very rigidity.  Their inability to imagine defeat made them often incapable of coping with setbacks.  He compared it to a clenched fist which, once it seizes something and closes, can never re-open.  Such a closed fist, he said, “is useless when the fighting turns to catch-as-catch-can wrestling.”
Halsey has his own critics.  Yet “Bull’s run” was certainly in line with Nimitz’s directive to destroy a major part of the Japanese fleet if given the opportunity, and not so reckless when one considers what he knew of the condition of Center Force at the time.   In fact, the phrase “The World Wonders” was most likely not from Nimitz at all.  It was standard practice to add nonsensical phrases as padding before and after messages to throw off Japanese listening in. The full message read:
<blockquote>TURKEY TROTS TO WATER GG FROM CINCPAC ACTION COM THIRD FLEET INFO COMINCH CTF SEVETY-SEVEN X WHERE IS RPT WHERE IS TASK FORCE THIRTY FOUR RR THE WORLD WONDERS”</blockquote>
The GG and RR meant the beginning and the end of the actual message. Unfortunately in this case the phrase seemed to make sense so it was kept on and handed to Halsey.  (One theory is that the radioman probably chose that random phrase in reference to Tennyson’s poem The Charge Of The Light Brigade as October 25 was the anniversary of the Battle of Balaclava, and in it is the line “All the world wondered.&#8221;  Who knows?)
If anyone should have been sore with Halsey it was MacArthur.  After all, it was his landings that were placed in jeopardy.  Yet the general remained a firm supporter of his favorite Navy man.  When after the battle at dinner some of MacArthur’s staff were harshly criticizing Halsey for his actions, MacArthur slammed a balled fist on the table and said: “That’s enough!  Leave the Bull alone!  He’s still a fighting admiral in my book.”
Final Thoughts
Why isn’t Leyte as well-known to the American public today as other Pacific battles such as Midway, Guadalcanal or Iwo Jima?  It’s difficult to say. Perhaps because by then large fights, both in the Pacific and Europe, were the norm, and the public was getting used to victories so it seemed less…dramatic. (Little did they know how close MacArthur’s landings came to disaster).  Perhaps war-weariness had set in.  It could be a by-product of the American public and media caring more about what went on in Europe than the Pacific.  Maybe it was just too complex and chaotic, as naval battles tend to be. They knew that something enormous happened out there, and that the U.S. Navy won big, but that was about it.   Also Hollywood seems more enamored with these other actions and so have cast Leyte into the bin of obscurity.  This is a shame.  It deserves better.   If we can (and should) celebrate the brave Spartans at Thermopylae, then forces like Taffy 3 deserve their own media homages.  Perhaps one day.
As for today, a new generation cannot be expected to know something their education system has never taught them.  It is imperative, indeed our duty as Americans, to make sure battles like Leyte Gulf are never forgotten for they serve to remind our children, and ourselves, of just what kind of country we were, and still can be.  It’s hard for us to imagine today, with our highly professional and efficient military machine, that the American armed forces during the Second World War were made up of mostly citizen-soldiers blended with a small cadre of professionals.  And yet what emerged to take on the Axis powers on three continents and four oceans was a military that was the equal to any in the world.  How could this be?
I think it has to do with believing in your cause, and thus being willing to give the last full measure for it.  This sublime devotion to something higher than the self was present on the fields of Bunker Hill, Gettysburg, Belleau Woods, Normandy, and in the Battle of Leyte Gulf.  In the aft turret of the shattered Samuel B. Roberts, for example, Gunner’s Mate 1stClass Paul Karr was found dying of agonizing intestinal wounds as he manned the five-inch gun which scored many hits on the Chokai.  His last act was to beg for help loading just one more round into the breach.
Totalitarian states have always underestimated democracies’ willingness to fight.  Japan was no different.  In the face of staggering odds, the U.S. Navy was victorious because the American sailors and pilots fought with a demoniacal fury that stunned the Japanese who no doubt believed, as Yamamoto had, that Americans were good at building things, but as a people were soft and decadent.  Clearly this was not the case.  Like their German counterparts, the Japanese, in the end, never quite understood their American foes…not until it was too late to save their navy from the bottom of the sea, their soldiers from dying in mass graves across the Pacific,  and their cities from utter annihilation.
If anything, we should teach World War II because we can learn something from the experiences of the Japanese and Germans who had the misfortune to face our grandfathers in battle.  The spirits of men like David McClintock, Earnest Evans, Ziggy Sprague, Jesse Oldendorf, David McCampbell, Bull Halsey, and the tens of thousands of intrepid seaman and fliers who made the stunning victory possible still dwell within our national character…if we let them.
It’s up to you and me to keep the faith.
Brad Schaeffer is the author of the acclaimed World War II novel <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07J1VJB12/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&amp;btkr=1">Of Another Time And Place</a>.

USA flag on green background

SCHAEFFER: The Battle Of Leyte Gulf: CONCLUSION – Controversies, Confusions, and Final Thoughts

The Battle of Leyte Gulf was one of the most ferocious, knock-down-drag-em-out engagements of the Second World War.   With the combatants ranging from tiny submarines and CVEs to the largest battleships and fleet carriers afloat as well as clouds of aircraft, the many engagements of October 23-26, 1944 combined to make up the largest naval battle in history, in terms of tonnage, scope, and personnel involved.  Roughly 280 ships of all types were engaged in some manner along with over 1,000 warplanes, surpassing Jutland; and unlike Jutland, which had been inconclusive, Leyte Gulf was a decisive American victory.   There were probably more vessels engaged at Salamis in 480 B.C.  However, considering an ancient Greek Trireme only displaced 70 tons whereas a U.S. Iowa-class battleship displaced 45,000 (Yamato-class 72,000) one can see why the superlative claims re: Leyte Gulf are justified.  Regardless, it was an enormous fight on the high seas, the likes of which will never be seen again.
When the mopping up and follow-up operations were over, at the cost of one light carrier, two escort carriers, two destroyers and one destroyer escort and 3,000 men, the U.S. Third and Seventh Fleets had erased one fleet carrier, three light carriers, three battleships, 10 cruisers, and 11 destroyers from the Imperial Navy’s order of battle.  Not to mention the loss of 15,000 brave Japanese officers, seamen, and pilots and over 300 aircraft of all types to add to the hundreds downed on the pre-invasion sweeps.  Japan’s carrier arm, which had seemed invincible just two and a half years before, had ceased to exist.  And her last ace in the hole, her powerful surface fleet, was smashed against the torpedoes and big guns of Olderndorf’s fleet in the Surigao Strait and then, most incredibly, Ziggy Sprague’s plucky little jeep carriers, destroyers, and destroyer escorts of Taffy 3 and the merciless Wildcats and Avengers of Thomas Sprague’s entire task group.
As a denouement, Kumano was eventually hunted down and discovered at Santa Cruz.  On November 20, attack planes from the Ticonderoga hit her with five torpedoes and four bombs and her long ordeal that began with the blast to her bow from the Johnston the month before was finally over, as were the lives of 500 of her crew.
The Japanese government dealt with the catastrophe in typical totalitarian fashion: as with the Formosa air battles they lied about it to the public. On October 26, Radio Tokyo broadcast that: “Japanese forces now have complete air and sea superiority on and around Leyte.”  But the Japanese High Command knew better.  Sho-Go had been a gamble that ended in an ignominious defeat which guaranteed that the Philippines would fall to the Americans. Navy Minister Yonai Misumasa told his captors after the war: “When you took the Philippines that was the end of our resources.”  Leyte was secured by late December, 1944.  The Americans suffered 15,000 casualties whereas the 45,000 Japanese defenders were wiped out.  Luzon was invaded in January 1945 and after a brilliant campaign of maneuver and parry was captured by March, although some Japanese held out in the mountains until August.  35,000 Americans were casualties, 8,500 dead.  Over 205,000 Japanese were KIA and another 5,000 POWs.  Considering the size of the battles, MacArthur’s casualties had been relatively light as he predicted…especially when compared to ETO campaigns of similar scale, such as Anzio, Normandy, the Hurtgen Forest and The Bulge.  Nimitz would lose more taking Iwo Jima and Okinawa.  But clearly the war was entering into an even more savage phase as the Japanese grew more desperate.
Sadly, MacArthur’s reconquest of the Philippines would be far bloodier for the people of the archipelago caught in the middle of the fighting than he ever imagined, as he underestimated the fanaticism and savagery of the cornered Japanese.  Once it became clear that MacArthur had outmaneuvered him and was poised to enter Manila, Gen. Yamashita declared it an open city, but 30,000 Japanese sailors remained to destroy port facilities.  They got drunk, turned violent, and instead decided to fight to the death for the Philippine capital while going on a blood-thirsty rampage against the civilian population to rival the Rape of Nanking.  For the first time in the Pacific War a major urban battle ensued. By the time the street-by-street, house-by-house fighting was over, most of Manila was aflame and in ruins, and over 100,000 innocent Filipinos had been murdered in cold blood by their enraged occupiers.  Of all the Allied cities in the Second World War, only Warsaw suffered more destruction.  After the war, an enraged MacArthur would charge the blameless Yamashita with a war crime over the sacking of the city, and in one of the American general’s darkest moments saw him hang for it.
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As the American B-29s began to burn out one city after another while her amphibious juggernaut continued to move closer to Japan, taking Iwo Jima in the Bonin Islands in February 1945 and then landing on Okinawa in the Ryukyus, just 250 miles from the home islands, on April 1, 1945, desperation replaced strategy and elaborate planning.  The Kamikazes first unleashed at Leyte grew in scope until one hundred plus-strong waves sortied out to hurl themselves at the U.S. Navy.  The death and destruction they caused was far worse than any inflicted by Japan’s mighty battleships.  And as for the mightiest battleship of them all, the Yamato would also die by suicide.  With only enough fuel to make it to Okinawa, she was sent on a mission to beach herself as an unsinkable gun emplacement and do as much damage as she could to the American landings until destroyed.  Instead she was intercepted by U.S. carrier planes on April 7, 1945 and hit by no fewer than 11 torpedoes and six bombs.  She rolled over and blew up in a spectacular explosion, joining her sister ship Musashiat the bottom of the Pacific with over 3,000 of her crew.
Although the formal Japanese surrender would not take place until September 2, 1945, the ultimate outcome of the war was decided at the Battle of Leyte Gulf.  Up to then, the Japanese leadership had hoped that even if it didn’t destroy the Americans, a punishing blow might compel them to come to the table and negotiate a settlement of hostilities on far more favorable terms than the “Unconditional Surrender” Roosevelt impetuously demanded of the Axis powers.  During October, 1944, in the waters off the Philippines, those hopes were dashed.  And Japan’s fate was sealed.
Brad Schaeffer is the author of the acclaimed World War II novel <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07J1VJB12/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&amp;btkr=1">Of Another Time And Place.</a>
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War Crimes Trials in the Philippines.

SCHAEFFER: The Battle Of Leyte Gulf: Part 13 – Aftermath

At the same time Kurita’s ships were just appearing over Taffy 3’s rainswept horizon, 400 nautical miles to the northeast a brilliant dawn was breaking over the waters of Cape Engaño.  It promised a clear day and good visibility.  Which for the Japanese carrier force, now empty of all but a few CAP aircraft, meant the day of reckoning was upon them.  Adm. Ozawa had no delusions.  “I expected the complete destruction of my fleet,” he later told U.S. interrogators.  “But if Kurita’s mission was carried out that was all I wished.”  By now the pursuing American fleet was barely 100 miles to the southwest.  At 0530 the Zuikaku went to battle stations.  The first American scout planes were spotted at 0713.  Ozawa knew this meant soon the attack would begin. At 0745 he ordered the fleet to prepare for air attacks.
The first wave of 80 blue U.S. Navy warplanes, led by the cigarette-smoking Dave McCampbell, arrived overhead at 0817.  The call went out. “Tally-ho…Carriers!”  What few remaining fighter interceptors Ozawa had left were quickly sent flaming into the sea.  His only defense would be anti-aircraft and maneuver.  At 0827 his batteries opened fire. American fliers recorded that the anti-aircraft was both heavy and disturbingly accurate.  The battleships were firing star shells from their main batteries and rockets came up at them as well as the usual small and medium caliber machine gun and cannon fire.  Avenger pilot Robert Barnes declared it “The most intense I’d ever seen. All ships were firing everything they had…Every ship you flew by was shooting at you.”  Lexington Avenger crewman John Underwood described the enemy gunfire as “awesome.”  Somehow, only eleven U.S. planes were knocked down this day.  It seems as if God had created the Battle of Leyte Gulf just to demonstrate once and for all the supremacy of air power in the modern naval age.
Over the next seven hours Ozawa and his task force would endure one attack after another, amounting to 527 sorties in five waves.  The first vessel to join Davey Jones’ locker was the destroyer Akitsuki when she rolled over at 0857.  Light cruiser Tama was hit with a torpedo but survived.  Light carrier Chitose was not so lucky.  Fliers from Essex sent her to the bottom with 900 hands, including her captain.  Light carrier Zuiho was also hit and dead in the water but excellent damage control soon had her running again.  The light carrier Chiyoda was crippled by Helldivers from Lexington and Franklin.  Then Ozawa’s flagship carrier Zuikaku was descended upon by forty Helldiver and ten Avengers.  Several 500-pound bombs and a torpedo ripped into her.  Although still alive, her radar was out, and Ozawa’s staff recommended he transfer his flag to the cruiser Oyodo.  Ozawa at first refused, saying he expected to lose his ships and so would go down with the carrier.  Eventually he was persuaded to come to his senses and made the transfer in between the second and third attack.
It was a fortunate move.  The third wave was over 200 aircraft and it overwhelmed Ozawa’s shrinking task force.  Zuikaku was pounced on by planes from Lexington and doomed.  She sank at 1615 that afternoon with 842 of her crew.  Light carrier Zuiho too was set upon by strike planes also flying off Lexington, as well as San Jacinto and Franklin.  She went under at 1515 with 215 crew, but 750 managed to get off the ship before she foundered.
The attacks would last until evening.  The already crippled light carrier Chiyoda was shelled to pieces when a force of pursuing U.S. surface ships caught up to her at 1615;  she slipped beneath the waves a half hour later with all hands. The last Japanese casualty was the destroyer Hatsuzuki, hit by a barrage from U.S. cruisers as the sun set and eventually sinking by 2100.  By the time night fell and Mitscher’s pilots and sailors were finished with the day’s work they would sink one carrier, three light carriers and two destroyers while crippling another light carrier and cruiser.  Especially satisfying to the Americans was sinking the Zuikaku, making Pearl Harbor’s revenge complete.
Cape Engaño had been another one-sided victory for the U.S. Navy.  But this battle was never intended to be anything but a shooting gallery for the Americans.  And the Decoy Force had lured Task Force 38 over some 400 nautical miles away from San Bernardino Strait.  Of all the Sho-Go1 commanders, one could say that Ozawa Jisaburo was the only one who successfully carried out his assignment.  It could have been worse for his now strung-out survivors limping back to Japan, but the last two waves were reduced in size…that was because Bull Halsey was steaming back toward Leyte with Task Force 34 and TG-38.2 in response to Kinkaid’s and finally Nimitz’s calls for help.
Even though the morning reports coming in from Mitscher’s attack planes were announcing what should have been a satisfying result, the mood in New Jersey’s plot room was dour. Due to a backlog of radio messages that were sent out in order received rather than by urgency, Halsey didn’t get the first transmission until over an hour after Kinkaid’s first message went out. But once they started coming in it was clear that something pretty serious was happening off San Bernardino Strait.  Kinkaid’s steady stream of ever more insistent pleas made clear that he was being attacked by the very force Halsey had written off the day before.  It was hard to believe.  Not until Nimitz’s “THE WORLD WONDERS” message was handed to him does it seem to have really sunk in that the Bull had been snookered.  The message may have insulted Halsey’s sensibilities—he cursed and threw his hat on the deck in a rage when he read it—but it got results.  He had no choice but to act.  At 1052 he ordered Lee to take Task Force 34 and Adm. Gerald Bogan’s TG-38.2 to head for Leyte.  They were on their way by 1115.  Halsey sulked in his cabin as his New Jersey sailed with the cavalry that would arrive by morning and too late to do any good but hear the tales of Oldendorf’s great surface battle and the ferocious Taffys and their miraculous stand against the giants.
Brad Schaeffer is the author of the acclaimed World War II novel <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07J1VJB12/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&amp;btkr=1">Of Another Time And Place.</a>
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U.S.S. New Jersey

SCHAEFFER: The Battle Of Leyte Gulf: Part 12 – Destruction Of The Decoy Force

Even as the damage to Taffy 3 mounted, the Japanese Goliath had failed to make quick work of the American David.  Quite the opposite.  The American destroyers and aircraft attacked with such vigor to the point of suicidal aggressiveness that Kurita’s warships found themselves twisting and turning to engage the tin cans while taking violent evasive action to skirt torpedoes.   As mentioned before, to avoid Hoel’s torpedoes Yamato had maneuvered in such a way as to be out of the fight, effectively blinding Kurita to the action.
Zooming Wildcats and Avengers now numbering over 200 aircraft from three Taffys crisscrossed the sky like angry bees, shooting, bombing, and rocketing every ship that passed through their gunsights. It must have been an incredible scene. A chaotic battle spread out over miles…a seascape panorama filled with plumes of oily black smoke climbing up into the humid air as the rains fall here and there, multi-colored geysers splashing high into the sky, aircraft twisting, turning, diving, ships pitching and rolling and reeling as their guns blaze, small caliber rounds making long splashes as if flaying the sea with a giant whip, all with the deafening roar of a desperate battle added.
As the morning wore on aircraft in numbers ranging from single planes to groups of 20 or more were launching, attacking, landing on whatever platform was available, refueling and rearming and launching again.  Many took off with no bombs just to buzz the enemy for effect.   In typical ad hoc American style, the CVE Manila Bay of Taffy 2 would eventually service 11 squadrons not assigned to her, and at one point her deck was occupied by aircraft from four different jeep carriers at once.  As the battle rolled on, the air attacks would become more coordinated and deadly, and play a vital role in the outcome of the action while showing that even little CVE’s could project disproportionate power against the largest and most heavily armed and armored surface ships afloat.
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The time was a little after 0900 and the battle was two hours old.  Kurita had been awake for 72 hours and was exhausted.  Although his battleships were not seriously damaged, the Battle off Samar had already cost him the heavy cruisers Chokai, Chikuma, and Suzuya sunk outright or soon scuttled, and three more damaged, Kumano being the worst with her lost bow courtesy of the Johnston.   And the air attacks were only getting worse.  When word came of U.S. aircraft landing aboard Leyte, Kurita took that as a prelude to their launching devastating attacks on his weakened flotilla. In actuality it was just Sprague getting them off what he thought were soon-to-be sunk carriers.  And due to confusion over what he was up against, out of contact with his fleet, and the unbelievable aggressiveness of the enemy, Kurita had lost tactical control of the battle.  He did eventually learn through signals from Ozawa that Halsey had sailed off, but this still had to be a major fleet confronting him.   The ferocity of the determined, concentrated attack from Taffy 3 and the losses they inflicted, plus the swarms of U.S. naval aircraft overhead, seemed to confirm this belief.
Furthermore, radio interceptors on land and in Ozawa’s fleet were picking up Kinkaid’s repeated calls for help and forwarding them to Yamato. Kurita believed they meant Halsey was already steaming towards the area, possibly moving to block his only escape through the San Bernardino Strait.  Also, and many historians overlook this factor when assessing Kurita’s decisions, due to the chasing and maneuvering at battle speeds, many of his ships were running low on precious fuel.  Kurita was starting to fear they may get into Leyte Gulf only to run out of gas before they could get out!  At 0915 Kurita ordered a withdraw to the north to take a breath and regroup.
Then came word that another carrier fleet was closing in from the north.  Kurita sailed that direction to investigate.  As it turned out it was a false report whose mysterious origin has never been clarified.  Whether an American ruse (doubtful) or more likely a mistake on the part of an incompetent radio team who never admitted their error, it served to further confuse the Japanese, while eating up time.  And then came word over the radio of the disaster at the Surigao strait. All alone and exposed, never really understanding the miniscule size of the fleet opposing him off Samar, Kurita decided it was time to save his fleet and make it back through the San Bernardino Strait before Halsey’s fast carriers got the range.
Against all odds, the Lilliputians had beat back Japan’s most powerful surface fleet assembled since Midway.  One can only imagine the feelings of relief and pride when Ziggy Sprague heard one of his sailors cry out: “Dammit, boys, they’re getting away!”
But Taffy 3’s ordeal wasn’t yet over.  Later that morning, the first organized unit of Kamikaze attack planes made their debut appearance of the war.  Launched from airbases on Luzon, they did as much damage to the jeep carriers as did the battlewagons’ shells.  Every CVE except Fanshaw Bay was damaged.  St. Lo, just renamed in honor of the men fighting at Normandy, was hit and sunk, killing 143…the first of many victims of Japan’s “Divine Wind” attacks that would just grow more numerous and desperate as the war progressed. In a fitting illustration of the three-dimensional nature of the battle, four of St. Lo’s pilots found themselves orphaned and landed on one of the newly hacked-out landing strips at Dulag on Leyte.  The fliers were promptly handed carbines and assigned a foxhole from which they would help repel a Japanese infantry attack.
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“I had expected to be swimming,” confided Ziggy Sprague after the Battle off Samar.  Instead he and his brave Taffy 3 seamen stood at their stations and watched, first in disbelief, then relief, then jubilation as the Japanese vessels, many leaking oil and belching smoke from their wounds, disappeared back over the horizon from whence they’d so suddenly appeared that same morning.  For many, though, the ordeal was just beginning.   Over the next several days, more than 1,000 exhausted Taffy survivors, and many Japanese as well, some suffering burns and open wounds, others covered in oil, all dehydrated, would have to endure the terrors and anxieties of bobbing in a shark-infested ocean before being rescued.  Some never were.  Such was the price of war.
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<div class="image"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-90975" src="https://editorial.dailywire.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/LeyteGulfBattlesOverview-218x300.jpeg" alt="" width="218" height="300" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/02/LeyteGulfBattlesOverview-218x300.jpeg 218w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/02/LeyteGulfBattlesOverview-419x576.jpeg 419w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/02/LeyteGulfBattlesOverview-768x1056.jpeg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/02/LeyteGulfBattlesOverview.jpeg 850w" sizes="(max-width: 218px) 100vw, 218px" /></div>
Brad Schaeffer is the author of the acclaimed World War II novel <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07J1VJB12/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&amp;btkr=1">Of Another Time And Place.</a>
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Japanese Suicide Plane Plummets Into Sea

SCHAEFFER: The Battle Of Leyte Gulf: Part 11 – Kurita Calls It Quits

Two of Taffy 3’s destroyers, Hoel and Heerman, moved in to shield the withdrawing carriers with smoke.  But the third Fletcher-class vessel, Johnston, skippered by Lt. Cmdr. Earnest E. Evans, faced with enemy ships whose gun turrets weighed more than his entire destroyer, didn’t bother to wait for orders; he turned his ship around and at flank speed charged straight at the Japanese behemoths.
Evans, who was three-fourths Cherokee and nicknamed “Chief,&#8221; knew his ten torpedoes offered the best chance to do serious damage. This meant he had to close the distance to within five miles…but that almost at point-blank range of the enemy’s big guns.  He went in anyway.  It was, as historian Jonathan Parshall called it, “an act of bravery that almost beggars the imagination.”  Inspired by Evans’ example. Ziggy Sprague then ordered Hoel and Heermann to join the already charging Johnston with the command “Small boys, attack!” Amidst a deluge of screaming shells coming at him, Lt. Cmdr. Evans ordered his crew to chase splashes in a gamble the enemy gunners wouldn’t target the same spot twice while the destroyer plowed ahead to close the range.
Having somehow survived its suicide run in, the Johnston  launched a spread of ten torpedoes at the cruiser Kumano and then peeled off to open the range while making smoke.  At least two fish slammed into the target, tearing the bow right off the Japanese warship.  Amazingly, first blood had been drawn by the Americans.  The heavy cruiser Suzuya slid beside the wounded Kumano to assist.  She made an easy target and was soon set upon by an Avenger whose torpedo took out one of her propellers.  Later up to 30 bombers would come down on her as she tried to escape at reduced speed. A near-miss detonated one of her torpedoes and she eventually sank at 1322 that day.  Cmdr. Evans’ little tin can was responsible for taking two heavy cruisers out of the fight.
The Johnston’s brazen attack, and the damage she inflicted, further convinced Kurita that he was up against a force of fleet carriers and heavy warships.  No way a mere destroyer would be so bold or take out a capital ship like that.   At 0730, Johnston’s luck ran out.  As if swatting away a pesky fly, the battleship Kongo hit the fleeing tin can with three 14-inch shells, followed by three 6.1-inch shells from Yamato.  Although the damage from Kongo’s big guns was severe, one would expect a salvo of such power to blow a destroyer to pieces.  But luck was on Taffy 3’s side as the Japanese gunners were making a mistake. They were firing armor-piercing rather than high explosive rounds from their main guns.
Essential armament when engaging thickly armored battleships and cruisers, the shells were often passing right through the smaller, thin-skinned American vessels before exploding, paradoxically inflicting less damage than would be expected.  The Yamato’s smaller caliber secondary guns by contrast made a complete slaughterhouse of the Johnston’s bridge and splinters scythed down many on deck. Capt. Evans was severely wounded. Although badly damaged, she wasn’t blown apart and so the Johnston still had some fight left in her even as Yamato was dutifully recording the sinking of a “cruiser.”
At 0730 Hoel was next to be pummeled, also taken under fire by Kongo’s main batteries. Hoel, taking several hits, managed to launch half her torpedoes at Yamato before racing for the cover of another rain squall.  She didn’t make it.  After firing her spread the destroyer was blasted with high caliber shells and disabled. At 0855  Hoel rolled over and sank; only 80 of her 235 crew survived.  Her skipper, Cmdr. Leon Kintberger, would lament: &#8220;Fully cognizant of the inevitable result of engaging such vastly superior forces, these men performed their assigned duties coolly and efficiently until their ship was shot from under them.&#8221;  She was the first American ship to go under.  But her torpedoes, even though missing Yamato, had a profound impact on the tactical situation.  The superbattleship’s skipper, Adm. Ugaki (to whom Kurita had turned over the helm), turned away from Hoel’s torpedoes rather than toward them to make a smaller target.  By the time the threat passed, Yamato, and thus Kurita, had steamed so far away from the action that Kurita couldn’t discern what was happening.  Yamato launched a float plane to try and see what was what, but with predictable results in a sky filled with U.S. Wildcats.  It was shot down in minutes, so Kurita had to wait for Yamato to come about and catch up with the rest of Center Force, adding to the chaos.
Following the Hoel, the Heermann made her own torpedo run at the Haruna while exchanging gunfire with Chikuma.  Heermann’s skipper, Cmdr. Amos Hathaway, turned to his officer of the deck, Lt. “Buck” Newsome, and said: “Buck, we need a bugler to sound the charge!” There’s dispute as to whether his fish found their marks, but no doubt the destroyer caused consternation among the Japanese while drawing fire away from the jeep carriers.  She continued to engage one heavy ship after another like a mongoose tormenting a pride of flailing lions.   Heermann also proved to be a lucky ship.  Despite being targeted by many enemy guns from all sides, Hathaway’s violent maneuvering avoided hits; he was awarded the Navy Cross for his cool under fire.
Amazingly, the little 1,250-ton escort destroyer Samuel B. Roberts now joined the fray.  With only two five-inch guns and three torpedoes, her skipper, Lt. Cmdr. Robert Copeland, announced to the crew: “This will be a fight against overwhelming odds, from which survival cannot be expected. We will do what damage we can.” Under cover of smoke and rain, she headed straight for the cruiser Chokai. As she passed the mangled Johnston limping back from her attack on the Kumano, sailors aboard the Roberts saw Lt. Cmdr. Evans on Johnston’s bridge directing damage control.  The wounded Evans turned and saluted the Roberts as she went in.  The Roberts let loose three torpedoes, one of which blew a hole in Chokai. For the next hour, this tiny vessel designed for anti-submarine duty, not for exchanging broadsides with cruisers and battleships 10 to 30 times her size, expended over 600 rounds of five-inch shells, setting the cruiser Chikuma’s bridge afire.  The Roberts was so close in among the enemy that  several of the Japanese ships’ main batteries couldn’t depress their aim low enough to hit her and their shells passed overhead.  But then Kongo got the range and blasted this little destroyer escort with 14-inch shells, sending her to the bottom with 90 of her brave crew.  Copeland survived and was also awarded the Navy Cross for his incredible actions that day.  And the Roberts would thence forth be remembered in Navy lore as “the destroyer escort that fought like a battleship.”
By now the rest of the destroyer escorts, Dennis, John C. Butler, and Raymond, were in the fight launching torpedoes and firing at any Japanese ship they saw no matter how big, while the little jeep carriers were sailing southeast as fast as their underpowered engines could take them.  Ziggy Sprague figured that if Taffy 3 was in the Japanese sights then at least he could lure them away from the beaches and buy time for whatever warships were on the way either from Kinkaid or Halsey.  Fearing the worst, he’d ordered his aircraft should make for the fresh land bases on Leyte or the CVEs of the other Taffys.
Moving out from the squall they were well within range of Kurita’s heavy guns and were taking hits.  At 0750 the CVEs Kalinin Bay and White Plains were smashed by shells.  By 0810 the burning Gambier Bay was dead in the water and foundering.   (The Nagato’s log recorded the sinking of an “Independence-class light carrier.&#8221;)   When Kurita’s destroyers raced in to make a torpedo run, once again the mauled but still defiant Johnston moved out front to engage with the two five-inch guns she had left and fought so hard she threw off their aim, sparing the jeep carriers. But this was it for Johnston and her brave crew.  She was torn apart by a fusillade of large-caliber shells fired from five surrounding enemy ships and at 0945 Evans gave the order to abandon ship.  At 1010 the Johnston went under, taking 186 of her crew to the bottom.  Although he went over the rail with his men, Evans, possibly succumbing to his wounds while in the shark-infested waters, was never seen again; he was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.
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Throughout the chaotic morning, Kinkaid had been sending urgent messages to Halsey requesting immediate support.  One message shortly after 0800, sent in plain language, read: &#8220;My situation is critical. Fast battleships and support by air strikes may be able to keep enemy from destroying CVES and entering Leyte.&#8221;   Then at 0822, Kinkaid radioed: &#8220;Fast Battleships are Urgently Needed Immediately at Leyte Gulf&#8221;.  Another at 0905 pleaded: “Need Fast Battleships and Air Support.”  Then at 1005: “Who is guarding San Bernardino Strait?”   Meanwhile, at Pearl Harbor 3,000 miles away, Nimitz, reading these same distress calls with growing concern, sent out his own message whose acerbic tone would sting Halsey to the core: “Where is, repeat where is Task Force Thirty-Four?  The world wonders.”  Fuming at the terse rebuke, Halsey ordered his fast battleships and some carriers to disengage from Ozawa’s force and head for Leyte, although by then he was so out of position there was no way he could get there in time to help.  Taffy 3, indeed all of TG 77.4, and the beaches of Leyte, were on their own for now.
Brad Schaeffer is the author of the acclaimed World War II novel <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07J1VJB12/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&amp;btkr=1">Of Another Time And Place.</a>
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Nimitz

SCHAEFFER: The Battle Of Leyte Gulf: Part 10 – ‘Charge Of The Tin Cans’

Between 1941 and 1945, the United States built 78 escort carriers.  These vessels, known as “jeep carriers,” were designed for, as the designation suggests, escorting convoys and supporting landing zones by providing air cover.  Several variants were built but a typical escort carrier displaced 7,800 tons, was a little over 500 feet long, 65 feet wide, and had a top speed of just 18 knots.  It could accommodate up to 28 aircraft.  Unlike Halsey’s fleet and light carriers, the escorts had no armor below decks.  Their designation was CVE, which the crews quipped stood for “Combustible, Vulnerable, Expendable.”  The 18 jeep carriers in Adm. Kinkaid’s Seventh Fleet, all concentrated in Thomas Sprague’s TG-77.4, were armed with 235 older model F4F Wildcat fighters and 143 Avenger torpedo bombers…about the strength of one of Halsey’s carrier groups.  TG-77.4 was further subdivided into three groups call signed “Taffy.&#8221;   Taffy 3, 2, and 1 were arrayed north-to-south respectively in the waters outside the gulf some 10-20 miles apart and equidistant to the island land battle they supported.
At dawn on October 25, 1944, with a stiff morning breeze and wisps of rain as the only disturbance on deck, the sailors and airmen of Taffy 3’s jeep carriers went about their routine preparations to support the Army land forces fighting on Leyte.  If they expected to see any ships at all other than their own, it would have been elements of Task Force 34 which was supposedly out there guarding the San Bernardino Strait.  This all changed when at 0647 some twenty miles to the north, Ens. Bill Brooks flying an Avenger of the CVE St.Loon anti-submarine patrol suddenly beheld a sight that took is breath away.  He quickly reported back to the fleet what he saw: a substantial force of enemy warships was steaming down the east coast of Samar and closing fast on Taffy 3.  At first his report was greeted with incredulity until he insisted: “I can see the biggest meatball flag on the biggest battleship I ever saw!”
With Oldendorf’s battleships and cruisers giving chase to the enemy fleet to the south, Adm. Sprague’s task group was hopelessly out-gunned.   Taffy 3 that was about to bear the brunt of Kurita’s attack only had six jeep carriers, three destroyers and four smaller destroyer escorts.  None of them mounted more than five-inch guns, whereas Yamato with her nine 18.1-inchers carried the heaviest armament ever put to sea.  In fact, Yamato displaced more tonnage than all of Taffy 3’s ships combined! And she was one of several battleships and cruisers just twenty miles away.  It was a mismatch of mythic proportions.
Almost simultaneous with the scout plane’s report, the lookouts on Taffy 3’s jeep carriers spied the unmistakable pagoda-like masts of Japanese warships on the horizon.  Commanding Taffy 3 was Rear Adm. Clifton “Ziggy” Sprague (no relation to the task group commander) aboard his flagship CVE Fanshaw Bay.   Sprague reacted with complete presence of mind.  He immediately ordered his carriers to scramble all their aircraft and head east for the cover of a nearby rain squall.  Every ship was to make smoke to obscure the carriers.
Meanwhile Kurita ordered Center Force to “Close And Attack Enemy Carriers!”  without forming a cohesive line of battle, compelling them to steam pell-mell for the Americans.  Although he would later be criticized for this rash command, one can understand Kurita’s decision here.  It is tempting now, with the omniscience of the historian, to discount the fog of battle.  No one in Center Force had ever confronted jeep carriers before.  As far as Kurita or anyone else could tell from 20 miles out, the flat tops were the only kind they knew, which were the large and fast fleet and light carriers.  So that was what they had to be.
And therefore, going by scale, he mistook the destroyers for battleships and destroyer escorts for cruisers.  Had Kurita paused to move his ships into line, those fast carriers (so he thought) which were capable of over 30 knots, a full 12 knots faster than the CVEs he’d never seen, and very far out could have just gunned it and slid away. Still, amidst the consternation, the odds were heavily in Center Force’s favor.  At just before 0700, at a range of 19 miles, the big guns of Yamato opened up on Taffy 3.  The rest of Kurita’s warships followed suit, as announced by the sinister howl of large-caliber projectiles ripping through the air.
 The incoming shells hitting the water followed by enormous geysers marched ever closer to the fleeing jeep carriers.  The Japanese shells were loaded with dye packs making splashes of many colors, pink, red, purple, blue, green and yellow so each ship could identify where its rounds were falling.  This prompted one seaman aboard the CVE White Plains to exclaim “They’re shooting at us in technicolor!”  One round, possibly from Yamato, just missed the jeep carrier, but the concussion of the blast damaged her enough to make thick black smoke prompting the Japanese to think they’d sunk her, granting her a reprieve.
Realizing the gravity of the situation, Ziggy Sprague sent out an urgent plea for help.  Task group commander Thomas Sprague ordered Taffys 1 and 2 to join Taffy 3 in launching aircraft.  As there were no Japanese fighters to contend with, the American fliers in their Wildcats and Avengers, armed for whatever missions they’d been assigned that day, furiously engaged the enemy ships, dropping bombs, depth charges, torpedoes, firing rockets, and strafing top-side.  The only thing for Taffy 3’s jeep carriers to do now was make a run for the squall at flank speed.  By 0715 the carriers were under the cloudburst and, for the moment, enjoying a stay of execution as the Japanese optics couldn’t see through the rain. (Only Yamatohad radar range-finding).  But they had to keep moving, and once out from under the rain they would be easy prey.  Ziggy Sprague fully expected to see Taffy 3 obliterated.
And then something happened that defies the imagination.
Brad Schaeffer is the author of the acclaimed World War II novel <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07J1VJB12/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&amp;btkr=1">Of Another Time And Place.</a>
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Screen Shot 2020-02-26 at 9.56.51 PM

SCHAEFFER: The Battle Of Leyte Gulf: Part 9 – ‘The Biggest Battleship I Ever Saw!’

Naval colleges will debate this series of events until the end of time, but the question surely the readers must be asking is why Halsey would take his entire Task Force 38 and leave the vital San Bernardino Strait wide open.  And how could Kinkaid and Nimitz give him leave to do so … especially Kinkaid, whose own heavy battleships were in the southern approaches to the beachhead finishing off Nishimura’s decimated column, thus leaving the invasion fleet vulnerable should the Japanese suddenly come chugging through the straight and get among his escort carriers and transports; something that was about to happen.
Part of the blame can be placed on the divided command structure.  Communication between Seventh and Third Fleet, being under MacArthur’s and Nimitz’s commands respectively, were indirect.  Thus much ascertaining of the others’ movements and intentions were gleaned from listening in to radio chatter.  In the early afternoon, suspecting that Japanese carriers were in the area, Halsey had drawn up plans to carve out a task force built around his fast battleships and one carrier group to remain near San Bernardino Strait should he head away from Leyte in pursuit of any carriers that popped up to the north.
It would be called Task Force 34 under battleship driver Rear Adm. Willis “Ching” Lee. The concept of the contingency plan was sent to Nimitz in Pearl Harbor and Kinkaid’s radiomen listening in also picked up the instructions.  What no one realized though was that for Halsey this was just housekeeping, preparations in case he decided on this approach, which he hadn’t.  And later when Halsey sent a message that he was, in fact, going after the enemy carrier force “with three groups” both Nimitz and Kinkaid listening in took this to mean three groups less the fast battleships.  And from this they further inferred that Lee’s remaining battleships would be positioned astride the San Bernardino Strait to cork the northern entrance to Leyte Gulf.  Eventually Halsey would activate Task Force 34…but they, too, would be headed north, away from the real threat bearing down from the west.
Why wouldn’t Halsey opt to leave behind Task Force 34 as a precaution regardless?  The Bull had three choices that day: 1) Ignore the carriers and stay close to Leyte, which would not only ignore a grand prize, but possibly even violate Nimitz’s directive; 2) Attack with his carrier fleet and escorts while leaving Lee and his fast battleships to cover Kinkaid’s Seventh Fleet.  This would have diluted Halsey’s forces, and deprived his own carriers of much needed anti-aircraft support as well as guard against the surface ships reported to be with the Japanese carrier force; 3) Attack with all he had and destroy any remaining threat of IJN carrier air power in the war once and for all.
We must remember that Halsey was under the impression that Kurita had taken a serious pounding and was slinking away to the west.  Furthermore, according to the admiral’s later reflections, even those enemy ships that were still afloat had to have taken serious topside damage from the bombs and strafing attacks, especially to gunnery and fire control. To Halsey option number three made the most sense.  And off he went, in what would be known pejoratively as “Bull’s Run.&#8221;
The next morning, Halsey’s fliers would begin their systematic mauling of Ozawa’s empty carriers. And in so doing, would leave the door wide open for the real threat.
#
At midnight October 25, 1944, Kurita’s Center Force, having made their turn-around, left the Sibuyan Sea behind and sailed back easterly into San Bernardino Strait.  They were not unnoticed.  A special night reconnaissance aircraft from Independence shadowed them as they entered the channel.  The impending danger was reported up the chain to the New Jersey but for reasons too detailed and convoluted for our format, they were effectively ignored.
On board Lexington, Burke and another officer, Cmdr. James Flatley, were sufficiently alarmed by the news to wake Mitscher who asked, “Does Halsey have this report?”  When they said he did, Mitscher went back to sleep.  Vice Adm. Lee in command of Task Force 34, also suspecting they might be sailing into a ruse, alerted the New Jersey as well of his suspicions.  His concerns too were ignored.  As such, not even an American canoe was present to block the Japanese passage into Leyte Gulf.
It was an astounding piece of good fortune that to Kurita must have made the anguish his armada had suffered at the hands of U.S. aircraft and submarines up to this point all worthwhile.   Every hour that passed he got closer to Leyte Gulf where the defenseless U.S. transports and support craft jam packed on the beaches would be at his mercy. Although due to communications issues he hadn’t heard from Ozawa, which would become problematic as events would show, it was apparent that wherever Halsey’s ships were, they were not blocking the strait.  Sho-Go1 was on the verge of a victory to rival Tsushima.
This was the moment Toyoda had been dreaming of since the Philippine Sea fiasco.  This would be the day the setting sun rose again.  By 0300 on October 25, an unmolested Center Force had passed through the San Bernardino Strait and turned south following the coast of the island of Samar.  Only a thin screen of Adm. Sprague’s TG-77.4 with its little escort carriers and “tin can” destroyers and destroyer escorts stood between the big guns of Kurita’s four battleships and twice as many cruisers and the beaches of Leyte.  The fox was among the chickens.  Vice Adm. Kusaka Ryunosuke recalled that when the news of Kurita’s successful passage reached Combined Fleet Headquarters on Formosa, the staff was so overjoyed “they almost stood on their heads.”  Banzai!   
Brad Schaeffer is the author of the acclaimed World War II novel <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07J1VJB12/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&amp;btkr=1">Of Another Time And Place</a>.
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United States Navy Battleship Carrier USS Lexington

SCHAEFFER: The Battle Of Leyte Gulf: Part 8 – ‘Bull’s Run’

Kurita’s wasn’t the only enemy armada coming at the Americans that day.  While Halsey had mistakenly written off Center Force as all but neutralized, it was becoming quite clear to Kinkaid that another threat was heading towards Leyte Gulf from the south.  This was the two surface fleets coming to fulfill their Sho-Go1 mission as the second pincer.  The first, Adm. Nishimura’s Southern Force,  was made up of the old battleships Yamashiro flying Nishimura’s flag, and Fuso, the heavy cruiser Mogami and four destroyers.
Fifty miles behind, Adm. Shima’s Second Strike Force, consisted of the heavy cruisers Nachi (Shima’s flagship) and Ashigara, the light cruiser Abukuma and four destroyers.   Southern force had left Brunei on the afternoon ofOctober 22 , turning eastward into the Sulu Sea and then northeasterly past the southern tip of Negros Island into the Mindanao Sea.  Nishimura then proceeded northeastward with Mindanao Islandto starboard and into the south entrance to the Surigao Strait.  Nishimura was frustrated as he paced the bridge of Yamashiro. Due to radio silence he was unable to coordinate with Center Force or the Second Strike Force.   When he entered the strait at 0200, Kurita was still navigating the San Bernardino Strait and Shima was a full 26 miles astern.
Unlike Kurita’s flotilla, whose whereabouts and intentions were unclear, Kinkaid’s scouts knew the exact location of Sho-Go1’s southern pincer, having tracked it since it weighed anchor, and where it was headed.  The Japanese were making for the Surigao Strait between Leyte and Linagat islands.   Alerted to the impending danger, TG-77.2 Commander Rear Adm. Jesse Oldendorf on board the cruiser Louisville saw a golden opportunity.   If the Japanese attacked in line up the straight, he could position his older but still powerful battleships and cruisers perpendicular to their path and bottle up the entrance into Leyte Gulf.
This presented Oldendorf with the chance to achieve the highest tactical aspiration of any naval commander in a sea action.  He could “cross the T” in front of the enemy ships, which would allow him to bring all of his guns to bear in broadsides against an enemy that could only present its bow.  By the time the Japanese could maneuver into a line parallel with the opposing line of battle it would be too late.
As Southern Force entered Surigao Strait Oldendorf was making painstaking preparations to meet it.    Darkness would prevent the use of aircraft, so it would be an old-fashioned sea action. The rear admiral ordered his forces to take up positions across the northern end of the strait and make ready to engage  the enemy.
Starting at 2200 PT boats began harassing Nishimura’s column.  The speedy attack boats scored no torpedo hits and one of their own was blasted by the angry Japanese, but they were able to give Oldendorf accurate and timely updates of the enemy’s progress up the narrows. The Americans were arranged east-to-west in a line of battle with six battleships and a six-destroyer screen behind them to guard against submarines, plus eight cruisers ahead of them and more destroyers in front of the cruisers.  Destroyers, battleships, cruisers, destroyers.  It was an imposing line, well-positioned for maximum firepower. Five of Oldendorf’s six battleships, West Virginia, Maryland, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, and California had been either badly damaged or even sunk at Pearl Harbor, only to be salvaged, repaired, re-fitted and sent back out to sea.
At 0300 Oldendorf sent his two squads of U.S. and Australian destroyers racing down the strait to come up on either side of Nishimura’s approaching line of warships.  This time the torpedoes struck home with devastating results.  First to take hits was the battleship Fuso which was rocked by a spread fired from the USS Melvin and soon fell out of formation mortally wounded.  Then she suffered a catastrophic explosion, rolled over, and sank at 0400.  The battleship Yamashiro was hit as well, but she managed to steam on.  Two of Nishimura’s destroyers were also sent to the bottom and a third fell out of the column only to be sunk later.
Before he even had a chance to engage the waiting American cruisers and battleships Nishimura had lost three-fourths of his striking power.  At 0316 the West Virginia’s radar picked up the enemy column’s survivors at a range of 42,000 yards out.  While the destroyers were making their torpedo attacks, Oldendorf’s battle line and flanking cruisers waited for Nishimura’s group to come within range.  Explosions from the torpedo hits, along with the eruption of Fuso, were visible to anyone topside on any of the cruisers or battleships.
At 0345 Southern Force came into range and the big guns of the U.S. battleships and cruisers roared hurling shell after shell into the hapless Japanese column.  West Virginia’s first salvo of 16-inch armor-piercing rounds slammed into Yamashiro, exploding within the hull and effectively crippling the ship.  Mogami was also pounded from the front courtesy of the battleships and the sides as she was raked by Oldendorf’s flanking cruisers. The night sky was lit up like a lightning and thunderstorm brought down to sea level as the U.S. warships made quick work of Southern Force.  Off the coast of Leyte, Allied sailors aboard support vessels were too far away to see or hear the battle, but they did see the flashes of gunfire reflected in the clouds. They could tell that “one hell of a shootin’ match” was taking place.
At 0400 the destroyer Bennion raced in to launch torpedoes at Yamashiro. One struck its target, blasting a hole in her side.  The Japanese battleship abruptly rolled over and sank fifteen minutes later, taking Adm. Nishimura with her to the bottom of the strait that had become his Southern Force’s deathtrap.  Mogamiwas pounded by a typhoon of  shells and haplessly tried to return fire in all directions in confusion. Unable to withstand the bombardment, the wounded cruisersoon reversed course and along with the sole surviving destroyer Shigure, fled back down the Surigao Strait.  The Mississippi let fly the last battlewagon broadside ever to be fired in anger at an opposing enemy ship of the line.
The Second Strike Force steaming up the strait soon came upon the two remnants of Nishimura’s group limping back the other way and, realizing what was waiting for them, at 0425 Shima recalled his destroyer screen and ordered a general withdrawal back to the Sulu Sea.  All of her destroyers made it out safely, with only the cruiser Abukuma taking one torpedo hit from a PT boat.  In the confusion Nachi collided with Mogami, tearing off Nachi’s bow while causing flooding to the already ravaged Mogami and compelling her to fall behind.  Mogami would be finished off by U.S. carrier planes in the morning.  The limping Abukumas uccumbed to Army B-24 Liberators that same day.
The southern attack on Surigao Strait which resulted in the last battleship-to-battleship exchange of broadsides in naval history had ended in disaster for the Japanese.  Adm. Nishimura was dead and every vessel in his Southern Force except the lone destroyer Shigure would eventually be lost.  In the coming days Shima’s vessels would fall under relentless air attacks from Kinkaid’s carriers, which sent flights of “Grummans” as the Japanese called them to harass the fleeing convoy.  The hunt continued throughout the next few weeks; on November 5, Third Fleet carrier planes finally found Nachiin Manila Bay and sent her to the bottom.
The southern pincer of Sho-Go1 proved to be no threat at all.  The same, however, could not be said for Kurita’s Center Force, which was sailing through the San Bernardino Strait without incident.  Very soon the Americans would face a looming disaster of their own.  One that was largely of their own making.
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Brad Schaeffer is the author of the acclaimed World War II novel <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07J1VJB12/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&amp;btkr=1">Of Another Time And Place</a>.
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War Ship in the Waters

SCHAEFFER: The Battle Of Leyte Gulf: Part 7 – Massacre At The Surigao Strait

Vice Adm. Ozawa Jisaburo stood an imposing six-foot-seven inches and had a taut face that showed the years of strain at being at the forefront of naval combat throughout the war. His stony countenance earned him the nickname “The Gargoyle.&#8221;  He was, along with the deceased admirals Yamamoto Isoruku (shot down over the Solomons) and Yamaguchi Tamon (who went down with his carrier Hiryu at Midway), perhaps the most respected sailor in the Combined Fleet.  He’d commanded naval forces in the South China Sea, and then at the Philippine Sea.
Now stooped in the bridge of his flagship, the fleet carrier Zuikaku—the only carrier from the original Pearl Harbor attack force still afloat—he must have felt both anguish and resignation at what he knew the next few days would bring. Having sailed from Japan and shadowed Halsey’s task force as it left Formosan waters, his Decoy Force (technically Third Mobile Fleet) was now cruising in an area of sea called Cape Engaño off the northeast tip of Luzon.   Although the highest ranking admiral in the Sho-Go1 operation, Ozawa had accepted this selfless role for the better good of Japan.  He would knowingly sacrifice his mobile fleet by luring Halsey’s fast battleships and carriers away from the waters off Leyte, clearing a path for Kurita’s Center Force.
By 1130 on October 24 First Air Fleet and Ozawa’s scouts had located Halsey’s fleet east of Luzon as they were attacking Kurita in the Sibuyan Sea.  The Gargoyle gave the order to launch aircraft, some 76 in all. Watching his brave but hopelessly outclassed young aviators leap off the decks into the humid air, the admiral must have felt saddened at sending them to their likely dooms.  He also had to realize that he was watching the last carrier-born attack carried out by the IJN in the war.  But he had to get Halsey’s attention, and so be it.
Ozawa’s strike force was picked up by U.S.  radar while still well away from Task Force 38 and soon the ubiquitous Hellcats were on them. All but a handful were shot out of the sky by CAP fighters or sent spiraling in flames into the sea by accurate anti-aircraft.  No hits were scored and the few survivors landed on Luzon as ordered.  The fabled Japanese Kido-Butai, the carrier force that once ruled the waters of the Pacific like its private lagoon, had passed into history.
His appetite whetted, Halsey now made his prime mission to “find the enemy carriers.”  Ozawa obliged him by flooding the airwaves with bogus radio traffic and sending a small detachment of ships directly at the Americans.  They were soon picked up prompting more intensive air searches. At 1640 a Lexington scout plane found Ozawa’s main force 190 miles northeast of Cape Engaño.
As Vice Adm. Mitscher stood against the rail of the Lexington watching through binoculars the Princeton’s painful end, he received the urgent bulletin reporting the presence of a carrier fleet off to the northeast.  Halsey received the same sighting and it was electrifying to him.  Throughout the battle the Third Fleet commander found it odd that the Japanese would attack in such a scale without carriers.  In fact, it was by this point in the war accepted doctrine that the greatest naval threat was carrier aircraft.  Here at last was confirmation that the real prize  was out there.  He had no idea that Ozawa’s carrier fleet was, in fact, a spent force.  A shiny lure dangled before him, daring him to take a bite.
Not everyone shared Halsey’s enthusiasm.  Lt. Mike Cox of the intelligence team thought the appearance of carriers in the opposite direction of the incoming Japanese surface fleet was suspect and he raised the matter with chief intel officer Capt. Mike Cheek.  In fact, over the past months their team of spooks had pieced together through analyzing documents captured on the Marianas that a new Japanese tactic, called the “Z” plan,  might be at work here: going for transports.  This indicated this could very well be a decoy to lure the U.S.  fleet away from Leyte.   Cheek approached Halsey’s chief-of-staff, Rear Adm. Robert “Mick” Carney, and, speaking of Kurita’s fleet, he insisted: “They’re coming through, I know it. I’ve played poker with them in Tokyo.”   After some prodding Carney gave Cheek leave to approach the admiral, but offered it would do little good.  Halsey’s blood was up.  This was just too tempting a target to ignore, especially the fleet carrier Zuikaku, whose sinking would make Pearl Harbor’s vengeance complete.  And so Cheek desisted.
Mitscher, too, had his suspicions which had been raised by his chief-of-staff, Commodore Alrleigh Burke. Burke believed that the IJN carrier fleet was now so weak these ships had to be a diversion.  “I think you’re right,” said Mitscher.  “But I don’t know you’re right.  I don’t think we should bother Halsey.  He’s busy enough.  He’s got a lot of things on his mind.”  The sickly Mitscher instead went to bed, having figured Halsey had taken over tactical control at this point anyway.  (One cannot help think that, deep down, Mitscher, who’d missed taking out many of the carriers in the Philippine Sea due to darkness falling, wanted to finish off what he’d started and so relented.)
Although his mission was to cover the landings on Leyte, Halsey had also been given a directive by Nimitz himself which read: “In case opportunity for destruction of major portion of the enemy fleet is offered or can be created, such destruction becomes the primary task.”   And now just such a “major force” was in his sights.  And so, Halsey stormed into the New Jersey’s flagplot room and jabbed his finger at Ozawa’s position on a map while announcing to Carney: “Here’s where we’re going, Mick.  Start them north!”  Halsey had taken the bait.
As the blood-red tropical sun dipped below the horizon, its brilliance silhouetting Kurita’s ships that had come about and were now chugging towards undefended San Bernardino Strait, all of Task Force 38 was steaming away to the north.   Meanwhile, MacArthur, Nimitz, Kinkaid, and the entire American landing force currently engaged in heavy combat on the island remained dangerously unaware of the convoy of Japanese warships bearing down on them.
But even as matters near the San Bernardino Strait were deteriorating, on the southern approach to Leyte Gulf, a far more favorable situation was developing.
Brad Schaeffer is the author of the acclaimed World War II novel <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07J1VJB12/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&amp;btkr=1">Of Another Time And Place.</a>
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Aircraft are prepared for a morning sortie on the Imperial Japanese Navy aircraft carrier Zuikaku, east of the Solomon Islands, on May 5, 1942. On May 7 and 8 the carrier was involved in exchanges of airstrikes with United States Navy carriers during the

SCHAEFFER: The Battle Of Leyte: Part 6 – Decoy

In the pre-dawn gray of October 24, 1944, Adm. Kurita Takeo stood on the bridge of the super battleship Yamato and watched impassively as the convoy he was leading slipped into the Sibuyan Sea.  He was lucky to be alive.  Just a few hours before he’d been on the bridge of his own flagship, the cruiser Atago, when it was practically blown out from under him by Darter’s well-aimed spread of torpedoes.  But, other than being drenched and losing a pair of very expensive shoes, and no doubt some jittered nerves, the admiral was no worse for wear.   Even reduced in strength by the sinking of the cruisers Atago and Maya, and the retreating Takao with two destroyers assigned to escort her home, he still had under his command a mighty surface fleet, which included five battleships.
Among these were the gargantuan Yamato from which he now commanded and her sister ship Musashi sailing a mile off her starboard beam.  These vessels when fully loaded as they were now displaced an astonishing 72,000 tons and carried nine 18.1-inch main guns capable of firing a one-ton shell 25 miles, making them the most powerful battleships ever produced.
A man with a fondness for Johnny Walker Black scotch (a taste he’d learned from his mentor, the legendary Adm. Yamamoto Isoruku, now dead), Kurita was a brave and approachable seaman who valued his men’s lives and was universally beloved by them in return.  History would remember him after this action as hopelessly timid, but that would not be a fair verdict.  His courage was undisputed.  The historian John Prados offers that over the course of the war Kurita had been “bombed, shelled, torpedoed and generally harassed more than almost any other Japanese commander…because he kept putting himself in harm’s way.”  He was picked to lead Center Force, the largest contingent of the Sho-Go’snaval attack, for a reason.  Unfortunately for Kurita, as if to add truth to Prados’ observation, his ordeal at the hands of the Americans was just beginning.
After the Darter/Dace attacks, other U.S.  submarines had homed in on Center Force and were now tracking it like pilot fish, sending a barrage of dispatches to Halsey and Kinkaid via Australian relay.  Subs Bream, Angler, and Gitaro reported the make-up of the enemy force, its course and speed.  The aggressive submarines attacked and Breamtorpedoed and damaged the cruiser Aoba.   It was clear that a large Japanese battle column was rounding the southern tip of Mindoro and entering the Sibuyan Sea.
Adm. Halsey was nicknamed “Bull” for a reason.  He relished combat with the enemy.  MacArthur would fondly write of Halsey: “He was of the same aggressive type as John Paul Jones, David Farragut, and George Dewey.  His one thought was to close with the enemy and fight him to the death. The bugaboo of many sailors, the fear of losing ships, was completely alien to his conception of sea action.”  Up until then, Halsey had the four task groups of Task Force 38 more or less rotating their coverage of Kinkaid’s Seventh Fleet, which was busy conducting the landings and providing shore bombardment. Now he ordered them all to steam west toward the Philippines and sent out scout aircraft with an aim to attack this new threat.
At 0746 on the morning of October 24, a Helldiver bomber from the U.S.  carrier Intrepid made a visual on Kurita’s fleet and from 9,000 feet sent out an alert.  The scout reported eyes on five battleships, nine cruisers and 13 destroyers.  The signal sent a shudder through the Task Force 38 as this report indicated that the biggest Japanese surface fleet ever seen was headed for Leyte.  Halsey moved in to meet an obviously determined foe.
When at 0900 the enemy armada was in range, Halsey turned his carriers into the wind and gave the order to launch aircraft.  Adm. Kurita’s already harrowing experience was about to get a lot worse.
At 1018, aboard Center Force’s screening destroyer escorts, the sharp-eyed look-outs with powerful binoculars spotted the first incoming wave of American attack planes from a distance of 25 miles and alerted Kurita on board Yamato.  This was two full strike packages from Cabot and Intrepid, each consisting of 12 Avenger torpedo planes, 12 Helldiver dive-bombers, and 20 escorting Hellcats.  Kurita signaled to his command: “Enemy attackers are approaching. Trust in the gods and do your best.” Throughout the long day, beginning at 1030, four successive waves of American aircraftfrom five different fleet carriers and one light carrier screamed in from the east to punish Kurita’s exposed warships with torpedoes, bombs, and strafing runs.
At the same time Halsey’s fliers were winging toward Kurita’s ships in the Sibuyan Sea, on Luzon Vice Adm. Onishi Takijiro directed three waves of land-based aircraft from his First Air Fleet against Task Force 38 in flights of 50 at a time.  The CAP Hellcats pounced on them well away from the main body and knocked them down in droves.  A steel curtain of anti-aircraft fire sent whizzing tracers crisscrossing the sky as a patchwork of black clouds from heavier guns with proximity fused shells lashed at the surviving Japanese aircraft.
Although most never got close to scoring a hit, one Judy dive bomber was successful in landing a 550-pound bomb squarely on the light carrier Princeton and her deck was soon engulfed in flames.  With most of Princeton’s crew save damage control off the ship, the light cruiser Birmingham slid alongside her to direct firefighting. Suddenly a colossal explosion rocked the stricken carrier, sending a storm of deadly fragments into the crowded deck of the cruiser.  Birmingham’s captain would describe the horrific scene on the main deck as “a veritable charnel house of dead, dying, and wounded.” 229 men were killed to add to the Princeton’s 100 lost, and twice as many were wounded.    It was the most successful Japanese attack of the day.
While the Princeton east of Luzon was succumbing to her wounds, back on the other side of the big island in the Sibuyan Sea, Center Force was enduring one attack after another numbering over 250 bombing sorties.  American pilots noticed the torrent of anti-aircraft and marveled at the many colored ordinance used by Japanese gunners to help them identify their rounds. But with practically no fighter cover to protect them, the lumbering warships were easy prey and only 12 U.S.  aircraft would be lost.  By early afternoon a frustrated Kurita was frantically radioing to ascertain what had become of both Ozawa’s decoy force and Onishi’s land-based fighter protection on Luzon—the latter of whom had chosen to throw his planes against the buzz saw of Task Force 38’s CAP and anti-aircraft guns with nothing to show other than one light carrier sunk and light cruiser heavily damaged.
Of the many Center Force targets at their disposal, the American fliers repeatedly dove down on the big Musashi. Flying through curtains of anti-aircraft fire, which included special star shells fired from the battleship’s main 18.1-inch batteries at a distance of 10 miles, the unrelenting Helldivers and Avengers hit the massive vessel with an estimated 17 bombs and 19 torpedoes respectively.  This was too much even for a warship deemed “unsinkable” to withstand; damaged beyond hope and taking in tons of water, Kurita was forced to leave her behind to her fate.
At 1936 that evening Musashi would capsize and sink, taking with her over 1,000 of her 2,300-man crew, as well as many luckless survivors of the sunken Maya that had been transferred to the big battleship.  Her wounded vice admiral in command, Inoguchi Toshihei, would write down his thoughts to be forwarded to Toyoda and hand the notebook to his executive officer Capt. Kenkichi Kato.  The note was a confession that he regretted placing too much faith in battleships and big guns in this modern air age.  He also placed Kenkichi in charge of getting survivors safely off his foundering vessel.  Inoguchi then disappeared into his cabin to go down with the ship.
To get his force clear of harm’s way until nightfall, Kurita ordered the remainder of Center Force to reverse course and sail west until out of range of the American aircraft.  They would turn back east again during the night where they could approach the San Bernardino Strait unmolested.  The Sibuyan Sea action, the second phase of the Battle of Leyte Gulf, was over at sunset.  However, Kurita’s turn-around to the west would have important consequences. American fliers, like their Japanese counterparts, could be prone to exaggeration as well.  Although they’d definitely bloodied the enemy nose, having scored hits on the battleships Yamato, Nagato, and the cruiser Myoko which was compelled to withdraw from the column, and indeed sent one of her most feared battlewagons, Musashi, to the abyss, they’d by no means destroyed Center Force.
Yet Halsey’s fliers reported they’d effectively crippled the Japanese fleet, falsely claiming three additional cruisers and a destroyer sunk and the other battleships damaged.  Therefore,  news of the enemy’s retiring to the west was misread as a retreat.  It was a dangerous misapprehension indeed.
Brad Schaeffer is the author of the acclaimed World War II novel <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07J1VJB12/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&amp;btkr=1">Of Another Time And Place.</a>
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IJN Yamato.

SCHAEFFER: The Battle Of Leyte Gulf: Part 5 – The Battle Of The Sibuyan Sea

Toyoda’s great gamble to attack and destroy the American landing forces in Leyte Gulf involved a classic pincers maneuver.  Three strike forces would sail from Japan and Brunei to penetrate the gulf from the north and south and meet on the morning of October 25, “X-day.”  The most powerful force, Force A to the Japanese, and “Center Force” to the Americans (I’ll use the latter for clarity) was commanded by Adm. Kurita Takeo and consisted of five battleships including the superships Yamato and Musashi, 10 heavy and two light cruisers and 15 destroyers.
The “Southern Force”, under the command of Vice Adm. Nishimura Shoji, which the Japanese called Force C, was made up of two battleships, a heavy cruiser, and four destroyers.  To beef up Southern Force’s hitting power a fleet called Second Strike Force headed by Vice Adm. Shima Kiyohide, was on the way from Japan with three cruisers and seven destroyers.  The two flotillas sailing in from opposite directions would try and slip through the two straits that led to Leyte Gulf.  Center Force would sail through the San Bernardino Strait north of Leyte, and Southern Force with Second Strike Force the Surigao Strait south of it.
Sho-Go 1 presented Toyoda’s admirals with a daunting task.  How could they penetrate the passages with two powerful US fleets to contend with?  Here is where the cleverness of Sho-Go 1 became clear.  Another armada, the Decoy Force commanded by the respected Vice Adm. Ozawa Jisaburo, and consisting of one heavy and five light carriers, two battleships fitted with flight decks as hybrid carriers, two cruisers and 10 destroyers, would sail south from Japan to the waters off northern Luzon.  On paper Ozawa had eight carriers but in reality it was a shell of a force with less than 100 aircraft, piloted by yet more undertrained crews.  The Decoy Force would have one purpose: to offer itself as a sacrifice to the Americans by enticing Halsey and luring him away from Leyte and hopefully even the odds enough in Center and Southern Forces’ favor.
It was a plan designed to exploit Halsey’s legendary aggressiveness, some would even say recklessness, especially in pursuit of enemy carriers. In this case, they would give the American Bull exactly what he longed for…a chance to wipe out the remaining IJN Kido-Butai, (“mobile striking force”).  Halsey’s impetuousness would hopefully be MacArthur’s demise.
It was a desperate gamble with the entire fleet.  But, as Toyoda later told interrogators: “Should we lose in the Philippines operations, even though the fleet should be left, the shipping lane to the south would be completely cut off so that the fleet, if it should come back to Japanese waters, could not obtain its fuel supply. If it should remain in southern waters, it could not receive supplies of ammunition and arms. There would be no sense in saving the fleet at the expense of the loss of the Philippines.” 
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Krueger’s Sixth Army began landing on October 20, 1944, hitting two beaches 12 miles apart.  (The designation “D-Day” having already been used in Normandy, this date would be “A-Day”.)  Japanese resistance was relatively light as they were husbanding their strength to fight further inland.  They’d learned by now not to contest the beaches if it was avoidable as naval gunfire could blast them on the shore.
The landings were roughly four hours along when MacArthur and his staff, along with Philippines president Sergio Osmeña, descended the ladder of the Nashvilleto a landing craft and chugged toward land.   Sporting a freshly pressed khaki uniform, MacArthur hoped to tie onto a pier and majestically strut ashore dry and immaculate as befit the American Caesar come to take back his beloved islands where both he and his Medal of Honor winner father had served and had deep roots. The beachmaster, however, had other ideas.  When the Higgins boat filled with top brass got bogged down fifty yards out, he didn’t have time to devote to finding them one of the few intact piers.  As the absolute authority, the beachmaster barked “Let ‘em walk!”
And thus was the famous image of MacArthur wading ashore in knee-deep water, ruining the perfect creases on his trousers.  What photographers took to be MacArthur’s steely look of determination as he strode ashore was actually him glaring at the impertinent beachmaster. (When he saw the photo later, however, the general immediately realized its dramatic imagery and opted to purposefully wade in on subsequent landings.  Those who saw his later landings proffered the myth that the original was staged. It was not.)
Four days later, MacArthur would have far more to worry about than wet shoes and rumpled trousers. Unbeknownst to the Americans, Toyoda activated all elements, land, sea, and air, of Operation Sho-Go1. The great attack to finally turn the tide of war back in Japan’s favor was underway.
<div class="image"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-90315" src="https://editorial.dailywire.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/MapSho-Go1-218x300.jpg" alt="" width="218" height="300" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/02/MapSho-Go1-218x300.jpg 218w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/02/MapSho-Go1-419x576.jpg 419w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/02/MapSho-Go1-768x1056.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/02/MapSho-Go1.jpg 850w" sizes="(max-width: 218px) 100vw, 218px" /></div>
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Brad Schaeffer is the author of the acclaimed World War II novel <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07J1VJB12/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&amp;btkr=1">Of Another Time And Place</a>.
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General MacArthur Returns to the Philippines

SCHAEFFER: The Battle Of Leyte Gulf: Part 4 – Sho-Go1 and ‘A-Day’

When Japanese intelligence deduced that Leyte was where the next enemy blow would fall, the destination was a bit of a surprise to the high command.  At first it was assumed, as MacArthur himself had pointed out to Roosevelt, that the initial target would be the large southern island of Mindanao.  But during a series of carrier-launched air raids and fighter sweeps by Halsey’s marauding fleet earlier in the summer, a U.S.  flier was shot down over Leyte Island.  He was rescued by friendly locals and eventually returned to his ship.  He reported to Halsey that Leyte appeared to be much less defended than believed.
This confirmed the admiral’s own suspicions.  He’d noticed that few fighters were rising up to challenge his on-going raids on the island.  Perhaps the timetable could be accelerated and Leyte, not Mindanao, should be where the first landings were made.
It was eventually decided to scrap the Mindanao operation and head straight for Leyte.  MacArthur went ahead with the September 15 landing of U.S.  and Australian forces on Morotai in the Moluccas, which was needed as a base to launch any blow at the Philippines.  Casualties were light and the island was secured in two weeks, anchoring MacArthur’s southern flank.  Unfortunately for the 1stMarine Division aboard an invasion convoy steaming 500 miles to the northeast toward the Palaus to seize an airstrip on the island of Peleliu, Nimitz decided that the operation also slated for September 15 should go forward as well.
The battle for Peleliu was expected to take just four days.  Instead it degenerated into a horrific bloodbath that lasted for two months.  Tragically, since Mindanao was no longer a target, the airstrip ended up being of little value, and certainly not worth the cost.  The fine 1stMarine Division was decimated; the savage fighting was still raging when the first GIs landed on Leyte on October 20.  2,300 Marines and GIs fell on Peleliu with another 8,500 wounded for little benefit to the Philippines campaign already underway.
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The accelerated time table served to find the Japanese off-balance and shuffling troops when the Americans suddenly showed up off Tacloban on Leyte’s eastern shore. MacArthur’s Imperial Army antagonist, the bullet-headed Gen. Yamashita Tomoyuki, had arrived on Luzon just ten days before the battle.  His chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Muto Akira, not until after the landings had already begun. When he reported to Yamashita’s Manila office and was told of the landings, he replied: “Very interesting. But where is Leyte?”
Leyte was at the moment under the awesome guns of the largest collection of supporting surface ships since D-Day.   When the first salvos of the violent pre-landing bombardment of the island began, it announced the biggest and most elaborate amphibious operation to date in the Pacific War.  It is helpful here to break down the Allied dispositions to better understand the coming engagement…and the near disaster that befell MacArthur’s operations.
Supporting the landing troops of Lt. Gen. Walter Krueger’s Sixth Army, some 200,000 GIs, were two fleets, one positioned in and just outside of Leyte Gulf to cover and support the landings themselves, and the other farther out to sea to provide protection from enemy attacks and cover the northern approaches to the landing zone. The former was the U.S.  Seventh Fleet under the command of Vice Adm. Thomas C. Kinkaid which was comprised of 738 vessels in all, of which 157 were combat ships, 420 amphibious, 84 patrol and 77 service ships.  It was divided into three task forces: Task Force 78 and 79 were mostly the amphibious, transport and patrol vessels, while Task Force 77 contained the fleet’s hitting power in the form of surface warships to cover the landings.  Task Force 77 was under Kinkaid’s personal command.
Of the many task groups that made up Task Force 77, two would play pivotal roles in the upcoming battle that no one yet suspected was just over the horizon. TG-77.2 under Rear Adm. Jesse Oldendorf consisted of six older battleships, four heavy and four light cruisers, and 15 destroyers plus an array of PT (Patrol Torpedo)  boats.  TG-77.4 was under the command of Rear Adm. Thomas Sprague and was made up of 18 little escort carriers, 10 destroyers, and 14 smaller escort destroyers.
The U.S.  Third Fleet was commanded by Halsey.  This fast, mobile strike force represented the most powerful yet put to sea.   Of its several task forces, only one, Task Force 38, would be assigned to support the Leyte operation.  Task Force 38 consisted of four task groups, TG 38.1, 2, 3, and 4 which combined fielded nine heavy carriers, eight light carriers, six new and fast battleships, seven heavy cruisers, 10 light cruisers, and 58 destroyers.  Although nominally Task Force 38 was commanded by Vice Adm. Marc A. Mitscher aboard the carrier Lexington, with Halsey’s flag on the New Jerseyin the heart of the column the Bull would be in direct tactical as well as strategic control of whatever action awaited them.
Kinkaid and his Seventh Fleet answered directly to MacArthur on board the accompanying cruiser Nashville, whereas Halsey and his Third Fleet to Nimitz in Hawaii.   Though mutually supporting, the two fleets had no overall commander other than the Joint Chiefs 10,000 miles away in Washington D.C.  This ungainly structure would create confusion at a critical moment of the battle and very nearly cost the Americans dearly.
Brad Schaeffer is the author of the acclaimed World War II novel <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07J1VJB12/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&amp;btkr=1">Of Another Time And Place.</a>
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US Marines

SCHAEFFER: The Battle Of Leyte Gulf: Part 3 – Target Leyte

The Filipinos weren’t the only ones waiting for MacArthur.  Japanese Combined Fleet Commander Admiral Toyoda Soemu was making diligent preparations for defense.  Key to his plans were a series of pre-planned Sho-Goor “Victory” operations that would be activated depending on where the Americans struck next.  All were designed to protect the sea lanes, Japan’s commodities lifeline, that ran in a north-south direction from the home Islands, past Taiwan, through the Philippines and reaching the vital Dutch East Indies, where the bulk of the IJN surface fleet was stationed to be close to its source of oil.  The carriers remained on the home islands as training a new crop of fliers to replace those lost in devastating air battles with the Americans was frantically underway. Sho-Go 1, 2, 3, 4 each covered a specific area of defense.  It would be Sho-Go 1, defense of the Philippines, and Sho-Go 2’s aerial contingent, reacting to air attacks against Formosa, which would be activated in the coming engagement that Toyoda determined would be the deciding fight of the war.
Toyoda had several military groups with which to wage his upcoming battle with the Americans but they were scattered from as far north as Kyushu Island to Singapore in Indochina.  His navy was still recovering from its terrible mauling at the hands of the Americans in the Battle of the Philippine Sea off the Marianas.  The IJN’s attempt to thwart the U.S. landings on the island of Saipan had cost Japan three fleet carriers and over 600 aircraft.  In fact, so many of Toyoda’s planes were lost that the Americans referred to it as “The Great Marianas Turkey Shoot.”  And why not? That’s what it was.  Since then, the Japanese military had been speeding up aircraft production and pilot training while husbanding enough fuel—in short supply thanks to U.S.  submarines that were sending her merchant marine to the bottom—for one major all-in naval sortie against the encroaching Allies.  As had been the case with Midway in June 1942 and the Philippine Sea in June 1944, the Japanese remained fixated on fighting thebig decisive battle, and all the risks as well as potential such a do-or-die strategy invited. Toyoda decided to roll the dice again. This time the Philippines would be the felt table.
Rolling Air Combat Over Formosa
While MacArthur’s enormous invasion fleet assembled at Manus and Hollandia—50,000 blue jackets were required just to crew the ships—the four task groups that made up Admiral William F. “Bull” Halsey’s powerful Task Force 38 headed for the waters off Formosa. Halsey’s “Big Blue Fleet” as it was affectionately known would launch a series of blistering air raids from carrier-based attack planes in a mission to wipe out as much of the land-based Japanese air fleet as they could in preparations for the Leyte landings.  On October 10, U.S.  carrier aircraft descended on Okinawa in the Ryukyu Islands and blasted air bases and installations there.  This prompted Toyoda to activate Sho-Go1 and 2, but the air contingents only at this point.  On the following day Luzon’s bases fell victim to two of the four task groups’ air wings.   Then on October 12 and for three days after, all four task groups would attack the largest Japanese staging area, Formosa, with its 24 airfields and port facilities
At dawn on the 12th, the full power of Task Force 38 was unleashed against Formosa in the form of a cloud of American Helldiver and Avenger dive-bombers with V’s of Hellcat fighters flying top-cover zooming over the jagged Taiwanese coastline and fanning out to strike designated targets.
Thanks to advances in their radar, the Japanese air commander on the island, Vice Adm. Fukudome Shigeru, was waiting for the Americans who’d not achieved surprise despite attacking at first light. The approaching enemy  was accurately plotted and Fukudome scrambled hundreds of fighters to rise and intercept the interlopers.  Fukudome was supremely confident as his interceptors in their Mitsubishi A6M Zeros and the newer and more formidable Kawanishi Shiden-Kaifighters scrambled and gained altitude in time to come screaming down on the impertinent Americans charging in from the east with the sun at their backs.
Soon a rolling dogfight of flying machines tumbled through the air as blue American and olive Japanese aircraft dove, twisted, corkscrewed and wrestled for control of the sky. Fukudome clapped with giddy excitement as he watched plane after burning plane fall into the sea, assuming them to be the enemy.  But his euphoria turned to despair when he was informed those were, in fact, his planes being systematically shot out of the sky by the American fighters. His brave but green pilots, so poorly trained relative to their American adversaries whose flight schools needed not conserve fuel and thus often had twice the training hours, were no match for Halsey’s aggressive fighter pilots in their powerful Grumman F6F Hellcats. Fukudome lamented: “Our fighters were nothing but so many eggs thrown at the stone wall of the indomitable enemy formation.”
The U.S. fliers were wreaking havoc on the Formosan aerodromes…in the first day alone they’d flown over 1,400 combat sorties over the island.  Still, although Toyoda was disappointed at the one-sided air combat and subsequent heavy damage to his largest base in the Sho-Goarea, he did not necessarily consider it a disaster.  If anything, the U.S. Navy being so close offered him an opportunity to unleash his air force against them and sink a good part of the Pacific Fleet.   On October 12, he sent over 100 aircraft against Task Force 38.  Soon reports from jubilant pilots told of massive destruction visited upon  the American ships.  Should he hold his aircraft in reserve for the Philippines or commit his full complement of warplanes to finish off the rest of Halsey’s fleet? Toyoda made his choice.  He ordered the land-based naval air groups to join the fight and destroy  what remained of Task Force 38.  The admiral was at first dismayed by how few of his aircraft returned, but then heartened  when the exuberant survivors landed and once again relayed a tale of near annihilation of the American warships off Formosa.  The Imperial General Headquarters would announce that eleven American carriers and two battleships had been sunk.  The news caused rapturous celebration throughout Japan.
But Japanese ebullience quickly faded when reconnaissance reported that the emperor’s pilots had wildly exaggerated their success; the American fleet was still completely intact and all of her carriers were alive and well. In fact, in over 800 sorties the Japanese fliers had managed to only seriously damage two cruisers.  In exchange for these negligible results, Toyoda lost over 500 aircraft at the hands of the American combat air patrols (CAP) and anti-aircraft, including half of Japan’s newly trained naval aviators. It had been a one-sided slaughter. As an example, Capt. David McCampbell flying his Hellcat off the Essex downed nine of Toyoda’s planes in one patrol while coolly smoking a cigarette in his cockpit (it was a different era).  Toyoda’s gamble had been an utter failure.  And Halsey had succeeded in his first mission, which was to greatly diminish the enemy threat from the air as the landings on the Philippines soon approached.
His mission accomplished, Halsey ordered Task Force 38 to steam southeast and position itself to cover MacArthur’s landings just a fortnight away.   He had no idea that a Japanese carrier task force had now sortied from the home islands in pursuit, preparing to do its part in an operation that, if all went according to plan, would decimate the U.S. flotilla en route to Leyte.
Brad Schaeffer is the author of the acclaimed World War II novel <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07J1VJB12/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&amp;btkr=1">Of Another Time And Place.</a>
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Admiral Halsey Traveling to the Philippines

SCHAEFFER: The Battle Of Leyte Gulf: Part 2 – The Sho-GoPlans/Prelude To Invasion

Franklin Roosevelt was a patient man, and he would need all he could muster this July day in 1944 to deal with the man who’d made the President of the United States wait for him and Admiral Chester Nimitz and his naval entourage on board the cruiser Baltimore freshly docked in Pearl Harbor.  Only General Douglas MacArthur, whose plane had landed earlier following an arduous flight from Brisbane, Australia, would have the impertinence to arrive in a limousine with sirens wailing.
That was MacArthur’s way.  Like his boss, he understood the value of image.  In MacArthur’s case he wanted to give the impression of having been pulled from the front—which he had been—by wearing a leather flying jacket.   But the general was not only a gifted strategist who in the two years since his campaign that began in Australia in March 1942 had taken more territory with less loss of life than any other top commander in any theater, he was a war hero, beloved by the American people back home.  The politically astute Roosevelt was currently making a bid for an unprecedented fourth term in office, and he didn’t need a soured MacArthur sowing mischief in the GOP camp.  So he let it go.  Still, when MacArthur strode up the Baltimore’s gangplank, the president grinned and kidded the general about wearing a leather jacket in Hawaii.  MacArthur retorted: “You weren’t where I just was.  It’s cold up in the sky.”  Then after initial pleasantries and ceremony, the President, MacArthur, and Nimitz agreed to convene the next morning at the home of a Waikiki millionaire.   There were urgent matters to attend to.
For two years in the prosecution of the Pacific War an uneasy command structure had been at work; so far it had actually yielded great success despite its cumbersome arrangement.  In the southern Pacific, starting from Port Moresby, MacArthur and his U.S. and Australian army command, along with his assigned air and naval contingents, moved up the northern coast of New Guinea and along the way captured the Admiralty Islands, and tamed the Bismark Sea.  In the central Pacific, Nimitz with his island-hopping campaign launched from Hawaii, had captured one atoll and archipelago after another, starting in the Solomon Islands and moving relentlessly toward Japan, seizing the Gilberts, the Marshalls, the Carolines, and finally the Marianas. In the process the mutually supportive campaigns had managed to neutralize Japan’s enormous anchorage and bastion of Rabaul on Cape Gloucester, and laid waste to its naval stronghold on Truk. In a series of historic—and violent—naval air and surface engagements which began at the Coral Sea in May 4-8, 1942, and culminated in the Battle of the Philippine Sea on June 19-20, 1944, the U.S. and its British Commonwealth allies had handed the Japanese one defeat after another.  But now the two commanders had to agree on where to go from here.  That’s what this conference would decide.  FDR would make the final determination.  All egos and politics aside, the decisions made here would mean life or death for thousands of American boys.  Roosevelt took his responsibilities deadly seriously.
So where to go next?  Nimitz and MacArthur each had different ideas. Nimitz, arguing the case laid out by his boss in Washington D.C., Adm. Earnest J. King, proposed to bypass the Philippine Islands and invade Formosa (Taiwan).  His argument was that Taiwan stood astride Japan’s vital sea lanes to the East Indies, without which it would be starved of oil, rubber, and other vital raw materials.  It was also a logical springboard for the final offensive against Japan’s home islands.
MacArthur disagreed.  He argued that the Philippines were the logical next step. “Mindanao, Mr. President,” he said forcefully, tapping a pointer on the giant wall map.  “Then Leyte and Luzon.”  Roosevelt knew that MacArthur’s reasons were personal as well as anchored in military expediency.  Two years earlier, the general promised the Filipinos “I shall return” when he was ordered to leave before America’s island protectorate and its gallant U.S. and Filipino defenders fell to the invading Japanese.  To him, this was a sacred vow on behalf of the United States.  Also, the men he’d left behind on Bataan and Corregidor Island were languishing in brutal Japanese prison camps.  He reminded the President that the Philippine people (and, FDR knew, MacArthur as well) believed the USA had abandoned them to a cruel occupier, and would see bypassing as abandonment yet again.  The general insisted the USA had a moral obligation to come to the rescue of those whose islands we’d wrested from the Spanish in 1898.  It would not sit well with the voters either, MacArthur coyly reminded the politician among them.
But, in the end, MacArthur’s views were also of a military nature.  The archipelago with its airfields, its fine anchorages, friendly populace, and guerilla allies would be an asset, which also could cut off the same sea lanes. Besides (and observers say even Nimitz nodded here) the Philippines, a sprawling mass of large islands located  squarely between captured New Guinea and Formosa, and garrisoned by over 300,000 Japanese soldiers, with enemy air and naval forces at the ready, were simply too large to bypass.
Feeling himself persuaded by his top field general’s passion and understanding of the subject matter,  Roosevelt asked MacArthur if taking the islands might get bloody.  MacArthur assured him, “My losses would be no worse than they have in the past…good commanders do not turn in heavy losses.”  It would take some time to convince the DC brass, especially the equally headstrong Adm. King, but eventually it was decided that the Philippines would be the next target.  Nimitz, belying MacArthur’s legendary paranoia over a Navy clique trying to shut his army out of the war, pledged his full support and any resources he needed.
Later, as he prepared for his return which had driven him ever forward over the two years, a gratified MacArthur would say to one of his aides while facing the direction of the Philippines, “They’re waiting for me up there.  It has been a long time.”
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Brad Schaeffer is the author of the acclaimed World War II novel <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07J1VJB12/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&amp;btkr=1">Of Another Time And Place.</a>
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The Raiders Of Leyte Gulf

SCHAEFFER: The Battle of Leyte Gulf: Part 1 – The Philippines Or Formosa? 

As the World War II generation slips away from us, part of the reason I write these great battles series (and am grateful to Ben Shapiro, et. al. for giving them a public platform) is to remind us of our past and the incredible sacrifices and bravery of those on whose shoulders we stand.  In mortal combat the essence of the human condition is at its most acute and focused, allowing us to see in clear terms both the best and worst in us.
And so it was at The Battle of Leyte Gulf, October 23-26, 1944.  This action fought on the high seas during the height of World War II in the Pacific Theater was by many measures the largest naval battle in history.  What better way to honor the over 200,000 seamen and fliers who participated in this fight, then to re-tell the tale?  As with all my historical pieces, I find myself wading through mountains of data, anecdotes, timelines, etc., many of which are contradictory as is the fog of history.  So if any readers wish to offer commentary or correct my assertions with supporting evidence I not only welcome it but encourage it.  I am the writer in these series, but you, the readers, are as much a part of this collective exercise as I am.
“It’s Like The Fourth Of July!”
At 12:16 am (0016)  on October 23, 1944, a blip appeared on the radar screen of the U.S. submarine Darter,which was cruising on the surface in the eastern extreme of the South China Sea.  It echoed back a large signature and was located nearing the southern approach to the Palawan Passage off the Philippines.  At first it appeared to be one of those tropical squalls that could suddenly erupt over these warm, shark-infested waters of the Pacific. But very soon it became clear to the American submariners that this was no storm.  It was a fleet of Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) warships.  Darter’s captain, Commander David McClintock, flashed the contact report that would soon reach Admiral William “Bull” Halsey on board the far-away battleship USS New Jersey.  He also radioed her nearby companion submarine, Dace, that he had a track on “fast ships” (meaning enemy warships, rather than “maru” which meant enemy merchant vessels).  Both McClintock and Dace’s skipper, Cmdr. Bladen Claggett, plotted a course to intercept the enemy flotilla at maximum speed.  Dace’s Lt. Cmdr. Rafael Benitez would remember the radar scope offering “a beautiful picture of many ships…we knew this was no ordinary convoy.”
Benitez was right. What the two submarines closed in on was one of the most menacing surface fleets assembled during the war. And it was headed straight for the jumble of landing craft, transports and disembarking soldiers, tanks, jeeps, artillery, and all manner of war materiel gathered in Leyte Gulf to support General Douglas MacArthur’s long-anticipated landings on the Philippines. On October 20, 1944 over 400 transports escorted by some 150 warships began landing the U.S. Sixth Army onto the beaches of Leyte Island in the center of the archipelago.  Bearing down on them were two Japanese armadas whose mission was to break through to the beaches and inflict unimaginable destruction upon the unsuspecting Americans…possibly even throwing the enemy back into the sea.
Intelligence knew that an enemy surface fleet commanded by Vice Admiral Kurita Takeo had slipped out of Lingga Roads on East Sumatra, but had no news of it since, despite stepped-up air patrols.  That was until the two intrepid submarines flashed updates on its location in what naval historian Samuel Elliot called “the most significant reports of the Pacific War.”  Kurita’s task force consisted of five battleships, 10 heavy cruisers, two light cruisers and 13 destroyers.  That such a powerful enemy was moving toward the beaches of Leyte meant that the Imperial Japanese Navy was throwing down the gauntlet and aiming to have a showdown battle with its old nemesis, the U.S. Pacific Fleet…one that could decide, once and for all, the outcome of the Pacific War.
Not content to merely shadow the enemy, by 0500 on October 23, the two U.S. submarines had  positioned themselves each to one side of Kurita’s two columns some 20,000 yards away and submerged.  A half hour later, a series of violent explosions rocked the Japanese admiral’s flagship, the cruiser Atago, as four torpedoes fired by Darter slammed into her side.  Atago went down by the bow in just thirteen minutes, taking 360 officers and sailors with her.  Kurita, jumping into the water, would be fished out of the oily sea and eventually establish his flag on the gigantic battleship Yamato.    McClintock’s sub then fired another spread of torpedoes that blasted the heavy cruiser Takao, blowing off her rudders and two propellers. She stayed afloat and limped back to Brunei at five knots, out of whatever coming engagement she’d been slated to join.
On board Dace, Cdr. Clagget peered through his periscope and declared, “It looks like the Fourth of July out there!”  Soon enough he had the heavy cruiser Maya in his own sights and fired a spread of six fish at the unsuspecting vessel.   The Japanese warship was hit by four of her torpedoes, each with a 600-pound warhead. She lurched out of the water, came apart, and sank in minutes.  Japanese Rear Adm. Ugaki Matome on board Yamato would remember grimly: “After the smoke and spray disappeared nothing of her remained to be seen.”
For the American submariners, the attack had been extraordinarily successful.  For the Imperial Japanese Navy, it was an inauspicious beginning to Operation Sho-Go—the final all-in battle to turn the tide of the war and halt the relentless Allied march toward the home islands.  The Philippines provided the ideal theater to make their play.  And the naval battle that it would unleash would be, by many measures, the largest naval battle in history.
The Battle of Leyte Gulf would in many ways mark the pinnacle of the long progression of naval warfare, from the days when Greek triremes dispatched the Persian fleet at Salamis, through Lepanto, Trafalgar, and Jutland just 28 years before.  But unlike those famed battles, Leyte Gulf not only was fought over a vast area of ocean inconceivable to Themistocles or Nelson, but encompassed every manner of weapon at the combatants’ disposal, making this the most complete three-dimensional fight in history.  Speedy PT boats and escort destroyers charged to attack at point-blank range with torpedoes and small-bore guns while from miles away some of the largest battleships ever put to sea fired devastating broadsides from massive batteries in an old-fashioned naval line action that will never be seen again. Aircraft carriers and land-based aerodromes hurled clouds of warplanes at the opposing fleets.  Submarines lurked below the surface like sharks stealthily hunting unsuspecting prey.  The fight would also see the first coordinated deployment of the most serious threat to the U.S. Navy in the war—the Kamikaze suicide plane.  All the while, Japanese and U.S. Infantrymen grimly slugged it out in the thick jungles and forbidding ridges of the island as their fates were decided by two naval behemoths in a fight to the death just over the horizon.    Land, sea, air, underwater.  Leyte was, in many ways, the ultimate battle.
Like so many of history’s greatest and most consequential military engagements, the outcome would be decided by strange twists of fate, unexpected displays of incredible bravery, critical decisions at critical moments made by the high command of both sides, and the fighting skill and tenacity of the sailors and airmen who flung themselves into the melee as if the final verdict of the Pacific War was balancing on a knife’s edge…which it was.  And like so much of the history of this country, and the enemies she has met on the field of battle, it’s a great story, complete with episodes so unbelievable as to seem fanciful.  Yet they really happened.  This is the story of the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the largest and most complex seaborn action in history.  And the battle that secured the Allied victory in the Pacific.
Brad Schaeffer is the author of the acclaimed World War II novel Of Another Time And Place.
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Brad Schaeffer

SCHAEFFER: Civil War Battlefields: The Left’s Next Target In The War On History

SCHAEFFER: Quarantine For Thee, Not For Me

SCHAEFFER: The Truth About The Black Lives Matter Organization

SCHAEFFER: Chief Canary Of The Coal Mine

SCHAEFFER: Christopher Columbus Deserves To Be Celebrated

SCHAEFFER: The Battle Of Leyte Gulf: CONCLUSION – Controversies, Confusions, and Final Thoughts

SCHAEFFER: The Battle Of Leyte Gulf: Part 13 – Aftermath

SCHAEFFER: The Battle Of Leyte Gulf: Part 12 – Destruction Of The Decoy Force

SCHAEFFER: The Battle Of Leyte Gulf: Part 11 – Kurita Calls It Quits

SCHAEFFER: The Battle Of Leyte Gulf: Part 10 – ‘Charge Of The Tin Cans’

SCHAEFFER: The Battle Of Leyte Gulf: Part 9 – ‘The Biggest Battleship I Ever Saw!’

SCHAEFFER: The Battle Of Leyte Gulf: Part 8 – ‘Bull’s Run’

SCHAEFFER: The Battle Of Leyte Gulf: Part 7 – Massacre At The Surigao Strait

SCHAEFFER: The Battle Of Leyte: Part 6 – Decoy

SCHAEFFER: The Battle Of Leyte Gulf: Part 5 – The Battle Of The Sibuyan Sea

SCHAEFFER: The Battle Of Leyte Gulf: Part 4 – Sho-Go1 and ‘A-Day’

SCHAEFFER: The Battle Of Leyte Gulf: Part 3 – Target Leyte

SCHAEFFER: The Battle Of Leyte Gulf: Part 2 – The Sho-GoPlans/Prelude To Invasion

SCHAEFFER: The Battle of Leyte Gulf: Part 1 – The Philippines Or Formosa?

SCHAEFFER: The Battle Of Leyte Gulf: Introduction

Menu

SCHAEFFER: Civil War Battlefields: The Left’s Next Target In The War On History

SCHAEFFER: Quarantine For Thee, Not For Me

SCHAEFFER: The Truth About The Black Lives Matter Organization

SCHAEFFER: Chief Canary Of The Coal Mine

SCHAEFFER: Christopher Columbus Deserves To Be Celebrated

SCHAEFFER: The Battle Of Leyte Gulf: CONCLUSION – Controversies, Confusions, and Final Thoughts

SCHAEFFER: The Battle Of Leyte Gulf: Part 13 – Aftermath

SCHAEFFER: The Battle Of Leyte Gulf: Part 12 – Destruction Of The Decoy Force

SCHAEFFER: The Battle Of Leyte Gulf: Part 11 – Kurita Calls It Quits

SCHAEFFER: The Battle Of Leyte Gulf: Part 10 – ‘Charge Of The Tin Cans’

SCHAEFFER: The Battle Of Leyte Gulf: Part 9 – ‘The Biggest Battleship I Ever Saw!’

SCHAEFFER: The Battle Of Leyte Gulf: Part 8 – ‘Bull’s Run’

SCHAEFFER: The Battle Of Leyte Gulf: Part 7 – Massacre At The Surigao Strait

SCHAEFFER: The Battle Of Leyte: Part 6 – Decoy

SCHAEFFER: The Battle Of Leyte Gulf: Part 5 – The Battle Of The Sibuyan Sea

SCHAEFFER: The Battle Of Leyte Gulf: Part 4 – Sho-Go1 and ‘A-Day’

SCHAEFFER: The Battle Of Leyte Gulf: Part 3 – Target Leyte

SCHAEFFER: The Battle Of Leyte Gulf: Part 2 – The Sho-GoPlans/Prelude To Invasion

SCHAEFFER: The Battle of Leyte Gulf: Part 1 – The Philippines Or Formosa?

SCHAEFFER: The Battle Of Leyte Gulf: Introduction

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