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 Of Another Time And Place.