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 Of Another Time And Place.