The Battle of Leyte Gulf

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Text originally published in 1961 under the same title.

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THE BATTLE OF LEYTE GULF

Stan Smith

Special Preface by

Rear-Admiral William H. Brockman, USN (Ret.)

Official Photographs,

U.S. Navy

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS 3

DEDICATION 4

PREFACE 5

FOREWORD 7

Chapter I — THE GATHERING CLOUDS 9

Chapter II — PRELIMINARY OPERATIONS 22

Chapter III — RE-EVALUATION 50

Chapter IV — GUERILLA ACTIVITY 58

Chapter V — FIRST BLOOD 71

Chapter VI — BATTLE OF THE SIBUYAN SEA 79

Chapter VII — BATTLE OF THE SURIGAO STRAITS 88

Chapter VIII — THE BATTLE OFF SAMAR 102

Chapter IX — THE BATTLE OFF CAPE ENGAÑO 116

Chapter X — POST MORTEM: TAKAO 127

Chapter XI — THE MOP UP 152

Chapter XII — THE PHILIPPINES RECAPTURED 162

DEDICATION

To The Men Who Fought At Leyte

and

To M. S.

PREFACE

SIXTEEN YEARS AFTER THE BATTLE for Leyte Gulf, the battle still stays alive, a part of our national heritage. In the minds and hearts of the men who fought at Leyte it is sixteen hours ago or sooner. You still hear occasional references to "my old bucket and that kamikaze plane," and as an author you know that the battle has its importance. Not long ago, when the Navy got ready to scrap the Enterprise, a crew of its former officers and men took places on those venerable decks, and thought for a moment about the days when the Big E was a formidable part of the United States Navy. The moment was created by those men, now civilians, who felt deep nostalgia for the link that had bound them years before, and now called them back for a last muster. These things, I think, have tangible significance. Chiefly, it means that Leyte still lives.

In this work, I have attempted to recreate most operational phases of the Battle. And yet I am certain there is much material which has not been included—not for any lack of conscientiousness on my part, but because that material was simply not available. Leyte was based on Action Reports, diaries, letters to the author, official studies and information relayed by other sources. Leyte was an all-service show—that is, all branches of the service took a vital part. Much of the action centered about the men of the Third Fleet, but there were many more thousands who gave their lives in other parts of the Pacific, who took no part in the Battle.

The Japanese fighting man, the enemy, was shrewd, resourceful, well-equipped, and brave. If he lost, it was not because of any shortcomings on his part, but because of havoc higher up. The Japanese nation, as did the United States, responded to the rigors of warfare without fear or hesitation. The enemy neither asked nor gave quarter; he fought to win, and in many cases, he fought knowing he would die.

Sixteen years later, the heat of battle is over. Yet, if you listen very carefully you can still hear all the ruffles and flourishes as they were known by men of all branches of service. Midway was far more decisive than Leyte, but because Leyte was the last great operation—because it was the last battle in which such engagements as Oldendorf’s Capping the T and the charge of the destroyers under Coward and Smoot and the Sixth Army fighting at Ocmoc—nobody can ever really forget.

If the author has at times seemed to be a bit partisan Navy, it was only because he happened to be a submarine sailor on war patrol, so kindly tolerate the prejudice. Perhaps it is just the esprit de corps coming out in print.

Important reference sources included: Samuel Eliot Morison’s Volume XII Leyte (one book of a 15-book series by that eminent scholar and writer); C. Van Woodward, The Battle for Leyte Gulf; Action Reports of the Navy, by enlisted men and officers who figured in the Battle; Submarine by Theodore Roscoe, published by the U.S. Naval Institute; Destroyer by Roscoe; The Army Air Forces in World War II, Vol. 5, by W. F. Craven and J. L. Cate; Battle Report, Vol. 4, by Captain Walter Karig, USNR; Life, Time, The New York Times, The Manila Chronicle, and American Magazine; The Imperial Japanese Navy in World War II; Ships in Esso Fleet in World War II; James Field’s Japanese at Leyte Gulf; M. Hamlin Cannon’s Leyte: The Return to the Philippines, in the U.S. Army in World War II series; Brig.-Gen. J. F. C. Fuller’s A Military History of the World, Vol. 3, Sturgis Report, U.S. Sixth Army Bulletin; Samurai, by Martin Caiden; and The Divine Wind, by Roger Pineau.

The author expresses sincere gratitude to Mr. Noah Sarlat of Stag magazine, and to Mr. Phil Hirsch of Man’s Magazine for their permission to reprint excerpts from his stories which have already appeared in their magazines. My thanks to Commander Russel Bufkins, USN, of the Navy’s Magazine and Book Branch, for his infinite patience and skill in choosing the pictures herein that are representative likenesses of the ships and men, both Japanese and American, who figured in Leyte.

Finally, my thanks to my editor and friend, Samuel H. Post.

Stan Smith

New York City

December 20, 1960

FOREWORD

BY 1944 JAPAN’S HOPES of salvation were lugubriously pinned to a decisive engagement in the Philippines, a perimeter of battle away from the homeland, in which it was hoped that the enemy would be defeated. After seven weeks of unparalleled, unrestricted warfare against the U.S. Navy, and later the Army, these hopes were dashed. Japan had nowhere to go except downhill to ultimate unconditional surrender; seven hellish weeks of combat on, under, and above the sea were to prove (not that this was even necessary after Midway) the mettle of the United States Navy and the two principal fleets into which it was divided.

Among the multiplicity of assignments in which our Navy was engaged in World War II, Leyte Gulf stands out as perhaps the most difficult because it involved combat of unprecedented nature, and the lifting of the largest single amphibious operation that the world had ever known—thousands of troops, ships, and supplies to the Philippines. The entrance of the Kamikaze units, that devastating mass-suicide attempt of the Japanese Air Force, was a last desperate attempt of the enemy to stave off defeat. It is a worthy point of conjecture to speculate on the eventualities had the Kamikaze units been introduced several days or weeks before. By the same token, one may well ask what would have been the outcome had there been no Hiroshima or Nagasaki A-Bombs.

To continue this wholly conjectural thought one may ask about the outcome had Hirohito chosen to continue even after his homeland was ravaged by American bombs? Catastrophe after catastrophe would have befallen the Japanese Empire, and a ghastly toll of human life combined with fiery extinction of resources would have been the end result. That civil war did not come after the A-Bomb attests to Japan’s propaganda machine, its blind obedience to Emperor Hirohito, and to a great and childish faith in the man-deity who had created the seeds of havoc.

Primarily, Leyte was a naval operation. From the very beginning in Surigao Strait to the air chase of Kurita, this narrative concerns itself with the step-by-step eradication of the Japanese naval forces committed to the Sho Plan, and the wholly valiant way in which American forces thwarted Japan’s attempts to penetrate the naval screen around these islands.

In retrospect, the Battle for Leyte Gulf is an engrossing study really, of the haves and have nots. The author, a former submariner, is an historian as well as an adept writer familiar with the ways of the Service. This is evident as the battle unfolds Though perhaps not as decisive an engagement as Midway, in which Japan lost its principal carriers and the cream of its then aviation, Leyte’s ultimate result brought the Japanese surrender in Tokyo Bay just one step closer and, needless to say, materially contributed to the saving of thousands of American lives which would undoubtedly have been sacrificed had it been necessary to invade Japan.

The exciting destroyer charge, the battle of the baby flat tops, the little destroyer escorts slugging it out against heavy cruisers, and the memorable night engagement of the battle line—are classics of naval warfare not likely to be forgotten.

Rear-Admiral William H. Brockman, USN (Ret.)

Greenwich, Connecticut

January 10, 1961

Chapter I — THE GATHERING CLOUDS

IMPERIAL GENERAL HEADQUARTERS has the honor to announce the systematic destruction of the American Navy, the announcer began. In a swift, co-ordinated daylight raid, land-based Army bombers and units of the Navy’s air arm this morning found the Third Fleet all massed off Taiwan—

The announcer’s voice broke dramatically.

He was Lieutenant Rikhei Tamai, a young naval attaché. At 11 A.M., October 14, 1944, Tamai rushed into the studios of Tokyo Radio brimming with the astounding news of Japanese success. It was tide-turning news and the first unabashed display of emotion in almost four years. Tears streamed down his face. Trembling, Tamai gripped the mike stand, sucked in his sobs and continued:

Today, Japan’s fighting pilots, performing their duties with dispatch and brilliance, are finishing their masterful attack on the invading enemy. Already the United States has lost thirty-one warships! These include aircraft carriers, two battle ships, three cruisers and fifteen destroyers.

Japan responded accordingly. A wave of hysteria, surpassed only by her Pearl Harbor strike, rolled inexorably over the home islands. Like a divine wind kissing the illusion of lotus blossoms over that fallow land, her best propagandists repeated the incredible battle reports as they streamed in every ten minutes. The news flashes electrified the nation. They were sent to distant bastions where the resolute and devout Shimpa (kamikazi) units were now grooming; millions danced in the gutted streets, filled with joy that seemed—for a while—beautiful and real.

And in the aftermath of these first bulletins, Emperor Hirohito, the man-deity, issued a special rescript and ordained that mass celebrations of the Glorious Victory of Taiwan (Formosa) be conducted wherever the nine-rayed Rising Sun cast its shadow. So apparently hypnotic was the overall effect of the bulletins that even General Headquarters, going strictly on visual and unconfirmed reports, unwittingly contributed to the magnificent hoax by issuing an independent statement that no American invasion is contemplated for the Philippines. Later that evening, the same source was heard to sigh in relief that "it’s about time for a radical modification of operations Sho-Go Japan’s last ditch defensive strategy."

Tokyo Rose, interrupting her jam sessions frequently, jazzed American listeners: All of Admiral Mitscher’s carriers have been sunk tonight—instantly!

For three days and nights Radio Tokyo blotted out the air with preposterous claims of United States sinkings. The Third Fleet under Admiral William F. Halsey sagely maintained radio silence in the interest of the forthcoming battle—the real battle. To that moment, the air action off Formosa was the greatest single ship and landbased battle, but the outcome was considerably different than Japanese propagandists averred. Nippon’s air losses totaled 650 planes and pilots destroyed in the air and on the ground, compared to the Third Fleet’s eighty-nine losses—seventy-six in combat, thirteen operationally. Only Canberra and Houston, battered by Jap bombs but little more than wounded since fleet salvaged vessels started towing them safely away, testified to the air attack that Rear-Admiral Matsuda later asserted was catastrophic for the Japanese Empire.

Radio Tokyo spewed more joyous messages.

The Imperial Navy did its bit in the interest of journalistic probity, sending a float plane over Peleliu with leaflets that fluttered down on uninformed U.S. sailors grooming for the action of World War II.

"Do you know about the naval battle done by the American Fifty-eighth Fleet at the sea near Taiwan and the Philippine? Japanese powerful Air Force has sunk their nineteen aeroplane carriers, four battleships, ten several cruisers, and destroyers, along with sending 1,261 ship aeroplanes into the sea. From this result we think you can imagine what shall happen next round Palau upon you!

The fraud Rousevelt, hanging the Presidential Election under his nose and from his policy ambition worked not only poor Nimitt but also Macassir like a robot, like this. What is pity you just sacrifice, you pay! Thank you for your advice of surrender. But we haven’t any reason to surrender those who are fated to be totally destroyed in a few days later.

Admiral Halsey, at the time, was sitting in his battle plot. His leathery seaman’s face was screwed up in thought. He slowly wrote a short message to CINCPAC, Pearl Harbor. Then he turned up the receiver to hear what Tokyo Rose was saying now about the Third Fleet. A marine took his message to the radio shack. Minutes later, tall, white-haired Admiral Chester Nimitz, grinning from ear to ear, passed Halsey’s message to the American public:

ALL THIRD FLEET SHIPS REPORTED SUNK BY RADIO TOKYO HAVE BEEN SALVAGED AND ARE RETIRING IN THE DIRECTION OF THE ENEMY.

On this grimly humorous note, the prelude to the battle of Leyte closed out. And the battle itself—the last and greatest naval battle in the history of the world—was about to see the death of an Empire. Halsey put his stubby legs on his desk, folded his hands in his lap and closed his eyes. The date was October 17, and the time was eight A.M. The first American Rangers were jumping out of landing craft and wading into Suluuan Island.

No withering fire from the lump of emerald cut them down. But on the outskirts of Tokyo, a small wizened man with the rank of four-star Admiral, Soenu Toyoda, blinked in mild bewilderment at the message that told him of the American landings. Toyoda studied the large wall map in his office in Japan’s Naval War College. Considering the recent flood of victory propaganda, Admiral Toyoda was quite calm about it:

"Alert the fleet for Sho (‘to conquer’) Operation."

Twenty-four hours later, he gave the order that executed this command.

After the war, Admiral Toyoda, questioned at length on the situation confronting him in October 1944, said that in effect, were the Philippines lost, even though the Fleet should be completely cut off, the shipping lanes to the south would be so completely isolated that even if the Fleet would come back to Japanese waters it would not be able to obtain its normal fuel supplies. And if it should remain in southern waters it could not receive supplies of ammunition and arms. There would be, Toyoda added, no sense in saving the fleet at the expense of the loss of the Philippines. How to hold them was the question.

Despite the lack of fuel, and although the remnants of Japanese aviation had been obliterated in the battle that was to presage Leyte Gulf—the battle of the Philippine Sea—the actual position of the Emperor was not altogether hopeless. Japanese airmen and troops operated thousands of miles from home; Japanese airmen were only 500 actual miles from the scene so, therefore, they could fight in range of scores of airfields that they had built. Toyoda decided that wherever his enemies struck he would then rely on committing his surface craft, covered by land based aircraft. The actual commitment, predicated on these decisions, was called the Sho plan. It was one of the most daring naval operations ever undertaken.

Sho was devised to meet several alternatives: An American thrust against either of the Philippines, or Formosa and the Ryuku Islands, or Kyushu, Shikoku and Hokaido. Each ‘plan’ was to be based on the full exploitation of the gunnery strength of the fleet, and land based airpower was to be substituted for carrier borne aircraft.

Sho-One—Operation Alert, set for the early hours of October 25—characterized the determination of the Japanese to die fighting away from his homeland by fighting the big one elsewhere and seemingly in defense of those ill-gotten gains, the Philippine Islands.

Purely from the Japanese standpoint, Operation Sho-Go was the logical way to deal with the enemy, for if the enemy’s landings were thwarted before he had a chance to dig in and work his way into the Archipelago, Japan had a working chance for survival. With characteristic duplicity, the Oriental planning boards had devised a scheme which had offered, generally speaking, the bulk of the Japanese fleet as bait for Halsey’s gunners. This would a) lure the Americans away from Leyte and, b) give Admiral Takeo Kurita’s squadron, the most powerful single squadron in the extant Japanese Navy (five battleships, ten heavy and light cruisers and destroyers), the chance to strike the American forces in the process of their Philippine landings.

Further, it offered, if properly executed, a long-sought chance to inflict some heavy casualties on the invaders.

Phase three envisaged the use of the last squadron under Admiral Nishimura, coming up at the Americans from the south by way of the Mindanao Sea (they were based like Kurita’s squadron in Singapore) up through Surigao Straits and straight away into Leyte Gulf. On paper it was a very good plan, and the Japanese with a meticulous precision were quite up to it, things equal.

Then too, there were Combined Base Air Forces, using land based aircraft to hit the ships in Leyte Gulf, in addition to serving as air cover and reconnaissance for the Fleet Headquarters, soon to be fed the bulk of the kamikazi fodder. They had on tap only 400 landbased Navy Zeros, and the odds still were overwhelmingly in favor of the enemy though there was still the element of luck to be considered. History, it was argued by responsible commanders, had a way of repeating itself—except in this case one was expected to apply the reverse to the situation, particularly since Japan had practically no air arm and the U.S. did.

The remains of the once great armada could be assembled, however, and coupled into various dispositions. There was no question that Toyoda intended to use his fleet in a fight to the finish. One of his admirals, Ozawa, when questioned after the war, had this statement on the Battle of Leyte: A decoy, that was our primary mission—to act as a decoy. My fleet could not very well give direct protection to Kurita’s force cause we were very weak, so I tried to attack as many of your American carriers as possible, and be the decoy or target of your attack....The main mission was all sacrifice.

The Combined Fleet of Japan was organized into two parts, one composed of the bulk of the battlewagons and cruisers under Admiral Kurita based in the Lingga Islands, and the other of the remaining carriers denuded of most of their air crews, under Admiral Ozawa, and based on the Inland