In October 1944, the U.S. Navy and the Imperial Japanese Navy fought a titanic struggle for control of the seas surrounding the Philippine Archipelago. Often described as the largest naval battle in history, the three-day encounter was a terrible mismatch. U.S. naval forces had 16 fleet carriers of the Essex and Independence classes, 18 more escort aircraft carriers, 12 battleships (six “fast,” six of the older “Standard”), 23 cruisers, 105 destroyers, and more than 1,100 aircraft.1
This force was distributed across two formations, the Third and Seventh Fleets. The former, under Vice Admiral William F. Halsey Jr., was tasked by Pacific Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz to “gain air superiority over the Philippines, to protect the landings and to maintain unremitting power against Japan, and to apply maximum attrition by all possible means in all areas.”2
The Seventh Fleet, under Vice Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid, was to convey the U.S. Army to the Philippines, then support General Douglas MacArthur’s triumphant return until such time as the Army established a secure foothold and the ability to project its own air power. Once this mission was complete, the Seventh Fleet then would escort the Navy’s transports back to Ulithi for replenishment and refitting.3
Opposing this armada, the once imposing Imperial Japanese Navy could muster only four carriers, nine battleships (of which two were obsolete and two were “hybrid battleships” whose stern guns had been replaced by a flight deck), 16 cruisers, 34 cruisers, and 116 carrier aircraft supported by another 1,400 on land.
As was Japan’s typical naval operational doctrine, these ships were divided into multiple task forces with mutually supportive missions. The Northern Force under Vice Admiral Jisaburo Ozawa was to use the four carriers and two hybrid battleships to bait the United States’ fleet carriers to the north of the Philippines. The Southern Force under Vice Admiral Shoji Nishimura and Second Striking Force under Vice Admiral Kiyohide Shiima were to further divert American assets by attempting to force Surigao Strait with two obsolescent battleships and accompanying light forces. Both these sacrificial exploits hopefully would clear the path for the Center Force under Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita.
The Japanese believed Kurita’s powerful task group, initially consisting of Japan’s five remaining modern battleships (including the mammoth Yamato and Musashi, the largest battleships ever built), possessed enough firepower to sink most of the U.S. transport fleet before ultimately succumbing to the vengeful combined combat power of the Third and Seventh Fleets.4
A Distributed Engagement
Despite the adversaries’ disparity in numbers (exacerbated by an even greater one in relative training levels), the Japanese nearly succeeded in disrupting the American landings. At the cost of their near annihilation, the Southern and Second Striking Forces succeeded in drawing off the Seventh Fleet’s battleships in the Battle of Surigao Strait. After initially failing to gain Halsey’s attention, Vice Admiral Ozawa similarly succeeded in drawing Halsey’s Third Fleet north, where it annihilated the Northern Force off Cape Engaño on 25 October.
Despite repeated air attacks that had sunk the Musashi, damaged the remaining battleships, and briefly necessitated a reversal of course, the Southern and Northern Forces’ sacrifice placed Vice Admiral Kurita in position to launch a devastating assault on the Seventh Fleet’s amphibious forces. Only the tenacity and bravery of the various destroyers and destroyer escorts of Task Group 77.4.3 (Taffy 3) grouped around Kinkaid’s escort carriers, combined with Kurita’s temerity and confusion, prevented a major disaster off Leyte.5
Despite taking place 80 years ago, the Battle of Leyte Gulf is relevant for today’s Navy as it plans for distributed operations against a peer opponent. “Distributed operations” has been defined by numerous Navy, sister service, and joint doctrine documents over the past decade. For purposes of analyzing Leyte, a “distributed operation” is one in which geographically separated friendly forces operate under conditions of limited communications and sensor ranges to achieve one or more operational and/or strategic objectives.
As with expected contemporary operations in the Pacific, the U.S. Navy conducted its actions at Leyte Gulf well within hostile forces’ sensor and engagement envelopes. Although the Imperial Japanese Navy and supporting land-based aircraft lacked the sophisticated radar of a modern navy, this was more than counterbalanced by superior flight range, favorable geography, and the U.S. Navy’s need to protect critical targets (i.e., Kinkaid’s transports).
Furthermore, although often pilloried by historians since, Japan’s distribution of assets in the face of superior enemy sensors and numbers resembles modern U.S. naval discussions of surface action group deployments as a “method to seize the initiative [and] add complexity to an adversary’s calculus.”6 Unsurprisingly, such a sprawling operation as Leyte has myriad lessons of varying importance to contemporary planners, trainers, and senior leaders. Of these, the three most critical are: the need for clear mission orders, the importance of human factors, and, finally, the requirement for cross-organizational training when operating in a widely distributed maritime environment.7
Strong Personalities, Clouded Planning
The seeds for near disaster were sewn well before October 1944. The U.S. Navy, fresh from its victory that June at the Battle of the Philippine Sea (“The Great Marianas Turkey Shoot”), believed the shortest path to victory lay in seizing the island of Formosa (modern-day Taiwan) and literally starving Japan into submission. In contrast, General Douglas MacArthur, commander of the Southwest Pacific Area, believed this same purpose could be achieved by retaking the Philippines. Moreover, MacArthur, in the dark days of early 1942, had solemnly sworn to return and liberate the islands from imperial Japanese forces.
To reconcile these disparate views, President Franklin Roosevelt directed his staff to arrange a meeting between himself and MacArthur and Nimitz at Pearl Harbor in late July 1944. MacArthur—to Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall’s disgust—had to be literally ordered to attend, while Nimitz was surprised to find that he, not Admiral Ernest J. King, would be the Navy’s senior representative. To Nimitz’s disappointment and MacArthur’s ire, this meeting did not result in a definitive presidential directive to resolve the two possible courses of action. Instead, it would be up to the two theater commanders to resolve their differences. No decision was made for almost another month until, finally, on 17 August 1945, Nimitz conceded and recommended to the Joint Chiefs of Staff that the United States focus on an advance through the central Philippines.8
These decisions, exacerbated by MacArthur’s request (at Halsey’s suggestion) to expedite the invasion to 20 October from the originally planned December 1944 date, aggravated the human factors inherent in a split command in the Pacific. A combination of MacArthur’s ego, Roosevelt’s political calculations and ill health, and Nimitz’s penchant for being a team player thus served as “preconditions” setting the stage for near disaster in Leyte Gulf.
In the case of MacArthur, his desire to be in control of the amphibious shipping led to his insistence that Vice Admiral Kinkaid command the amphibious fleet. Roosevelt, for his part, wanted to be seen as in charge of the armed forces prior to running for his fourth term. Despite this, Roosevelt was unwilling to curb MacArthur’s desires lest his choice be cast as micromanagement by his political opponents.9
For his part, Nimitz’s desire for congenial relations led him not to question MacArthur’s desired choice to command the Seventh Fleet’s amphibious operations. Although normally one of Nimitz’s exemplary qualities regarding the larger war effort, in this case it would be highly inopportune. Distributed operations, especially those on the scale represented by invading the Philippines, required an amphibious commander who fully understood the Third and Seventh Fleets’ relative capabilities. In addition, an officer in such a position should have had clarity with regard to not only his own, but also adjacent forces’ mission objectives regarding enemy forces. In Kinkaid, the Seventh Fleet would have neither.10
Cooperation, Aggression, and Enmity
The preceding should not be taken to imply that Kinkaid was an incompetent officer. By this point in the war, he had commanded Task Force 16 at both the Battle of the Eastern Solomons (under Vice Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher) and the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands (as overall commander). This had been followed by being placed in charge of U.S. Navy operations in the Aleutians through the successful seizure of Kiska Island. With a demonstrated history of being able to cooperate with the U.S. Army, Kinkaid had been promoted to vice admiral and sent to oversee operations in the Southwest Pacific.11
Despite this impressive record, placing Kinkaid in charge of Leyte’s amphibious operations should have raised some immediate concerns for Nimitz. As Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Fleet, Nimitz was well aware that carrier operations had evolved since Guadalcanal. Kinkaid, for all his experience, had never operated in conjunction with the Navy’s fast carriers. Nor, for that matter, had he operated outside of extensive land-based aircraft coverage provided by MacArthur’s Fifth Air Force. Kinkaid also had not been privy to the extensive debate at Pearl Harbor regarding the failure to annihilate the Imperial Japanese Navy during the recent Battle of the Philippine Sea.12
Many accounts of the Battle of Leyte Gulf give little, if any, weight to these factors when considering subsequent events. They are very important, however, for extrapolating applicable lessons for peer-vs.-peer fleet operations in general and distributed operations in particular. The changes in U.S. carrier doctrine from Kinkaid’s previous operations emphasized aggressive action, concentration of force, and speed in closing with the enemy to offset the latter’s range advantage.
The lack of land-based air coverage meant that an amphibious force was often responsible for its immediate close security against surface and aerial threats. While the 18 escort carriers, six battleships, and multiple cruisers under Kinkaid’s command possessed more combat power and reconnaissance ability than that available to all three Japanese forces, Kinkaid’s staff apparently relied on the Third Fleet to provide distant security in all circumstances.13
This assumption might have been reasonable in most circumstances. However, as most naval officers assigned to the Pacific Fleet knew, the invasion of the Philippines would not reflect normal circumstances. Nimitz had given Admiral Halsey what the latter considered unambiguous instructions. Should “the opportunity for destruction of a major portion of the enemy fleet offer, such destruction would become the primary task of [Halsey’s] forces” has been subject to much historical debate.14 In context, however, the directions are clear: Halsey was to ensure there was no third opportunity for the “Decisive Battle” long sought by both sides. It is hard not to believe that Nimitz, as the Pacific Fleet’s commander, knew exactly how Halsey would interpret such a missive. Therefore, Halsey’s subsequent aggressive handling of the Third Fleet should not have come as a surprise.
In a cooperative environment, these issues would have been moderate at worst. Unfortunately, there were several reasons the relationship between the Third and Seventh Fleets was anything but cooperative. General MacArthur’s feelings that the Navy in general and Nimitz specifically sought to curtail his authority and resources proved to be the first impediment. MacArthur’s disregard for Nimitz was so great the Army general regularly poached U.S. Navy resources when they were transiting his area, and he demanded assistance from Central Pacific assets in adjacent commands. On at least one occasion, these practices had led Halsey to personally admonish MacArthur for placing the latter’s own desires over those of the larger war effort.15
In the run-up to Leyte, MacArthur did not help this reputation for viewing Nimitz’s theater as a supporting effort. Rather than let Nimitz decide who would run the amphibious formations his command was loaning to the Seventh Fleet, MacArthur demanded Nimitz place the Army’s choice of Navy officers in key positions. Not satisfied with disrupting Nimitz’s experienced command teams, MacArthur then put severe restrictions on Kinkaid’s communication with the Third Fleet. During a September 1944 meeting, MacArthur forbade direct radio contact between the Seventh and Third Fleets while the amphibious operation was ongoing, with the additional caveat that all communications from Halsey would first go through Nimitz then laterally through Southwest Pacific theater channels.
MacArthur then further amplified this intent by stating that, regardless of Navy protocol, Kinkaid was in no way to recognize Halsey’s seniority if the latter attempted to direct his operations. These decisions make it clear that MacArthur’s concept of the operation, in direct contradiction to what he’d coordinated with Nimitz’s staff in mid-September, saw the Seventh Fleet operating as the main effort with the Third Fleet wholly in support. Kinkaid, upon receiving Nimitz’s operations order to the Third Fleet, saw no reason to correct his superior’s supposition. The seeds for a potential disaster were set.16
On Staff
Even with all these preceding factors that set the conditions for near disaster off Samar, there were ample chances to avert Vice Admiral Kurita’s uncontested exit from San Bernardino Strait. Ultimately, Halsey and Kinkaid bear the responsibility for not seizing these opportunities. However, there is a military aphorism that makes the Battle of Leyte Gulf very relevant to a modern naval audience: Poor staff work often makes for bad decisions, while good staff work often covers a multitude of sins. By the end of Leyte Gulf, many of the Third and Seventh Fleets’ sins would be bare to each other as well as the judgment of history.
In the case of the Third Fleet, this saying manifested in three ways. First, there is no evidence that the reports of its pilots returning from striking the Center Force on 24 October were considered with a critical eye. Aviator overclaiming was a known phenomenon by late 1944, yet the Third Fleet’s staff seemed to take post-strike pictures of the crippled Musashi and other clearly damaged Japanese vessels, plus Kurita’s change of course, as clear signs the Center Force was no longer interested in conducting offensive operations.
In any military operation it is the staff’s role to wargame worst-case scenarios. The Third Fleet’s staff, while more than honoring the threat of Ozawa’s four flight decks, failed to give similar respect to four battleships last seen making almost 30 knots despite allegedly being crippled by repeated carrier strikes.17
This miscue was closely followed by the second, which was making no discernible attempt to ascertain the Seventh Fleet’s disposition. While the Seventh Fleet’s error in reading the Third Fleet’s mail is quite well known, it at least indicates that Kinkaid’s staff members were attempting to keep their boss informed. By contrast, at no point did the Third Fleet’s staff make a similar effort to determine where the Seventh Fleet’s battleships were prior to Halsey’s decision to go after the Northern Force. This fed into the assumption that Kinkaid, with six older but highly modernized battleships, had more than enough combat power to defeat both the Southern Force and the damaged Center Force.
Whether this was or was not true is immaterial. The simple fact of the matter is that the Third Fleet staff did not attempt to ascertain what Kinkaid intended to do. When acting geographically distant from other friendly forces, especially in confusing conditions, it is imperative that the staff help a commander achieve clarity. The Third Fleet’s staff, like its commander, became overly focused on the Northern Force rather than on aiding Halsey’s situational awareness.18
It was during Halsey’s rush to the north that the Third Fleet staff made their third and perhaps most dire mistake. Vice Admiral Willis Lee and Vice Admiral Marc Mitscher both attempted to raise concerns about Vice Admiral Kurita reversing course. Lee, familiar with Japanese tactics and the opportunities presented by the Philippines’ geography, was particularly concerned with the lack of information regarding the Seventh Fleet’s security plans. Mitscher received a contact report from the night air group of the USS Independence (CVL-22) that Kurita changed course around 2300 on 24 October. In both cases, Third Fleet staffers opted not to wake their commander with the communications. This gatekeeping, while understandable due to medical advice from Halsey’s surgeon, should be seen as a prime example of what not to do in a distributed operation.19
The Seventh Fleet’s staff officers, while not gatekeeping Kinkaid, similarly failed to help him maintain spatial understanding. The most glaring example of this was basing their security and force distribution plans on the eavesdropping of the Third Fleet’s communications. Halsey, in a message to Pacific Fleet headquarters, mentioned the possibility he might form a surface action group (TF 34) to complete the Center Force’s destruction should it exit San Bernardino Strait. He later clarified, using short-range radio communications, that this force would be formed only on his order. Ultimately, Halsey decided against detaching a TF 34 because of the need to ensure such a force would have fighter cover. With what he perceived would be a major carrier battle in the offing, Halsey did not want to dilute the Third Fleet’s striking power by detaching at least two of his carriers.20
Halsey’s need for such caution has been vigorously debated ever since. However, at the time he was deciding whether to form TF 34, Halsey had just lost the carrier USS Princeton (CVL-23) to what was described as a single-engine carrier aircraft, the USS Honolulu (CL-48) had been severely damaged by another single-engine aircraft on 20 October, and the Third Fleet had just nearly lost two cruisers, the USS Houston (CL-81) and Canberra (CA-70), earlier in the month during raids on Formosa.
The Seventh Fleet staff, while not alone in assuming TF 34 would be formed, bear much of the blame for basing their fleet’s activity on this assumption. It was the staff who told Kinkaid that TF 34 would be formed, and from this information he decided to send an overwhelming force to meet Vice Admiral Nishimura. Second, upon receiving the Independence’s nighttime report that several heavy ships appeared to have reversed course and were heading toward San Bernardino Strait, no one on staff thought to ponder why TF 34 did not acknowledge this information. Nor did anyone in the Seventh Fleet ask himself why the Third Fleet did not send any amplifying instructions for what would have been a major encounter between battleships or try to minimize the possibility of fratricide.
Instead, it was only on the morning of 25 October that members of the Seventh Fleet staff thought to verify whether Third Fleet was guarding San Bernardino Strait. At that point it was far too late for either Rear Admiral Jesse Oldendorff to shift his battleships north or the Third Fleet to come to the Seventh Fleet’s aid.21
Leyte’s Legacy
Thankfully for the U.S. Navy, the Seventh Fleet’s Taffy groups managed an improbable victory over the Center Force. This staved off the disaster nearly set in motion by the human factors and poor staff work leading up to the battle. Victory obscured many of the miscues, and the Battle of Leyte Gulf is presented most often as the U.S. Navy at the zenith of its powers. At nightfall on 26 October, after all, the Imperial Japanese Navy had sortied in strength for the last time.
This viewpoint, unfortunately, risks losing the many lessons from the Battle of Leyte Gulf that can be applied to modern distributed operations. First, it is not enough, as Halsey warned, “for the Navy never to expose itself again to the perils of a divided command in the same area.”22 Future Navy leaders operating in an era of antiaccess/area denial, emission control, and limited communications must vigorously seek out possible friction points well before the first operation is in the offing. At the operational level, fleet and task force commanders should seek out opportunities to train with their joint and international partners. Staffs must be repeatedly exercised so they are trained in how to provide these leaders with the best situational awareness possible. In this way, the mistakes prior to Leyte Gulf hopefully will be avoided.
Once a crisis or actual combat is in the offing, distributed operations will require vertical and lateral communication. Like Halsey and Kinkaid, commanders at all levels will be unable to “fight their ships to their full potential” in the absence of a clear understanding of the purpose in “laying their ship alongside that of the enemy.”23 Unlike the Third and Seventh Fleet staffs, modern officers must be relentless in asking questions regarding why adjacent units are taking the actions they are. Finally, commanders and staff must be cognizant of their own and allied forces’ capabilities as these change in real time.
Enacting these steps will take time and scarce resources. However, doing so will ensure that when the U.S. Navy emerges from the “long lee of Leyte” into battles yet to come, its performance will be even more dominant than in October 1944. The Navy owes the nation no less.
https://www.amazon.com/Sea-Thunder-Commanders-Campaign-1941-1945/dp/07432522251. Marcus Faulkner, War At Sea: A Naval Atlas 1939–1945 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2012), 242–47; Jack Sweetman, “Leyte Gulf,” Naval History 9, no. 3 (June 1995), 47.
2. ADM William F. Halsey, USN (Ret.), “The Battle for Leyte Gulf,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 78, no. 5 (May 1952): 487–95.
3. Evan Thomas, Sea of Thunder: Four Commanders and the Last Great Naval Campaign, 1941–1945 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2006), 168–172; Halsey, “The Battle for Leyte Gulf.”
4. Thomas J. Cutler, The Battle of Leyte Gulf (New York: HarperCollins, 1994), 62–73; Thomas, Sea of Thunder, 177–94, 210–12.
5. James D. Hornfischer, The Fleet at High Tide: America at Total War in the Pacific, 1944–1945 (New York: Bantam Books, 2016), 355–58; Cutler, The Battle of Leyte Gulf, 170–206; and Thomas, 248–305.
6. VADM Thomas Rowden, RADM Peter Gumataotao, and RADM Peter Fanta, USN, “Distributed Lethality,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 141, no. 1 (January 2015): 18–23.
7. Department of Defense, “DoD Human Factors Analysis and Classification System (HFACS) 7.0,” 1 January 2018.
8. ADM Chester Nimitz, USN, Gray Book, vol. 5: 1 January 1944 to 31 December 1944 (Newport, RI: U.S. Naval War College, 2013), 2041.
9. Joseph E. Persico, Roosevelt’s Centurions: FDR and the Commanders He Led to Victory in World War II (New York: Random House, 2013), 387–97; Thomas, Sea of Thunder, 100–2; and Hornfischer, The Fleet at High Tide, 340–42.
10. ADM William F. Halsey, USN (Ret.), Admiral Halsey’s Story (New York: Whittlesey House, 1947), 152–53, 167–69; E. B. Potter and ADM Chester Nimitz, USN (Ret.), eds., Triumph in the Pacific: The Navy’s Struggle Against Japan (Hoboken, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1963; Auckland, NZ: Pickle Partners Publishing, 2016 edition), 175–79.
11. William Tuohy, America’s Fighting Admirals: Winning the War at Sea in World War II (St. Paul, MN: Zenith Press, 2007), 115–18, 124–27, 176–84; Cutler, The Battle of Leyte Gulf,, 55–56; Nimitz, Gray Book, 613; and Potter and Nimitz, Triumph in the Pacific, 68–72.
12. Tuohy, America’s Fighting Admirals, 115–18, 124–27, 176–84; Cutler, The Battle of Leyte Gulf,, 55–56; Nimitz, Gray Book, 613; and Potter and Nimitz, Triumph in the Pacific, 68–72.
13. Halsey, “The Battle for Leyte Gulf”; Nimitz, Gray Book, 2099–2103; and Potter and Nimitz, Triumph in the Pacific, 194–98.
14. Halsey, “The Battle for Leyte Gulf.”
15. Tuohy, America’s Fighting Admirals, 129–30; Halsey, Admiral Halsey’s Story, 152–53.
16. Cutler, The Battle of Leyte Gulf, 159–60; Nimitz, Gray Book, 2358–2364; Potter and Nimitz, Triumph in the Pacific, 202–4; and Tuohy, America’s Fighting Admirals, 294–96.
17. Cutler, The Battle of Leyte Gulf, 154–65; Nimitz, Gray Book, 2245–2246.
18. Cutler, The Battle of Leyte Gulf, 206–15; Halsey, “The Battle for Leyte Gulf”; and Tuohy, America’s Fighting Admirals, 304–5.
19. Cutler, The Battle of Leyte Gulf, 158–65, 170–73; Thomas, Sea of Thunder, 226–48, 252; and Tuohy, America’s Fighting Admirals, 307–11.
20. Cutler, The Battle of Leyte Gulf, 170–73; Halsey, “The Battle for Leyte Gulf”; and Thomas, Sea of Thunder, 243–45.
21. Cutler, The Battle of Leyte Gulf, 175–203; Thomas, Sea of Thunder, 243–45.
22. Halsey, Admiral Halsey’s Story, 168.
23. LTJG Andrew Beeler, USN, “Distributed Lethality Requires Distributed Authority,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 143, no. 1 (January 2017): 54–57.