Modern War And Ancient Maxims

Military leaders of the past have always insisted that wars, despite their manifold varieties and extreme violence, follow certain patterns and conform to certain laws. Napoleon attributed many of his battle-field inspirations to happy recollections of previous campaigns which he had assiduously studied seeking to improve his natural aptitude for war. Hitler’s total war is only the modern version of “absolute war” described by Clausewitz about 1830. It is already evident that many of the maxims of the great commanders of the past are still applicable, and that the principles of war, though requiring some modification due to the new weapons, still retain much of their validity.

One of the best instructors at the Naval War College, Captain McCarthy Little, rather jocosely, but very wisely, limited the application of the principles of war as follows: “principles of war apply when they do apply; and they don’t apply when they don’t apply,” which emphasized that the principles of war are intended to guide, not fetter the mind of the commander afloat or ashore. As no principle of war can be applied universally or continuously, it is more exact to use the term “maxim of war.”

Even considered as proverbs rather than commandments, one principle or maxim can often be quoted against another. For instance, one of the fundamental maxims of war is that a commander must take risks, because great victories cannot be won without accepting great risks; and yet one of the so-called immutable principles of war is the principle of security, which, carried to an extreme, would forbid any risk. American admirals in the recent war have adjusted these two opposing ideas, risk and security; they have demonstrated their willingness to take “calculated risks” in their campaigns and battles. “Calculated risks” are those from which unnecessary hazards have been removed. In planning campaigns and battles, risks which can be foreseen and avoided are not accepted; those which can be foreseen but not avoided, are carefully calculated and then accepted. In war there are always unexpected situations in which unforeseen risks appear; these are boldly faced. From their experience and reflection American flag officers have learned that this residue of risk can be accepted with bearable losses to our fleet; and they have reason to believe that they can inflict upon the enemy fleet more loss than they receive.

Two fundamental factors justified American admirals when they took calculated risks against the armed forces of Japan. First was the American numerical superiority (and there is reason to believe qualitative superiority also) in ships, planes, and personnel. This superiority, the industrial plants and greater population of the United States could maintain and probably increase. Second, Japan was an insular empire, exceedingly vulnerable to naval pressure. The United States, geographically a continental nation, strategically was a self-contained island, not easily invaded nor vulnerable to submarine or air attacks. Therefore, practically all the armed forces of the United States could be employed on the offensive, thus keeping the nation’s enemies at great distances from its industrial homeland.

It is also a maxim of war that only by taking the offensive can a battle or a war be won. But it is wise when taking the offensive in one area to remain on the defensive in another, unless the enemy is so weak that the offensive can be taken in all theaters of war simultaneously. After the Japanese attack in the Pacific the American Joint Chiefs of Staff decided that the major effort of the U. S. forces would be made first in the Atlantic against Germany. Admiral Nimitz had to fit his plans in the Pacific to the over-all plan and make the most effective use of the forces available. His first problem was to absorb the tremendous energy of the Japanese triphibious forces in the Pacific, which temporarily possessed superiority in the air, on the land and sea, and at times under the surface of the sea. At the same time, the Admiral was obliged to secure the line of communication from California to Australia. There was only one way of meeting this situation, and that involved yielding territory and gradually blunting the spearheads of the enemy forces without losing too much of his own triphibious forces. During this trying period, American newspapers naturally inquired “Where is the Navy?” and amateur strategists admonished the naval high command with the ancient maxim that “Defense cannot win a war.”

During 1942, the situations in the Pacific and in Russia were similar. The Japanese forces were pressing back the naval forces of the United States, Great Britain, and Holland, just as the German hordes were pushing back the Russian armies. One of the oldest maxims of war, that space and time are the only means of safely absorbing superior strength on land or sea, was proved to the hilt in the present war. It was the good fortune of the United States that the American Navy had enough space in the Pacific to yield to Japan without vital damage to continental United States. Russia was less fortunate; she saved her armies, but only by sacrificing her people and her territory; her farms, factories, and mines were ravaged by the invader.

There is another fundamental maxim of war, observed first by great generals, which Mahan demonstrated is equally applicable to war on the sea, to wit: “The enemy’s organized armed forces [land, sea, and air] are the primary objective of our own.” Therefore, the blows of the American Navy were aimed at the enemy’s fleet, his combat ships. When they were destroyed or neutralized, enemy merchant ships and overseas possessions and homeland were at the mercy of our Navy regardless of the size of his armies.¹

The Japanese violated this maxim in the beginning of the war; intoxicated with their early victories, their naval general staff did not make the U. S. Pacific Fleet their first objective. Instead, they used their ships as part of their triphibious teams, overran and garrisoned Burma, Indo-China, the Philippines, Malaysia, the Bismarck Archipelago, and the Solomon Islands. While the Japanese were busy capturing territory, they not only gave Admiral Nimitz an opportunity to re-enforce his fleet, establish his lines of communications, but at the same time the Japanese over-extended and dangerously weakened their naturally strong position in the western Pacific by scattering ground troops, shore batteries, and aviation from Tokyo to Guadalcanal and Kiska.

The Japanese naval staff were probably aware of the dangers they were accepting, but they needed the products, oil, rubber, and tin of some of these islands, and they hoped that the American forces would choose territorial objectives and expend their forces ejecting Japanese army garrisons from one island after the other in a step-by-step advance from the Solomons towards Tokyo. During these anticipated American campaigns the Japanese planned to whittle down the Pacific fleet to the point where they could attack it with a reasonable prospect of success; for if they could destroy our fleet they would obtain permanent instead of temporary control of the western Pacific. The American High Command made the Japanese fleet the primary objective, by-passed the most heavily protected islands, and in June, 1944, breached the inner defenses of the Japanese Empire by capturing Saipan, knowing that their advance towards Japan was the surest method of compelling the Japanese fleet to fight.

The strategic consequences were soon visible; the Japanese Merchant Marine incurred heavier losses as the line of communications was over-extended, and the fleet suffered severely in their futile efforts to protect their transient territorial gains. The Japanese Generals understood why their Navy could not maintain the over-extended line of communications, but the Nipponese ground troops marooned in tropical jungles with a scant supply of food and bullets could not understand why the Japanese Navy did not supply them with provisions and munitions, and give them air and artillery support.

The verification of this old maxim in the latest war fought with the most modern weapons illustrates an old British aphorism, that “The Empire floats on the Royal Navy.” The terrible implications for Japan of these fateful words cannot be overstated. The Mikado’s insular empire floated on the Imperial Navy; when the combat fleet was destroyed, the merchant marine accompanied or quickly followed it into oblivion, and the arrogant race that aspired to dominate the Far East was confined to its own islands, and like its abandoned garrisons in the southwest Pacific, had no further defense. The catastrophic consequences to Japan that followed from the destruction of her navy and merchant marine prove Mahan’s favorite maxim that “The enemy fleet is the first objective of the U. S. Navy.”

In the recent war in the Pacific,² the most effective blows of the American Navy were struck, not by the U. S. Pacific Fleet concentrated in one force, but by detachments of the Fleet composed of various types, operating as the Third, Fifth, and Seventh Fleets, and as independent units called “Task Forces.” Superficially, this would appear to be a regular and consistent violation of the maxim of concentration. But if the commander of an inferior enemy fleet divides his forces, that action may compel the commander of the superior fleet to make a corresponding division of his superior fleet in order to hold the enemy naval detachments in check. In the numerous naval campaigns of the sailing ship era in western Europe, the necessity of dividing the superior fleet (usually the British) into detachments occurred and recurred. Similarly, during the recent war in the Pacific, Admiral Nimitz, first when his forces were inferior and subsequently when they were superior, was compelled to divide his forces, either to hold in check superior Japanese forces or to seek by dividing his Pacific fleet into smaller fleets and task forces to compel some or all of the various Japanese task forces to accept battle.

The American strategy of by-passing Japanese-held islands required a division of the naval forces in the Pacific into task forces to escort, land, and support numerous divisions of ground troops of the Marine Corps or the Army. If, in the execution of this strategy, the American naval task forces had been so thinly distributed and so widely deployed that the Japanese Navy could have concentrated, attacked, and defeated an American task force or fleet before it could have been supported, the maxim of concentration would have been violated. But although it was necessary to deploy task forces over the wide spaces of the Pacific, they were so grouped that they could be concentrated in the critical theater of operations in greater force than the Japanese could bring against them. One of the strategical masterpieces of the war in the Pacific was the transfer of the bulk of the Pacific fleet to the central Pacific, immediately after the victory in the Coral Sea. The ensuing victory off Midway Islands definitely secured American control of the eastern Pacific, and made possible the subsequent landing on Guadalcanal.

It is another commonplace of naval war for an inferior fleet to endeavor to evade action until it has had an opportunity to wage a war of attrition against the superior fleet in the hope that it can whittle down the enemy superiority. The Germans, in the last war, hoped to reduce the British fleet to the point where they could accept battle. Instead of this, the Grand Fleet gained greater proportionate strength than the High Seas Fleet throughout the war. The German Empire had to expend most of its men and material upon its armies, whereas the Grand Fleet had first call on all of the men and resources of the British Empire; afterwards the British Army was served.

Naval history has repeated itself in the recent war in the Pacific. The Japanese Navy hoped to reduce the American Navy to the point where they could safely attack. The opposite happened. The United States Navy, thanks to American industry, grew enormously; the Japanese Navy also grew, but not nearly so much. Furthermore, the Japanese fleet in support of its army in its career of conquest in the southwest Pacific accepted greater losses than those suffered by the U. S. Navy. The result was that the disparity between the Japanese fleet and the U. S. fleets in the Pacific became greater than ever before.

As the superiority of the U. S. Pacific Fleet increased, so did the eagerness of American flag officers to bring the Japanese fleet to action. Japanese admirals grew correspondingly reluctant, and another well- known phenomenon of naval war reappeared. American fleets sought action—Japanese fleets avoided action. In nearly every major naval war, there has been a superior fleet, and almost invariably the superior fleet has sought, and the inferior fleet avoided action. In spite of all the new weapons, the strategic situation confronting the American admirals in the Pacific was similar to the one that confronted Nelson and other British admirals when they sought to compel weaker French fleets to accept action. And, like their predecessors in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, American admirals employed sound but traditional strategy to compel the Japanese fleet to fight.

Commencing with our landing operations in the Marshall Islands, Admiral Nimitz’s triphibious forces continued through the Carolines and the Marianas, seizing one Japanese outpost, by-passing another, until they captured Saipan and breached the inner defense line of Japan. They strengthened their hold on the Marianas with the capture of Guam. Their threat to the Japanese Empire became so evident that Admiral Nomura openly announced that it was time for the Japanese fleet to attack the American fleet before it cut the Japanese Empire into two parts. Nomura represented an influential section of the Japanese Navy. He probably voiced its sentiments. The fact that he gave public expression to these views was the first proof that the efforts of Admiral Nimitz and his brother admirals to bring the Japanese fleet to action were succeeding.

While Admiral Spruance’s fleet was engaged in supporting the landing operations off Saipan and Guam, it was subjected to repeated attacks by shore-based, and in some instances, carrier-based Japanese planes. On June 18, the American carrier task forces providing air cover and support for the amphibious force were attacked by Japanese planes for several hours. This prolonged attack was successfully repulsed by carrier- based aircraft and anti-aircraft fire. The effectiveness of the Japanese planes had been sharply curtailed by the previous systematic bombing and strafing of the airfields of Guam and Rota, and during the prolonged engagement of June 18, 369 enemy aircraft were destroyed by our carrier aircraft and 18 by anti-aircraft fire, and 15 were destroyed on the ground. The enemy succeeded in damaging superficially two American carriers and one battleship. There were 27 American aircraft shot down by the enemy, of which 18 pilots and 6 air crewmen were lost. On the same day, an American submarine sank one of the Shokaku class carriers; probably the carrier was obliged to expose itself to support the Japanese garrisons ashore, so its loss should be attributed, in part, to American pressure on them.

The belief of American commanders that a portion of the enemy planes attacking our ships and troops on Saipan came from Japanese carriers, and only used the land bases as shuttle points, was confirmed on the afternoon of June 19 when carrier-based reconnaissance planes of the Fifth Fleet sighted a Japanese fleet which included carriers and battleships, approximately midway between the Marianas Islands and Luzon. The willingness of the Japanese high command to risk a task force within reach of Spruance’s and Mitscher’s forces was positive evidence that the American plan to compel the Japanese fleet to accept action was working.

Aircraft were immediately launched to attack, but only succeeded in reaching their targets very late in the afternoon. No American surface ships were engaged. In this “touch and go” attack, American airplanes sank one carrier of the Hayataki class, one smaller carrier and two tankers; they badly damaged one carrier of the Hayataki class, one carrier believed to be the Zuikaku, one light cruiser and three tankers; and damaged one battleship of the Kongo class, one heavy cruiser, and one light cruiser. The remainder of the Japanese task force escaped with little, if any, damage.

Our aircraft were launched so late in the afternoon and at such a distance from the enemy that on their return many of them were compelled to land in the water after nightfall. The majority of pilots and air crewmen were rescued and our final losses from 95 aircraft either shot down by the enemy or compelled to land in the water were 22 pilots and 27 air crewmen, while our aircraft shot down 26 enemy aircraft.

A comparison of the results of the continued attacks of the Japanese aircraft on our surface ships supporting the landing operations in the Marianas on June 18, and our fleeting attack on their battleships and carriers in the Battle of the Philippine Sea on the following day, reveals the difference between the striking power of our carrier- based planes and the Japanese carrier- and land-based planes. These two air actions, which should be considered parts of the same battle, gave strong evidence that our carrier-based aircraft were quite able to take care of themselves in combat with the Japanese land-based and carrier-based planes, and simultaneously afford air coverage to our surface ships while they were supporting our ground troops in their attacks on the Japanese-held islands. These and similar results convinced our admirals in the Pacific that American carrier-based aircraft were the antidote to the Japanese land planes operating from unsinkable but immobile landing strips which dotted all the islands from Japan to New Guinea. Furthermore, the partial neutralization of Japanese air strips in the Philippines and adjacent islands during these air strikes convinced Admiral Halsey that the island of Yap, which had been heavily attacked by ships and planes, could safely be by-passed and the liberation of the Philippines commenced earlier than anticipated. And his recommendation was accepted by General MacArthur and confirmed by the High Command.

The Admiral’s decision revealed his complete confidence in American carrier-based planes, because in the Philippines alone, when the air attacks began, the Japanese had over 100 airfields in good operating condition; they could re-enforce the air bases in the Philippines with planes from the homeland by using the air bases on the islands which stretch, like beads on a necklace, between Tokyo and Mindanao. Admiral Halsey’s confidence was the result of his own observation and experience, and was supported by Vice Admiral Mitscher, whose task force had operated in easy bombing range of the Japanese air bases from Luzon to the Bonins. The confidence of Admirals Halsey and Mitscher exemplified the doctrine of accepting calculated risks. It meant that the American task forces, supported by aircraft from carriers, were prepared to accept battle with the Japanese fleet or any part of it supported by Japanese land-based planes operating from bases in the Philippines.

The results obtained in the battles around Guam and Saipan in June were exceeded in the strikes made when Halsey and Mitscher paid a three-day visit on October 12, 13, and 14 to Formosa and its environs; on the 14th and 16th, Army B-29’s made their contribution and dropped bombs on Formosa. During the three-day attack of the fleet, 55 enemy vessels were sunk and 32 probably sunk, while 396 enemy planes were destroyed on the ground and in the air. Infuriated by these blows, the Japanese High Command first sent strong units of bombers and torpedo planes from Japan itself to sink or drive off the audacious Americans; these were intercepted and dispersed by our carrier-based fighters. The Japanese aircraft were only able to damage two medium-sized American men-of-war, both of whom were able to withdraw from action.

The Tokyo radio broadcast triumphant stories about the heavy losses these planes were inflicting upon American ships, claiming they had sunk at least 15 American carriers. Apparently, their High Command was deluded by their own false propaganda, although it is entirely possible they were misled by inaccurate and over-enthusiastic reports of their airmen, for they dispatched a task force from the home islands to mop up the remnants of the American fleet. When air scouts of this pseudo avenging detachment reported to its commander the strength of the American fleet awaiting his attack, he returned without ceremony to his hideaway in the Inland Sea.

The air strikes at Formosa were only a part of a comprehensive plan to confuse the enemy, keep them off balance, and weaken the Japanese defenders of the Philippines. On October 14, operations against Luzon and some of the smaller islands to the east and south began. Some 100 airfields were visited as the fleet worked its way southward to converge on the forces of General MacArthur, Admiral Kinkaid, and Admiral Barbey, whose armada was approaching Leyte Island. Halsey’s operations had temporarily put out the eyes of the Japanese defenders and enabled this huge, but not unwieldly, body of American ships to completely surprise the Japanese forces on Leyte Island on October 20.

After seeing General MacArthur well established ashore, Admiral Kinkaid assigned his escort carriers to positions off Samar where they would have sea room to launch their aircraft and offer air support both to his own surface ships and to General Mac- Arthur’s troops ashore, and attached to them an anti-submarine patrol of destroyers and escort destroyers. His surface combat ships continued to give artillery support to General MacArthur, while his supply ships carried on the innumerable tasks that fall to a naval commander supporting an army ashore.

Kinkaid’s battle line, under the command of Rear Admiral Oldendorf, was held in readiness to repel any attack by enemy surface ships; it consisted of the West Virginia, Maryland, Tennessee, California, and the Pennsylvania. For a score of years they had formed a large part of the Battleship Divisions of the Battle Fleet whose 16-inch and 14-inch guns were the pride of the American Navy. Several of them had been sunk by Japanese torpedoes and bombs on December 7, 1941. Raised, repaired, and modernized, they were now about to avenge themselves upon the Japanese Navy. The Bon Homme Richard, on the verge of sinking, achieved a glorious victory; her mighty steel descendants literally rose from the mud of Pearl Harbor to participate in another naval triumph.

The return of General MacArthur, accompanied by President Osmena, to the Philippines fulfilled his personal pledge, and was proof to the loyal Filipinos that the United States would liberate their islands. But as far as the triphibious strategy of the western Pacific was concerned, the most important result of the landing on Leyte was to bring on the Battle for Leyte Gulf which in turn made possible the landing on Mindoro.

Here again, although new weapons were playing a tremendous role, naval war ran true to form. Moving soldiers across the sea has always been a sure way to bring on a naval engagement, and usually proves disastrous to the weaker fleet. Napoleon transported troops across the Mediterranean, but lost his inferior fleet in the Battle of the Nile; his subsequent threat to invade England brought on the Battle of Trafalgar which cost him the combined French and Spanish fleets. When superior fleets escort soldiers across the sea, the same tendency to bring on naval engagements appears. The commander of the inferior fleet hopes for an opportunity to strike at the transports, or even at the combat ships when they are hampered with the convoy, or to fall upon the expedition when it is disembarking with one leg ashore, one leg afloat, or as in the Battle for Leyte Gulf, to gain a tactical advantage by attacking the transports and the combat ships supporting them.

This phenomenon of naval war was well understood in England. When Admiral “Jackie” Fisher was asked by the British Army if the Navy could guarantee to land the army expeditionary force in France, he asserted that he would use it as bait to bring the German fleet to action. Although brusquely expressed, Fisher’s strategical conception was sound; if the German fleet had struck at the British expeditionary force while crossing the English Channel, it could have been attacked under most favorable conditions by the superior British fleet and probably destroyed. And in August, 1914, although the German General Staff knew that four British divisions were crossing the Channel, and just when and where they were crossing, the German High Seas Fleet made no attempt to attack the British transports. They were unwilling at that time to risk their fleet.

Halsey and Kinkaid were well aware that the landing on Leyte would certainly offer tempting targets to Japanese naval and air forces. They anticipated a violent Japanese reaction and took appropriate measures which included stationing submarine patrols in strategic waterways.

In a large sense the triphibious operations in the western Pacific comprised one unceasing battle panorama after the capture of Tarawa. The actual landings on Peleliu and Morotai can, however, be regarded as the beginning of the campaign for the liberation of the Filipinos and the origin of the Battle for Leyte Gulf, which itself developed into a series of air and sea battles, and continued for three days.

On October 23, three days after the landing on Leyte, the Battle for Leyte Gulf began in the Palawan Passage, a narrow seaway which parallels the island barrier of the same name, and leads through Mindoro Strait into the Sibuyan Sea. The first contact was made by two American submarines, patrolling the passage, with a Japanese force consisting of five battleships, ten heavy cruisers, one or two light cruisers, and about fifteen destroyers. After reporting the enemy’s presence the submarines sank two and badly damaged a third enemy heavy cruiser. The battle opened well.

In the three days that had elapsed since the landing on Leyte, the speedy Japanese ships could have reached Palawan Passage from Singapore, Surabaya, or Cam-Ranh Bay; they could have refuelled either at sea or in North Borneo. The Japanese High Command were usually deliberate in reaching decisions; they probably had decided before the landing on Leyte to attack when the American forces reached the Philippines. In any event, the movements of their fleet towards Leyte must have commenced shortly after Tokyo learned of the American landing. And the time they chose for a major engagement coincided with the definite committal of Kinkaid’s Seventh Fleet to the support of MacArthur’s army ashore and after Halsey’s Third Fleet had been cruising and fighting for over two weeks, and could be presumed to have expended much fuel and ammunition.

The first attempt of a task force of the Japanese fleet to interfere with the American landings in Guam and Saipan had resulted in its defeat and rout. Nevertheless, the Japanese High Command decided to expose their whole available fleet to a second battle with Halsey, Mitscher, and Kinkaid. There must have been an overwhelming reason for the Japanese Naval Staff to deliberately seek battle with the Third and Seventh American Fleets; because Japanese admirals realized that their Empire was absolutely dependent on their Navy. When they decided to risk their fleet, they knew they were risking their Empire.

The probable reason that actuated the Japanese admirals was the continued growth of the American Triphibious Forces and the establishment of American naval and air bases in the Marianas Islands. The Japanese admirals realized then that the Japanese surface fleet could no longer shelter itself behind shore fortifications. Whether the Japanese fleet anchored in Port Arthur, Cam-Ranh Bay, Singapore, Hongkong, Manila, or the Inland Sea, it would be equally at the mercy of American planes. The Japanese Naval Staff could employ their fleet in battle to delay the advance of the American Triphibious Forces towards Japan, or submit to seeing their ships ignominiously sunk at anchor skulking behind inadequate defenses which could postpone but not avert their destruction. The Japanese admirals, having pondered the problem, decided to take the big gamble that commenced on October 20.

Contributory tactical reasons have already been mentioned. In addition, the Japanese fleet was suffering more from attrition than the American fleet; their naval position was not only bad, but steadily deteriorating. Their chances of defeating the Third and Seventh Fleets in October were small, but every passing month would reduce their chances. Important, but not decisive influences with the Japanese admirals were the prestige of the navy and a natural feeling of obligation to their army comrades.

When the Japanese High Command decided to risk a second naval engagement, some ships were in their home waters, others in and around Formosa, while the bulk of the surface ships were in the South China Sea, which suggests that they anticipated an American invasion of Zamboanga in the Island of Mindanao. Time did not permit a concentration of their forces before proceeding to the battle area.

The wide separation of the Japanese forces necessarily complicated their plan of action, for the American forces under Halsey and Kinkaid to the eastward of Luzon and Leyte were in a central position, conveniently placed to interpose between the Northern and Southern Japanese Groups. The Japanese Commander in Chief further complicated the movements of his fleet by dividing his Southern Force into two parts which eventually left him with a Northern and a Central Group, as well as a Southern Group whose movements had to be co-ordinated in order to concentrate their attacks on the American forces in Leyte Gulf.

The Japanese had lost three aircraft carriers in the Battle of the Philippine Sea. They expected to compensate their carrier deficiency with more numerous land-based planes which could fly from island to island from Japan to the Philippines, and before Halsey’s extensive raids in October could operate from over a hundred air bases strategically located in the Philippine Archipelago. In a determined effort to bring all available aircraft to attack American ships during this important battle, they added four aircraft carriers to the Northern Group coming down from Formosa.

To intensify their air attacks on Halsey’s Third Fleet and Kinkaid’s Seventh Fleet on the 24th, the planes from these Japanese carriers were launched at a great distance from the scene of action, and refuelled from the adjacent airfields on Luzon, before attempting to rejoin their carriers. The fierceness of the combined land-based and carrier- based air attacks on the American surface forces is proved by the loss of 150 Japanese planes shot down by planes or guns while they were over the Third Fleet. Despite their heavy plane losses throughout this three-day engagement, the Japanese aircraft, mainly land-based, continued their attacks on American land, sea, and air forces. The effectiveness of these air strikes can be fairly measured by their ability to completely disable the American carrier Princeton and damage severely two other American carriers in spite of the fighters and anti-aircraft defense of the Third Fleet.

On the morning of the"24th, American air forces sighted two Japanese forces. The Central Group of five battleships, including two of the newest, Yamato and Musashi, accompanied by the older battleships Nagalo, Kongo, and Haruna, seven heavy and one light cruisers, and about fourteen destroyers, was proceeding through the Sibuyan Sea headed for San Bernardino Strait. The Southern Group, consisting of two battleships, the Fuso and Yamashiro, two heavy cruisers, two light cruisers, and ten destroyers, was proceeding through the Sulu Sea towards Leyte Gulf. Both Groups were repeatedly attacked by aircraft during the 24th. The Musashi,* two heavy cruisers, and two destroyers of the Central Group were heavily damaged, all the other ships suffered some damage, and the Admiral turned this force about and headed westward. The Southern Group also suffered damage but doggedly persisted on its course.

Thanks to American submarines and planes, Admirals Halsey and Kinkaid learned in ample time of the approach of the Central and Southern Groups of Japanese ships. However, not until the forenoon of the 24th, when many of his own planes were attacking the Japanese Central and Southern Groups, and his own surface fleet was being heavily attacked by Japanese planes, did Halsey learn that a large group of Japanese planes, attacking the Third Fleet, had approached from the northeast, apparently coming from very distant carriers. As soon as practicable, Halsey dispatched scouting planes, one of which located the suspected Japanese carriers about 3:40 in the afternoon of the 24th, with a Japanese force steaming down from the northward off the northern end of Luzon. This Northern Group included the battleships Ise and Hyuga, four carriers, a large one of the Suikaku class with three smaller ones, one heavy cruiser, four light cruisers, and six destroyers. The American admirals now, for the first time, obtained a fairly complete picture of the enemy forces threatening Leyte; they totalled nine battleships, including two of the most modern, one large and three small carriers, thirteen heavy cruisers, about seven light cruisers, and over thirty destroyers.

Admiral Halsey realized at once that it was imperative to prevent the aircraft carriers of the Japanese Northern Group from getting close enough to Leyte Gulf to attack our escort carriers and auxiliary ships the following day. Accordingly, during the late afternoon and the succeeding night, he proceeded at high speed with sufficient force to defeat the enemy forces approaching from the northward even if the Japanese admiral was supported by shore-based airplanes. During the same afternoon, Kinkaid deployed his light forces of destroyers and PT boats southwest of Leyte Gulf to gain and maintain contact with the Japanese Group approaching from the southward, and assigned to Rear Admiral J. B. Oldendorf, commanding the battleships of the Seventh Fleet, the task of stopping the on-rushing Southern Group before it could attack the American supply ships.

In pursuance of Kinkaid’s plan, Oldendorf stretched his modernized battleships across the northern end of Surigao Strait where it connects with the Gulf of Leyte. Destroyers and PT boats, dispatched to the southward to observe, track, and report the movements of the on-coming Japanese Group, also delivered torpedo attacks, and then continued to observe and report the movements of the on-coming Japanese battle line, which steamed head on into the American battle line which was deployed across the head of and at right angles to the enemy’s column.

To the Americans, the battle was a gunnery officer’s dream come true. No ships could endure, and the Japanese did not stand such fire. The Japanese admiral was first obliged to slow to 12 knots and then to turn his ships in succession, which brought one Japanese ship after another approximately to a turning pivot within 11,000 yards of the American battleships, whose turret guns put salvo after salvo into their enemy’s hulls. Some attempted to slip away west of Leyte, but were promptly pursued by American ships and planes. The others simply made the best speed possible toward the Sulu Sea to escape the hail of steel. One badly damaged Japanese battleship and a heavy cruiser managed to survive the gunfire and make their way from the scene of slaughter, but only to be promptly sunk by American aircraft after daylight. Some destroyers (possibly light cruisers) escaped this battle of annihilation.

While Kinkaid’s forces were engaging the Southern Group, Halsey continued steaming at high speed to intercept the Northern Group. During the night one of his planes again sighted the oncoming enemy, and at dawn his carriers launched a devastating plane attack which sank three Japanese carriers and completely disabled the fourth. Many Japanese planes returned from refueling on Luzon airfields just in time to witness the destruction of their floating homes; they headed for shore but most of them probably fell into the sea. While enjoying this good news, Halsey learned that the Japanese Central Group was attacking Kinkaid’s escort carriers.

The ships of the Central Group had been attacked on the 23d by Americans submarines with the loss of three heavy cruisers. They had been repeatedly attacked on the 24th by American aircraft; one of the latest battleships and one of the heavy cruisers were so badly damaged they had to turn back to a temporary base. Their Commander had been forced to turn away with his entire group to evade the American air attacks, and not a single one of his major ships was uninjured. He was probably in communication with the commanders of the Northern and Southern Groups during the afternoon of the 24th and the night of the 24th-25th and aware of their decision to continue towards Leyte. Knowing that the whole plan of battle depended upon the presence of his force, he turned east and at daylight, having cleared the Straits of San Bernardino, fell upon the American escort carriers.

Shortly after dawn, Halsey learned of the Japanese attacks on American escort carriers, but was too far away to interpose immediately with his surface ships; he promptly dispatched aircraft to their assistance and a strong force of surface ships followed. However, before the surface ships could effectively intervene, the Japanese commander had learned of the destruction of the Southern Group and the rout and retreat of the Northern Group, lie knew that Halsey’s Third Fleet would soon be in hot pursuit, and about 9:20, just when he had the American escort carriers in easy range, he was compelled to abandon a certain local success for fear that he himself, with all his ships, would be cut off from the San Bernardino Strait and destroyed by the superior American forces. He did not succeed in evading entirely Halsey’s surface forces, which caught up with some of his stragglers and dispatched a wounded destroyer and a light cruiser. And, thus ended the main battle. The Northern Group, badly routed, was making the best of its way back to Japan after losing four aircraft carriers—its entire contingent of air. The Central Group was fleeing to the westward, having lost several heavy cruisers and with one of its latest battleships badly damaged. The Southern Group had only a few destroyers or cruisers surviving to tell Tokyo what had struck them.

COMPOSITION AND LOSSES OF THE JAPANESE FLEET
	Japanese forces which began the battle	Those seen to sink	Those so badly damaged would not reach port; if so, might not be available for 1 to 6 months.	Immediately available after battle; slightly damaged
Battleships	9	2	1 (sunk)	5
Aircraft carriers	4	4	—	—
Heavy cruisers	13	6	3	4
Light cruisers	7	2	2	3
THE SOUTHERN GROUP	Daytime Oct. 24	Night action Oct. 24-25	Sunk by aircraft in pursuit following night battle	Might have escaped in direction of Singapore
Fuso-Yamashiro (2 battleships)	Several ships damaged by aircraft	2 battleships	1 badly damaged battleship	1 cruisers
2 heavy cruisers		1 heavy cruiser	1 badly damaged heavy cruiser	4 or 5 destroyers
2 light cruisers		2 light cruisers
8 or 10 destroyers		5 destroyers
THE CENTRAL GROUP	Losses by Submarines Oct. 23	Losses during approach on Oct. 24—Attacked by air.	Losses Oct. 25	Escaped towards Manila Bay or South China Sea
Yamoto-Musashi (new battleships)	2 heavy cruisers sunk	1 battleship badly damaged,	While attacking American aircraft carriers, one heavy, one light cruiser sunk, one or two destroyers sunk; during retreat after 9:20 A.M., on 25 Oct., one destroyer sunk by 3d Fleet before reaching San Bernardino	4 battle ships
3 old battleships	1 heavy cruiser badly damaged	2 cruisers badly damaged; most ships hit		5 cruiser
10 heavy cruisers				6 or 7 destroyers
1 light cruiser				On 26th-aircraft from 3d Fleet probably sank:
13-15 destroyers				1 heavy cruiser
				1 light cruiser
THE NORTHERN GROUP	Losses—Sunk by Bomber & Torpedo Planes Oct. 25	Badly Damaged		Escaped—Heading towards Japan
Ise-Hyuga (2 battleships)	3 carriers	One carrier, then sunk by pursuing cruisers and destroyers; one damaged cruiser sunk by submarine.		The Ise and Hyuga (2 battleships)
4 Aircraft carriers (1 Zuikaku class, large)	2 destroyers			3 cruisers
1 heavy cruiser				4 destroyers
3 light cruisers
6 destroyers

The American losses were one light carrier, the Princeton; two escort carriers, the Saint Lo and the Gambier Bay; two destroyers, the Johnston and the Hoel; and one destroyer escort, the Samuel B. Roberts.

The losses they incurred in the Battle for Leyte Gulf reduced the Japanese to a second-rate navy. This of itself was a great victory. It would have been greater if the American fleets could have entirely destroyed the Japanese fleets. That triumph was reserved for the future.

The land fighting on Leyte continued throughout the three-day sea and air engagement. Japanese land-based planes were able to continue their attacks on MacArthur’s troops, as well as Kinkaid’s ships. And in the early morning of the 25th, the reports of the attacks on American escort carriers by the Central Group of the Japanese fleet must have caused Army Headquarters momentary anxiety for their supply ships. The crisis soon passed and as the Central Group fled through San Bernardino Strait, the army line of communication, which stretched via New Guinea to Australia and via Pearl Harbor to the United States, was secured at its eastern extremity in the Philippines. American Triphibious Forces were in control of the ocean routes from San Francisco to Leyte.

The most important result of MacArthur’s landing on Leyte Island was to bring on the Battle for Leyte Gulf and enable Halsey and Kinkaid to inflict a mortal wound on the Japanese fleet; the next was the losses inflicted by the land, sea, and air forces on General Yamashita’s soldiers attempting to reach Leyte. Most of these soldiers never reached the shore, and thousands of American soldiers were saved the trouble of killing the Japanese soldiers on Leyte because American ships and planes sank the transports attempting to relieve the beleaguered garrisons on Leyte.

The immediate consequence of the losses inflicted upon the Japanese fleet and army in the Battle for Leyte Gulf and the invasion of Leyte was to facilitate the invasion of Mindoro Island. Possession of Mindoro Island gave the American Triphibious Forces a window on the South China Sea, made it more difficult for Japan to maintain communications with her temporary conquests in the Southwestern-Pacific, and foreshadowed other developments, so it can only be regarded as a fleeting phase of the moving panorama of the vast triphibious operations which the American High Command set in motion with the capture of Tarawa.

Yamashita, the fire-eating General, whose soldiers inflicted such hideous suffering on American prisoners of war, asserted he would fight the decisive land battle for the Philippines on Leyte Island. He counted without General MacArthur who, on December 15, landed on Mindoro Island; he had to conform to MacArthur’s movements; he had the choice of remaining with his beleaguered soldiers in Leyte, or seeking to escape to join another garrison in the Philippines which would, in its turn, be surrounded.

The decision of the Japanese Naval Staff to fight the Battle for Leyte Gulf indicated that they might no longer evade a major engagement and hide the remnants of their fleet behind shore fortifications. The Naval Staff knew that their fleet was no longer safe from American aviation. And presumably they preferred to use it against the American Triphibious Forces and in support of their own army and air.

The Japanese Triphibious Forces were no stronger than any of the three components— land, sea, and air arms. Germany was a formidable opponent without a navy, but Japan was an insular empire dependent on seaborne trade. The Navy was the vulnerable and vital link in the Japanese triphibious chain. When the Japanese Navy was destroyed, the Japanese Empire was doomed.

The maxim most helpful in the concluding phase of the campaign for the western Pacific is familiar to at least two generations of American naval officers. Thanks to the Battle of the Philippine Sea and the Battle for Leyte Gulf it could be stated: “The remnants of the Japanese Fleet arc the primary objectives of the American Triphibious Forces.’’