History of the Second World War (107 page)

So the Japanese bait, though it had not been taken at the intended time, was swallowed in the end.

The situation of Kinkaid’s fleet was the more dangerous because he was misled in a double way. The appearance of Kurita’s southern detachment, heading for Surigao Strait, had focused Kinkaid’s attention in that direction, and he concentrated most of his force there to meet this threat. He assumed that part of Halsey’s battle fleet was still covering the more northerly approach through San Bernardino Strait, as it had not been made clear that Halsey had sailed away with the whole fleet. Worse still, Kinkaid did not take the precaution of sending out any reconnaissance to see if any enemy was approaching from that direction.

The attack by the Japanese southern detachment was defeated after a tense night battle — thanks largely to the ‘night-sight’ provided by the Americans’ radar, which was much superior to that of the Japanese Navy. Another Japanese disadvantage was that as their ships came in line ahead through the narrow Surigao Strait, they were exposed to the concentrated fire of Admiral Oldendorf’s battleships — which could thus ‘cross the T’. The detachment included two battleships, and both were sunk. Almost the whole of the attacking force was wiped out. When daylight came the Strait was empty of the enemy except for bits of floating wreckage and streaks of oil.

But a few minutes after Kinkaid had signalled his congratulations on the victory, another signal came to say that a much larger Japanese force — Kurita’s main fleet — had come down from the north-west, through San Bernardino Strait, and was off the east coast of Samar Island assailing the smaller portion of Kinkaid’s fleet that had been left there to cover General MacArthur’s landing points on Leyte.

This small force, supporting the army’s invasion of Leyte Island, comprised six escort-carriers — converted merchant ships — and a handful of destroyers. They fled southward under a hail of heavy shells from the giant
Yamato
and the other three battleships.

After getting this alarming news, Kinkaid sent a signal to Halsey, at 8.30 a.m.: ‘Urgently need fast battleships Leyte Gulf at once.’ At 9 a.m. Kinkaid made another pressing appeal, and this time, in clear, instead of in code. But Halsey continued to steam northward, determined to fulfil his aim of destroying Ozawa’s carrier force. He persisted on this course despite Kinkaid’s repeated appeals for help — feeling that Kinkaid’s carrier-borne aircraft should be able to hold off Kurita’s attack until the bulk of Kinkaid’s fleet, with its six battleships, came up to the rescue. He did, however, order a small detached force of carriers and cruisers under Admiral John McCain, then in the Caroline Islands, to hasten to Kinkaid’s help. But it was 400 miles away — fifty miles farther than he was.

Meantime a brake was put on Kurita’s southward onrush by the gallant efforts of the handful of American destroyers that were covering the retreat of the six escort-carriers, as well as of such planes as these still had available. One escort-carrier and three destroyers were sunk, but the rest escaped, though battered.

Just after 9 a.m. Kurita broke off the chase and turned towards Leyte Gulf, where a mass of American transports and landing craft now lay open to attack. He was then less than thirty miles from the entrance.

Before striking he paused to concentrate his ships, which had become dispersed in the running fight. The turn and pause again created the mistaken idea on the Americans’ side that he was retiring — under pressure of their air and destroyer attacks, They were soon disillusioned, and Kinkaid sent another urgent call for Halsey’s help: ‘Situation again very serious. Escort-carriers again threatened by enemy surface forces. Your assistance badly needed. Escort-carriers retiring to Leyte Gulf.’

This time Halsey responded to the appeal. By now, 11.15 a.m., his planes had severely mauled Ozawa’s force, and although he dearly wanted to finish it off with his battleships’ guns, he curbed his desire and came racing back with his six fast battleships and one of his three carrier groups. But he had gone so far north in pursuit of Ozawa that he could not possibly reach Leyte Gulf until the next morning. Even McCain’s carrier force would not arrive near enough to intervene with its planes for several hours still. So the situation at Leyte looked very grim at midday as Kurita’s fleet bore in towards the Gulf

But suddenly Kurita turned back north — and this time for good. What was the cause? A combination of intercepted messages and their effect on his mind. The first was a radio call telling the aircraft of the American escort-carriers to land on Leyte Island. He imagined that this was preparatory to a land-based and more concentrated attack on his ships, whereas it was merely an emergency measure to save them from being sunk with the carriers. A few minutes later he received an intercept report of Kinkaid’s 9 a.m. signal in clear to Halsey. From this he jumped to the mistaken conclusion that Halsey must have been racing south for more than three hours, for Kurita was out of touch with Ozawa and did not know how far north Halsey had gone. Also, he was worried about his lack of air cover.

The crowning effect came from a confused intercept which gave him the impression that part of the American relieving force was only seventy miles north of him and already close to his line of retreat through the San Bernardino Strait. So he decided to abandon his attack on Leyte Gulf and hurry north to tackle this threat before it was reinforced and his line of retreat blocked.

It was one more of the many cases in history which show that battles are apt to be decided more by fancies than by facts. The impression made on the commander’s mind often counts much more than any actual blow and its physical effect.

When Kurita reached San Bernardino Strait he found no enemy there, and slipped away through it to the westward. Although he did not reach this bolt-hole until nearly 10 p.m. — delayed in the process by having to dodge repeated air attacks — that was three hours before Halsey’s leading ships arrived there in their race southward.

But the escape of the Japanese battleships, which had achieved so little, was amply compensated by the sinking of all the four Japanese carriers — one, the
Chitose,
about 9.30 a.m. by Mitscher’s first strike, and the other three (
Chiyoda
,
Zuikaku,
and
Zuiho)
in the afternoon, after Halsey with the bulk of his fleet had departed on his belated southward dash.

Regarding as a whole its four separate and distinct actions, the Battle of Leyte Gulf, as it is collectively called, was the largest naval battle of all time. A total of 282 ships was engaged as well as hundreds of aircraft, compared with 250 (with five seaplanes) in the 1916 Battle of Jutland. If the June battle of the Philippine Sea had been in a sense more decisive, through its devastating effects on Japanese naval air strength, the four-piece Battle of Leyte Gulf reaped the harvest and settled the issue. The Japanese ship losses in it were four carriers, three battleships, six heavy cruisers, three light cruisers, and eight destroyers — whereas the Americans lost only one light carrier, two escort carriers and three destroyers.

It is worth mention that this battle also saw the inauguration of a new form of tactics, difficult to counter. For after the American escort-carriers of Kinkaid’s 7th Fleet had succeeded in surviving the unexpected and overwhelmingly powerful onslaught of Kurita’s ‘Centre Force’ until Kurita was led to turn about and withdraw through the San Bernardino Strait they were then subjected to the first organised ‘Kamikaze’ attack — carried out by pilots who had volunteered for a special air corps dedicated to the sacrificial, suicidal mission of crash-diving their planes on to an enemy ship, setting it on fire with their burst fuel-tanks and the explosion of their bombs. In their first essay, however, only one escort-carrier was sunk, although several were damaged.

The major significance of the battle lay in the sinking of Ozawa’s four aircraft-carriers. Without any carriers, the six remaining Japanese battleships were helpless, and they made no further positive contribution in the war. Moreover the Japanese Navy was rendered useless. Thus, while Halsey’s northward dash had exposed the rest of the American forces to grave dangers, the outcome provided justification. Moreover it showed the hollowness of the battleship bogey, and exposed the folly of the faith that had been placed in such out-of-date monsters. Their only important value in World War II was for shore bombardment — a role for which, ironically, they had in previous generations been considered unsuitable, and too vulnerable.

The Japanese decision to fight for Leyte, and make that the core of their defence of the Philippines, came too late to allow the reinforcements from Luzon, nearly three divisions, to reach the island before the American troops had expanded their footholds. First, striking out from their landing points, they took the nearby airfields at Dulag and Tacloban, on the east coast. Then, stretching out on both flanks, they reached by November 2 Carigara Bay on the north coast and Abuyog midway down the cast coast. Those expanding thrusts not only captured all five Japanese airfields, and threw into confusion the enemy’s one division already on the island, but forestalled the plan of Suzuki (35th Army) to concentrate his reinforcing divisions in the Carigara plain.

Krueger intended, next, to carry out a two-fold flanking sweep round both ends of the island’s mountain spine, to capture the Japanese main base at Ormoc on the west coast. But torrential rain hampered the work of making the captured airfields serviceable to support the concentric move, and in the interval two Japanese reinforcing divisions were landed at Ormoc by November 9. More reinforcements followed, despite serious losses in transports and escorts, and by early December the Japanese had brought their troop strength on Leyte up from 15,000 to 60,000. But by that time Krueger’s strength had been increased to more than 180,000. To hasten progress he landed one of his fresh divisions on the west coast just south of Ormoc, thus splitting the defence, and three days later, on December 10, it occupied that base-port with little opposition. After that, the hungry Japanese quickly collapsed and by Christmas organised resistance ceased. Thus, under much worsened circumstances, and with much diminished strength, Yamashita reverted to his own original desire of concentrating his defensive effort on the main island of Luzon.

During the crucial weeks three fast carrier groups of Halsey’s 3rd Fleet had stayed close to the Philippines to give continued, and continuous, support to MacArthur’s troops, despite suffering increasing Kamikaze attacks. These inflicted a considerable number of damaging hits, and two of the carriers had to be withdrawn for extensive repairs, although it was not until the last week of November that the carriers were released.

As a preliminary to the invasion of Luzon, MacArthur’s main objective, he decided to seize the intermediate island of Mindoro in order to establish airfields from which his air force, the 5th U.S.A.A.F., could cover the seaborne approach to Luzon. It was a risky move as Mindoro was nearly 300 miles from Leyte Gulf, while much closer to the Japanese airfields on Luzon, especially the cluster around Manila. But the garrison of Mindoro was only about a hundred men, and the four abandoned Japanese airstrips were occupied within a few hours of the landing on December 15 — and converted so quickly for American use that U.S. Army planes were being flown in before the end of the month. The ease of the process was much helped by the way that Halsey’s fast carrier force pounded the airfields on Luzon and kept an umbrella of fighters over them to prevent the Japanese bombers taking off to attack Mindoro and its sea-approaches.

On January 3 the American armada, assembled from many quarters, sailed from Leyte Gulf — a total of 164 ships, including six battleships and seventeen escort carriers, under Admirals Kinkaid and Oldendorf. On January 9, it arrived off Lingayen Gulf (no miles north of Manila) — where the Japanese had begun their invasion of the Philippines nearly four years before. Early on the 10th it began disembarking four divisions of Krueger’s Sixth Army (with two more to follow).

Great help was given by the fast carrier force of Halsey’s fleet, especially in countering the Kamikaze attacks that were now causing growing damage to ships. After covering the Lingayen Gulf landings, this carrier force made a deep raid into the China Sea, ravaging Japanese bases and shipping in Indo-China, South China, Hong Kong, Formosa, and Okinawa. It was a demonstration of the vulnerability of Japan’s southern empire.

Krueger’s troops were meanwhile pushing southward from Lingayen Gulf towards Manila against fierce opposition. To help in hastening their progress, and to prevent the Japanese falling back into the Bataan Peninsula, MacArthur landed a further corps close to that peninsula on January 29. Two days later an airborne division was landed, unopposed, at Nasugbu, some forty miles south of Manila. But by the time it advanced on Manila, Krueger’s troops had reached the outskirts of the city, and Yamashita’s troops had withdrawn into the mountains.

Manila was still defended, however, by Admiral Iwabachi, commanding the naval base. He refused to obey Yamashita’s order making Manila an open city, and fanatically persevered in a house-to-house fight that continued for a further month — and wrecked the city. Not until March 4 was Manila completely cleared. Meanwhile the Bataan Peninsula had been captured, and Corregidor retaken, although the Japanese garrison of this fortress-island held out for ten days. By the middle of March the port of Manila was ready for use by American ships, although the process of mopping up continued in the mountainous part of Luzon as well as in Mindanao and the lesser southern islands.

THE ATTACK ON IWO JIMA

After the capture of the key places in the Philippines the Americans were eager to press on and strike at Japan herself, dropping earlier ideas on MacArthur’s part of capturing Formosa or part of China’s coast as air bases for the assault on Japan. But the Joint Chiefs of Staff agreed in considering it necessary to take Iwo Jima in the Bonin Islands, midway between Saipan and Tokyo, and Okinawa in the Ryukyus, midway between the south-western end of Japan and Formosa, as strategic stepping stones — close-up island bases to aid the air bombardment of Japan.