Fleet Carriers

Franklin CV13 Captain J.M. Shoemaker)              Air Group 13 (Cdr R.L. Kibbe) 39VF, 31VB, 18VT Enterprise CV6 (Captain Cato D. Glover)             Air Group 20 (Cdr Dan F. Smith) 40VF, 34VB, 19VT

Light Fleet Carriers

Belleau Wood CVL24 (Captain John Perry)          Air Group 2 (C1 (Lt. Cdr V.F. Casey) 25VF, 9VT San Jacinto CVL30 (Captain M.H. Kernodle)       Air Group 51 (Cdr C.L. Moore) 19VF, 7VT

Battleships

BB56 Washington (Captain T.R. Cooley)              BB60 Alabama (Captain V.R. Murphy)

Cruisers

CA32 New Orleans (Captain J.E. Hurff)               CA45 Wichita (Captain D.A. Spencer)

Destroyers

DD401 Maury                   DD380 Gridley                 DD388 Helm                   DD400 McCall DD389 Mugford               DD390 Ralph Talbot         DD392 Patterson             DD386 Bagley DD441 Wilkes                  DD442 Nicholson             DD443 Swanson

The landing forces for the Leyte operation were organized under Vice Admiral Kinkaid's  Seventh Fleet.  This consisted of 738 vessels, of many different types, including a powerful  force of cruisers and old battleships as well as a large number of destroyers. Seventh Fleet  was intended to be covered and supported by US Third Fleet under Admiral Halsey. 
Halsey's fleet came under Admiral Nimitz' Central Pacific command, while the Seventh Fleet  came under General Macarthur's Southwest Pacific Forces.  There was thus no overall naval  commander during the campaign, which almost inevitably led to great confusion in the  forthcoming battle, and in the event nearly led to a strategic disaster for the Allies.

Comparative Strength of the Opposing Naval Forces

The table below shows the huge numerical superiority enjoyed by US naval and air forces.
However, it should be noted that these forces had to cover the invasion fleet and the US land  forces ashore,  and that in addition the Japanese were able to deploy some hundreds of  land-based aircraft against the American fleet.  On the other hand, the table does not take  account of the disparity in quality of the opposing forces, in particular the great qualitative  superiority - at this stage of the war - of the US aircraft and aircrew.  This and their overall  advantage in numbers of aircraft conferred overwhelming air superiority on the Allied fleet -  and this air superiority was to prove the decisive factor in the coming battle.

Navy	Large carriers	Small Carriers	Aircraft Embarked	Battleships	Cruisers	Destroyers
United States	8	24	1712	12	24	141
Japan	1	3	117	9	20	34

The first Japanese force to be located by American forces was Kurita's Centre Force,  encountered in the Palawan Passage early on 23 October by two US submarines, Darter and  Dace.

Kurita had unaccountably failed to deploy destroyers in an anti-submarine screen ahead of his  heavy ships. Darter torpedoed and sank the heavy cruiser Atago, Admiral Kurita's flagship,  and Dace torpedoed two heavy cruisers, sinking one - the Takao - and severely damaging the  Maya, which was forced to withdraw.

The next day Third Fleet aircraft located the Centre Force. Despite its enormous strength  Halsey's fleet was much less well placed to deal with the threat than it should have been. On
22 October Halsey had detached two of his groups to the fleet base at Ulithi to provision and  rearm. When the Darter's contact report came in Halsey recalled Davison's group but allowed  McCain, with much the strongest of Task Force 38's carrier groups, to continue towards  Ulithi. Halsey finally recalled McCain's group on 24 October, but the delay meant that the
most powerful group played little part in the coming battle, and Third Fleet was therefore  effectively deprived of nearly 40% of its air strength.  On the morning of 24 October only  three groups were available to hit the Japanese Centre Force, and the one best positioned to  do so - Bogan's - was, unfortunately for the US forces, the weakest, containing only one large  carrier - Intrepid - and two light carriers.

Moreover, while they were preparing their first strikes against Kurita's force the northernmost  of the three carrier groups - Sherman's - came under heavy air attack from aircraft based on  Luzon. Three separate raids, each of 50-60 aircraft, were repelled - with very heavy losses -  by Sherman's fighters and AA fire, but one Japanese dive-bomber got through and hit the
light carrier Princeton with a bomb which started fires.  Later there was a huge explosion in  her torpedo stowage, which meant that she had to be abandoned. The explosion also
damaged the cruiser Birmingham, which was alongside the carrier giving assistance. Terrible  casualties were inflicted aboard the cruiser.

Despite all these difficulties Third Fleet - in what is known as the Battle of the Sibuyan Sea -  attacked the Centre Force repeatedly during the day, making a total of 259 sorties against  Kurita's ships. This force should, according to the Japanese plan, have had considerable  land-based fighter cover during its approach to the Philippines, but in fact Kurita was never  provided with more than a token combat air patrol, and,  even though his fleet had a large  number of anti-aircraft guns (each battleship had 120 or more) their fire proved to be largely  ineffective, probably because the gun crews had had very little combat experience.  (It was  noted that Kurita's AA crews seemed to be more effective towards the end of the Battle off  Samar the following day - despite the fact that they must by this stage have been in a state of  near-exhaustion).

Eighteen US aircraft were lost in these attacks.  The carrier air groups concentrated on the  enormous battleship Musashi.  A succession of torpedo hits slowed her down and she fell  behind Kurita's formation, but the attacks continued relentlessly and at 1935 she capsized and  sank, having been hit by at least 10 bombs and the remarkable total of 19 torpedoes.

However, the relatively small number of aircraft attacking (compared with the total air strength  of the Third Fleet), their concentration on sinking Musashi at the expense of crippling a large  number of Japanese ships, and the inherent difficulty of hitting fast warships free to
manoeuvre in the open seas meant that these attacks did not stop Kurita's fleet.  The heavy  cruiser Myoko was damaged by a torpedo and had to retire, and several other Centre Force  ships received bomb hits, which caused damage but did not substantially affect their fighting  efficiency.

Although Kurita turned his ships away at 1500 he at 1714 resumed his course towards San  Bernadino Strait  - with a still very powerful force consisting of 4 battleships, 6 heavy
cruisers, 2 light cruisers and a dozen destroyers  - a force still fully operational and ready to  fight.

An hour later he received a signal from Admiral Toyoda, Commander-in-Chief of the Combined Fleet  -

 "All forces will dash to the attack, trusting in divine assistance."

The Progress of the Other Japanese Forces

The Japanese Southern force consisted of two independent groups, Nishimura's group  including its two elderly battleships, and a smaller group under Admiral Shima. American  aircraft sighted both of these on the morning of the 24th. and Admiral Kinkaid,  correctly  surmising that these groups would attempt to attack the Leyte anchorage through Surigao  Strait, was preparing to repel them. The Seventh Fleet had more than enough strength, in its  battleships, cruisers and destroyers, to deal with the Southern Force.

The Japanese decoy force (the Northern Force) had remained undiscovered by the Americans  until late on the 24th, but one of its search aircraft had located Sherman's Task Group Three
at 0820.  At 1145 Ozawa's carriers launched a strike consisting of 76 aircraft, which failed to  inflict any damage on Sherman's group.  The Japanese pilots were so poorly trained that they  could not return to their carriers but had to make for airfields on Luzon after conducting their  attack.

Halsey suspected that Japanese carriers were nearby, partly because the aircraft, which had  attacked Group Three in the morning, were of carrier type (although these aircraft were in fact  land-based).  Air searches were conducted to the north and northeast but did not find
Ozawa's battleships until 1540, and did not find the enemy carriers until an hour later.

Halsey's Blunder

Having located the Japanese carriers - which he regarded as both the main threat and the main  prize - Halsey decided to concentrate his three available carrier groups, with all their  accompanying vessels  - including the six fast battleships  -  steam northwards with all this  huge force, and annihilate Ozawa's ships during daylight on 25 October.

Halsey took no steps to protect Seventh Fleet from the Centre Force. Third Fleet left San  Bernadino Strait entirely unguarded.

As C. Vann Woodward writes "Everything was pulled out from San Bernadino Strait.  Not so  much as a picket destroyer was left."

Moreover Halsey did not even inform Kinkaid that the Strait was NOT now being covered by  the Third Fleet - instead the Seventh Fleet commander had to rely on an intercepted signal,  timed 2022, from Halsey to his task group commanders, which indicated that the Third Fleet  commander was going north with the three carrier groups to strike the enemy Northern Force.

Seventh Fleet had intercepted an earlier radio signal from Halsey which outlined a plan to form  Task Force 34 -a very powerful surface force built  around the Third Fleet's fast battleships,  which was to be commanded by Vice Admiral Willis Lee.

When Halsey's 2022 message was received, Kinkaid and his staff, in the light of the  intercepted "Task Force 34 will be formed . . ." signal,  and not envisaging for a moment that  the Third Fleet commander would allow the Japanese Centre Force to emerge from San  Bernadino Strait entirely unopposed, assumed that the "three groups" referred to were the  carrier groups of Third Fleet, and that Task Force 34 had been left behind to guard San  Bernadino Strait.

In fact Task Force 34 had not yet been formed, and all the ships, which it was expected to  contain, were heading northwards with the American carriers.  Meanwhile the Seventh Fleet,  unconcerned about any threat from its northern quarter, and feeling fully confident that the  Centre Force would be dealt with by Halsey and the Third Fleet, continued with its  preparations to meet the Japanese Southern Force in Surigao Strait.

2300 October 24 - 0721 October 25

Rear Admiral Jesse B. Oldendorf, with 6 old slow battleships (five of which had been sunk or  damaged at Pearl Harbor), 4 heavy and 4 light cruisers, and 26 destroyers, was charged with  the task of stopping the Japanese Southern Force in Surigao Strait.

In addition 39 PT boats (motor torpedo-boats) were deployed beyond the Strait. At 2236 one  of these, PT-131, made the first contact with the advancing Japanese ships. Over more than  three-and-a-half hours the PT boats made repeated attacks on Nishimura's force, but without  making any torpedo hits.  Nonetheless they made contact reports, which were of great  assistance to Oldendorf's forces.

As Nishimura's ships entered Surigao Strait they came under devastating torpedo attack from  American destroyers disposed on both sides of their line of advance.  Both Japanese  battleships were hit.  The Yamashiro was able to steam onwards, but the Fuso blew up and  sank. Three of the Van Force's four destroyers were also hit.  Two of these sank,  but the  third,  the Asagumo,  was able to retire.

The American destroyer attacks were so successful that when the Japanese force came within  range of the batteships and cruisers disposed across the Strait all it consisted of was the  battleshipYamashiro, one heavy cruiser and one destroyer.  The overwhelming gunfire of the  Allied ships sank the Yamashiro and reduced the cruiser - Mogami - to a blazing wreck, but 
the destroyer, the Shigure,  miraculously survived.

The rear of the Southern Force, the "Second Striking Force" commanded by Vice Admiral  Shima, had approached Surigao Strait about 40 miles astern of Nishimura.  It too came under  attack from the PT boats, and one of these hit the light cruiser Abukuma with a torpedo,  which crippled her and caused her to fall out of formation.  Shima next encountered remnants  of Nishimura's force, including what he took to be the burning Fuso and Yamashiro but what  were in fact the broken halves of the torpedoed Fuso.  Shima, much discouraged, decided to  withdraw, after which his flagship Nachi collided with the burning Mogami and was badly  damaged.  Mogami was later sunk by aircraft from the Seventh Fleet's escort carriers.

Oldendorf's force and the PT boats then harried the retreating Japanese. The last shots of the  Surigao Strait battle were fired at 0721 when US cruisers and destroyers sank the destroyer  Asagumo, torpedoed and damaged earlier in the battle. 

At 0723 Oldendorf recalled his light forces from the pursuit. 

Less than ten minutes later he received the astounding report that the Seventh Fleet's escort  carriers had been surprised by the Japanese main force off Samar and were under heavy attack,
a report which meant that the invasion shipping in Leyte Gulf - and the entire Leyte operation  itself - was now in great danger.

The Battle off Samar
the Main Action

Seventh Fleet contained a large task group of eighteen escort carriers, divided into three task  units of six carriers each.

The main duties of these ships were the provision of combat air patrol over the Leyte  beachhead and the invasion shipping, ground attack on Leyte, and anti-submarine patrol.  They and their air groups were not trained or equipped to fight an enemy fleet.

At dawn on the 25 October the Seventh Fleet's three escort carrier units were operating off
the east coast of Samar.  In accounts of the battle these units are generally referred to by their  radio call-signs "Taffy One", "Taffy Two" and (the most northerly of the three - Task Unit  77.4.3) "Taffy Three."   This last unit,   under the command  of Rear Admiral Clifton  Sprague,  had by shortly after 0600 launched 12 fighters and also an anti- submarine patrol of 6 aircraft to cover the ships in Leyte Gulf, as well as aircraft for Taffy  Three's own  protection.

It was therefore a very routine morning so far for Taffy Three.   The threat from the Japanese  Southern Force had been eliminated by Oldendorf's force during the previous night, and  Halsey's Third Fleet with its immense strength lay to the north between the escort carriers and  the Japanese Central and Northern forces.  Or so Clifton Sprague and the men of Taffy Three  believed. 

But at 0645 AA fire was seen to the northwest, and a minute later the carrier Fanshaw Bay  picked up a surface contact on radar.

At 0647 Ensign Jensen - the pilot of a plane from carrier Kadashan Bay - sighted, and then  attacked, Japanese ships which he with remarkable accuracy identified as 4 battleships and 8  cruisers accompanied by destroyers. 

Then, just before 7am, lookouts on the escort carriers saw the masts and fighting-tops of  Japanese battleships and cruisers appear above the northern horizon.  A minute later heavy  shells began falling near Taffy Three. 

The surprise was complete. Taffy Three was in a desperate situation, facing an exceptionally  powerful force, which also had a great superiority in speed over the escort carriers, while the  only ships which Clifton Sprague had available to protect his flattops were the three  destroyers and four destroyer escorts of his screen.

At 0657 Sprague had turned his carriers due east, begun working them up to their maximum  speed of seventeen-and-a-half knots, ordered all his ships to lay smoke, and started to launch  every available aircraft.  At 0701 he issued a contact report and a call for assistance from  anyone able to give it.

Japanese lookouts had sighted the escort carriers at 0644 when Kurita's ships were deploying  from column into a circular anti-aircraft disposition.

Admiral Kurita then ordered "General Attack," permitting his ships' commanding officers to  deploy against the US ships on their own initiative and without referring to the flagship. This  was to mean that he lost control of the battle, and his giving such an order when his force was  already engaged in redeployment caused immense confusion within the Japanese formation.

Shortly after the battle began Taffy Three's carriers entered a rain squall which protected them  for about fifteen minutes and enabled Sprague to bring them around to the south-west - i.e.  towards Leyte Gulf and the rest of Seventh Fleet.

At 0716 Sprague ordered his three Fletcher-class destroyers - Hoel, Heermann and Johnston -  to counter-attack the Japanese formation. This they did with remarkable heroism and  tenacity.  They unflinchingly took on the battleships and cruisers, engaging these heavy ships  with their 5-inch guns as well as their torpedoes.

At about 0750 the American destroyer escorts with equal heroism joined the counter-attack.  At 0754 the vast battleship Yamato, now serving as Kurita's flagship after the sinking of Atago  on 23 October,  was forced to turn away for ten minutes by torpedoes from the American  destroyers and was never able to get back into the action.

A very confused struggle by the DDs and DEs against the Japanese force continued for over  two hours.  By 0945 the Hoel and Johnston, and the destroyer escort Samuel B. Roberts, had  been sunk by Japanese gunfire.  At least one torpedo hit was made on Kurita's ships, and  probably more, but what was of much greater importance was that the Japanese heavy ships  had been forced into repeated evasive action and that this had slowed their advance, caused  increasing confusion in the already badly disorganised Japanese formation, and deprived  Kurita of any chance of regaining effective control of his force.

While the small ships of Clifton Sprague's screen were conducting these desperate  counter-attacks the Japanese ships were also subjected to incessant assaults by aircraft from  the three Taffies.  Many of these attacks were carried out by aircraft armed with weapons  intended for ground support and quite unsuited for attack on large warships, and many others  were dummy attacks by unarmed aircraft.

Nonetheless, with the weapons available to them, the aircraft succeeded in sinking three heavy  cruisers and damaging several other ships. These air attacks also played a vital role in support  of the destroyers and DEs in distracting the enemy ships from the escort carriers, forcing
them into evasive maneuvers, and disorganizing the Japanese formation.

Despite all these heroic efforts the escort carrier Gambier Bay was eventually hit repeatedly
by 8-inch gunfire, was crippled, and sank at 0907.

But then, entirely unexpectedly,  and although his cruisers and destroyers were now on the  verge of annihilating Taffy Three,  Kurita at 0911 ordered his ships to break off action.

As Clifton Sprague later recalled  -

"At 0925 my mind was occupied with dodging torpedoes when I heard one of the signalmen  yell 'Goddamit, boys, they're getting away!'  I could not believe my eyes, but it looked as if 
the whole Japanese fleet was indeed retiring. However, it took a whole series of reports from  circling planes to convince me.  And still I could not get the fact to soak into my  battle-numbed brain.  At best, I had expected to be swimming by this time."

While Taffy Three was fighting Kurita's ships, Taffy One was being subjected to the first  organized kamikaze attack of the war.  Later that morning Taffy Three itself was attacked by  kamikazes.  At about 1100 the escort carrier St. Lo was crashed by a Zero which caused a  series of explosions, and she sank at 1125.  Four more of the Seventh Fleet's escort carriers  were damaged by kamikaze attack during 25 October.

Meanwhile, far to the north, Third Fleet was attacking the Japanese decoy force in the Battle  off Cape Engano. 

The Battle of Cape Engano

Shortly before midnight 24 October Halsey's three available carrier groups made rendezvous  off Luzon and began a high-speed run northwards to strike the Japanese Northern Force at  daybreak.  Halsey now passed tactical command of Task Force 38 to Vice Admiral Mitscher. 

During the run northward the ships which were to make up Task Force 34 were detached
from the carrier groups and Task Force 34 was officially formed at 0240 October 25, with  Vice Admiral Lee as Officer in Tactical Command.   This force swept northwards in the van  of the carrier groups.  Halsey's intention was that they would follow up with gunfire the  carriers' attacks on Ozawa's ships.

At 0430 Mitscher ordered his carriers to begin arming their first deckloads and to be ready to  launch aircraft at first light. He in fact launched his first attack groups, 180 aircraft in all,  before the Northern Force had been located, and had them orbiting ahead of his carrier force  while he was waiting for the first contact reports to come in from his search aircraft.

The first contact came at 0710. At 0800 Third Fleet's attacks on Ozawa began, meeting little  opposition. Task Force 38's air strikes continued until the evening, by which time Mitscher's  aircraft had flown 527 sorties against the Northern Force,  had sunk Ozawa's flagship Zuikaku  (last survivor of the six carriers which had launched the attack on Pearl Harbor) and  two of the three light carriers,  crippled the remaining light carrier, and sunk a destroyer,  as well as damaging other ships.

Meanwhile, at 0822 when Mitscher's second strike was approaching the Northern Force  Halsey in New Jersey received an urgent signal in plain language from Kinkaid saying that the  Seventh Fleet escort carriers were under attack off Samar and that assistance from Third  Fleet's heavy ships was desperately needed. This was the first of a succession of pleas for  help received by Halsey, which he ignored and continued to ignore for nearly three hours,   despite their including an alarming report that the Seventh Fleet battleships were low on  ammunition. Halsey continued to have Task Force 34 race to the north, while the men of 
Taffy Three were fighting for their lives and the Leyte invasion itself was being placed in  jeopardy.

At 1000 the Third Fleet Commander received a message from Admiral Nimitz,  Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Fleet and Halsey's immediate superior. The message, as  handed to Admiral Halsey,  read -

<>"WHERE IS REPEAT WHERE IS TASK FORCE THIRTY-FOUR  . . . 
THE WORLD WONDERS"

This message, indicating that Nimitz was alarmed about the safety of the Seventh Fleet and  considered that the Third Fleet battleships should be in action off Samar, eventually
persuaded Halsey to turn Task Force 34 around and send it south again.  Rear Admiral  Bogan's carrier group was also pulled out of the attack on Ozawa's force and sent south to  provide air cover and support for Lee's force.

When Lee's battleships were pulled out at 1115 they were almost within gunfire range of the  Japanese Northern Force.

Ironically it was by this time too late - if Halsey had turned Lee's force around when he first  received Kinkaid's call for assistance the battleships and the cruisers (although not the   destroyers which were low on fuel,  but might in the circumstances have been left behind) could have arrived off San Bernadino Strait in time to cut off Kurita's withdrawal. As it was,  Kurita's force, still containing four battleships and five heavy cruisers, had escaped through
the Strait before the Third Fleet's heavy ships arrived there.  All Task Force 34 could then  accomplish was to sink the straggling Japanese destroyer Nowaki. 

In any event, even if Task Force 34 had been turned southwards immediately after 0822, it  would have arrived too late to have given any assistance to the ships of Taffy Three, other  than in picking up survivors.

When the bulk of Task Force 34 was pulled out of the attack on Ozawa four of its cruisers  and nine destroyers were detached under the command of Rear Admiral DuBose to proceed  northward with the carriers.  At 1415 Mitscher ordered DuBose to pursue Ozawa's ships. His  cruisers sank the carrier Chiyoda at around 1700 and the American surface force at 2059 sank  the destroyer Hatsuzuki after a stubborn fight.

At about 2310 the US submarine Jallao torpedoed and sank the light cruiser Tama of Ozawa's  force.   This was the end of the Battle off Cape Engano, and - apart from some final  air  strikes on the retreating Japanese forces on 26 October - the end of the Battle for Leyte Gulf. 

The US had lost one light carrier and two escort carriers,  two destroyers and a destroyer  escort.

Between 23 and 26 October the Imperial Navy had lost one large carrier (the Zuikaku),  three  light carriers,  three battleships including the giant Musashi,  six heavy cruisers, four light  cruisers,  and twelve destroyers.

Major-General J.F.C. Fuller, in his book "The Decisive Battles of the Western World," writes  of this outcome -

"The Japanese fleet had [effectively] ceased to exist, and, except by land-based aircraft, their  opponents had won undisputed command of the sea. When Admiral Ozawa was questioned  on the battle after the war he replied 'After this battle the surface forces became strictly  auxiliary, so that we relied on land forces, special [Kamikaze] attack, and air power. There
was no further use assigned to surface vessels,  with the exception of some special ships.'  And Admiral Yonai, the Navy Minister, said that he realized that the defeat at Leyte 'was tantamount to the loss of the Philippines.'

        As for the larger significance of the battle, he said  'I felt that it was the end.' " 

Ship losses during the Battle Navy Large carriers Small Carriers Battleships Cruisers Destroyers Destroyers Escorts United States - 3 - - 2 1 Japan 1 3 3 10 11 - Acknowledgments Main sources for the above text Samuel Eliot Morison "History of United States Naval Operations in World War II"  Volume XII "Leyte" (Little, Brown & Co., Boston 1963) Major-General J.F.C. Fuller "Decisive Battles of the Western World" - Volume 3 (Eyre and Spottiswoode, London 1956) C. Vann Woodward "The Battle for Leyte Gulf" (Macmillan & Co., New York 1947)  . This web page was created by and is maintained by Paul D. Henriott Last updated 31 March 2005