The U.S. Army Campaigns of World War II:Leyte; 17 October 1944 1 July 1945

Map of the Philippines

“Preparation for the invasion of the Philippines was greatly assisted by ULTRA, the Allied top secret interception, decryption, and dissemination program against Japanese radio traffic. Acting on tip-offs from ULTRA, American submarines and aircraft had been ambushing Japanese shipping in the Western Pacific and interfering with enemy exploitation of resources in the East Indies for many months. In June 1944 ULTRA revealed that Tokyo had decided to greatly strengthen its Philippine defenses to block the expected American route of advance northward toward the home islands. That knowledge and subsequent intercepts had allowed the Allied high command to focus submarine and air attacks against Japanese shipping routes and flight paths to the Philippines. But despite increasing losses, the Japanese buildup in the islands continued through the summer and fall of 1944.”

The course of the war could have become quite different if the U.S. had not cracked the Japanese codes. For one thing, Midway would not have happened at all since the code-crackers were able to give good information to the U.S. forces which were able to attack the Japanese and stop them from taking the island.

Japanese exaggerations: One of the things that stands out about the later World War II Pacific Theater actions was the incredible exaggerations that the Japanese made about the losses they dealt to U.S. forces. This helped prolong the war, in my opinion, and probably caused quite a few problems for the military leadership. It also helped keep the Japanese civilian population thinking that the war was going fine, at least until the B-29s began to appear above their homeland and firebomb their cities into burned-out cinders.

”Meanwhile, Japanese Imperial headquarters received a completely different impression of what had been occurring. With their naval pilots forwarding wildly exaggerated reports of downing 1,200 American aircraft and sinking eleven aircraft carriers, Tokyo became increasingly optimistic. Although senior naval officers grew suspicious of these claims, other military authorities in Tokyo accepted them. In their eyes, the supposed American losses made it possible to decisively defeat the Americans wherever they landed in the Philippines—if Japan could concentrate its resources there. American planners, however, continued to regard Leyte as a mere stepping stone to the more decisive campaign for Luzon. This conceptual difference would greatly increase the stakes at Leyte or wherever the Americans landed first.”

There was, of course, exaggerations on both sides, but the Japanese ones were, at times, almost unbelievable. How they could possibly report 1200 American craft and 11 aircraft carriers destroyed is very, very hard to understand.

Invasion map

Americans and Japanese came away from the battle of Leyte Gulf with extremely divergent views of what had occurred. These different assessments provoked planning revisions which completely changed the character and duration of the battle for Leyte. The Americans believed they had dealt the IJN a severe blow; events later proved them correct. But in the immediate aftermath of the sea battle, Japanese commanders believed they had ruined the American carrier force. In fact, they had sunk only one light and two escort carriers and three destroyers. Nevertheless, convinced that they had won a major naval victory and bolstered by reports of air victories in the ten days before A-day, Southern Army resolved to fight the decisive battle on Leyte. Believing MacArthur’s ground forces were now trapped on the island, the Japanese command moved to wipe out the Sixth Army. Marshaling available shipping, the Japanese began moving units to Leyte from other islands in the Philippines as well as from Japan and China. The first convoy brought units of the 102d and 30th Divisions during 23–26 October. Over the next six weeks, eight more convoys brought troops from the 1st, 8th, and 26th Divisions, and the 68th Independent Mixed Brigade.”

Remember, the Japanese had reported that they had sunk 11 carriers; in actually, they sank three. This is critical in that it was the carriers which proved to be a major deciding factor in the war, and the Japanese were losing theirs and not replacing them, while the U.S. replaced the ones they lost and added even more.

Japanese transport under attack. (National Archives)

Filipino volunteers carry supplies into the mountains to reach 1st Cavalry Division troops. (National Archives)

Analysis: The campaign for Leyte proved the first and most decisive operation in the American reconquest of the Philippines. The Japanese invested heavily in Leyte, and lost. The campaign cost their army four divisions and several separate combat units, while their navy lost twenty-six major warships, and forty-six large transports and merchantmen. The struggle also reduced Japanese land-based air capability in the Philippines by more than 50 percent, forcing them to depend on suicidal kamikaze pilots.”

”For the U.S. Army, the results of the campaign were mixed. The fight for Leyte lasted longer than expected, and the island proved difficult to develop as a military base. These and other setbacks had their basis in several intelligence failures. Most important, MacArthur’s headquarters had failed to discern Japanese intentions to fight a decisive battle on Leyte. Thus, not enough covering air and naval support was available to prevent the substantial enemy troop influx between 23 October and 11 December. This reinforcement, in turn, lengthened the fight on the ground for Leyte and forced the commitment of units, such as the 11th Airborne Division, held in reserve for subsequent operations. Of course, an ever present factor was the dedication of the individual Japanese soldier, the tactical skills he displayed in defensive warfare, especially in using the difficult terrain to his own advantage, and the willingness of his commanders to sacrifice his life in actions that had little chance of being decisive.”

I'm reading a book at this time about the Philippine liberation, and there are numerous incidents of kamikaze attacks and their results, and it had to be something horrible to go through. Although the kamikaze did not stop the U.S. advances, they did account for a good number of men killed and ships sunk and damaged. There was no fool-proof way to stop the kamikaze, either. Almost always at least a few of them would make their way through the firing coming from the ships and find their target.

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