Retribution_ The Battle for Japan, 1944-45 - Max Hastings [90]
Once American forces had secured a firm foothold in the Philippines and achieved command of local skies and seas, piecemeal ground operations could contribute nothing towards the defeat of Japan. But the islands had been the general’s home. He viewed their people with a paternalistic warmth as great as any British sahib felt towards Indians. Liberating them from Japanese rule was the most compelling objective of MacArthur’s war. Around three-quarters of a million Filipinos, Japanese and Americans would pay with their lives for its accomplishment.
In the weeks preceding the landing at Leyte, American carrier aircraft struck again and again at Japanese airfields and shipping. On 10 October, 1,396 sorties were launched at the Ryukyu Islands, south of Japan, which destroyed significant shipping and a hundred enemy aircraft, for the loss of twenty-one American planes. Two days later, Halsey’s flattops dispatched 1,378 sorties to Formosa. Japan’s Vice-Admiral Shigeru Fukudome, commanding 6th Base Air Force, described later how he watched the air battles, applauding as planes fell, until he perceived that most were Japanese. The struggle was not entirely one-sided—forty-eight American planes were downed on the twelfth. But next day the Japanese lost forty-one in futile attacks on Third Fleet. Over five hundred Japanese aircraft were destroyed between the twelfth and the fourteenth, an intensity of attrition dwarfing the 1940 Battle of Britain, and indeed all air combat in the European theatre. Even Japanese aircrew being trained on Kyushu for carrier operations were thrown recklessly into the battles with Halsey’s squadrons. Most were lost, and with them Japan’s last chance of sustaining a seaborne air capability.
On 14 October, Admiral Soemu Toyoda reported to Fukudome that the U.S. Third Fleet was retiring defeated. A Japanese communiqué of 16 October announced American losses of eleven aircraft carriers, two battleships, three cruisers and one destroyer, besides eight carriers, two battleships and four cruisers damaged. The nation was urged to celebrate the “glorious victory of Taiwan.” In truth, of course, Halsey had achieved overwhelming success. He departed to wreak havoc elsewhere. All the Japanese had to show for their efforts was severe damage to two U.S. cruisers. American carriers had demonstrated that they could range at will, inflicting overwhelmingly disproportionate injury upon any Japanese force they met at sea or in the sky.
Yamashita received his first indication of MacArthur’s Philippines armada in a fatuous signal from his divisional commander on Leyte: “Enemy fleet approaching, uncertain whether they are sheltering from weather or fleeing from Formosa battle.” At dawn on 20 October, the seven hundred ships of MacArthur’s central Philippines attack force began offloading seven miles off the shore of Leyte Gulf. Almost 200,000 men of Sixth Army were mustered in the transports, commanded by Lt.-Gen. Walter Krueger. Krueger was born in Prussia in 1881. When his father died, in 1889 his mother emigrated to the United States. Her son began his military career ten years later, as a volunteer infantryman on Cuba. He rose to the rank of sergeant, then elected to seek a commission as a regular soldier. In the Pacific, to the mystification of officers who thought him a dull dog, slow and cautious, Krueger became MacArthur’s favoured field commander, his primacy rewarded by the key role on Leyte.
American warnings had been broadcast to the local population to move inland to avoid the bombardment. Filipino guerrillas were alerted by radio flashes the day before the landing. It was widely believed at SWPA headquarters that the campaign would be easy. But MacArthur’s staff intelligence estimates seriously underestimated Japanese strength, even if the Leyte garrison was not reinforced. Gen. George Kenney, MacArthur’s air