Battle of Leyte Gulf - October 23-26, 1944

Greetings PHG fans! This week we're marking the 82nd anniversary of the Battle of Leyte Gulf, a climactic point in the Second World War's central Pacific comapign. Taken as a whole, the battle is a complex, multi-faceted series of events that reaches from Brunei to the Philippine Sea, from the tip of Luzon right down to Palawan Island. I'm fascinated by this battle; not just the x's and o's on the map but also the people who took part in it and the decisions they made.

Described as the largest sea battle in history, the Battle for Leyte Gulf featured the first U.S. aircraft carrier sunk by naval gunfire (USS Gambier Bay), the first sunk by a kamikaze (USS St. Lo), the last battleship-on-battleship action (Surigao Strait) and the end of the Imperial Japanese Navy as an effective fighting force. Following Leyte Gulf, the Imperial Japanese Navy never again seriously contested a battlespace in the Second World War. There have been a great many books written about the battle, many of which can be found on the PHG reading list.

A map of the approaches to Tacloban Anchorage in the Leyte Gulf, from the U.S. Naval War College study of the battle

I gave a talk last year on one aspect of the battle, that of the decision-making of Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita, with WW2TV. You can find that talk linked here. Many of the works I used for my notes are primary source documents, including interrogations of surviving IJN Officers by the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey after the war. The U.S. Naval War College did a five-volume study of the battle, and although volume four, which encapsulates the Battle off Samar and that of Cape Enganao was later curtailed, what remains is an in-depth set of documents complete with maps, charts, and interviews. Both of these publications are on the Pacific History Guide Resources Page.

Allied intelligence report from October 24 1944, denoting the location of Japanese commanders in the Philippines and their forces assigned.

The Battle of Leyte Gulf remains vitally important to the history of the modern Philippines, as the country was fighting for its independence alongside American and Mexican troops fighting inland from the island of Leyte and north toward Manila. The fight in the Philippines went on until the Second World War ended; nearly ten full months of combat as the Imperial Japanese Army resisted the Allies across the archipelago.

There are many monuments and memorials, across the Philippines, notably in Tacloban, where MacArthur came ashore to deliver his famous declaration 'I have returned', and in Surigao, where the Japanese Southern Force was annihilated by the ships of the U.S. Seventh Fleet. There are other monuments in Manila, and Subic Bay. On the northern coast of Luzon is the Stingray memorial, dedicated to the men of the submarine that helped keep the Philippine Insurgency resupplied.

MacArthur Landing Memorial National Park, Leyte

There are two monuments commemorating the Battle of Leyte Gulf in San Diego, one near the USS Midway downtown, and the other at Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery in Point Loma. You can read more about the battle here. For an entry-level book reading of the history of the battle, I recommend "The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors" by James Hornfischer, and "Leyte Gulf" by Mark E. Stille.

I look forward to discussing more of this with you all in the comments and on social media; if you've been to any of the Leyte Gulf monuments, let me know! Pacific History Guide is dedicated to connecting you with local and regional history, where you are.

Keep discovering!

Tony