Battle of Leyte Gulf
The largest naval battle in history was fought in the Philippines over four days in October 1944, across an area the size of France. The Americans had landed on Leyte to begin retaking the Philippines, and the Japanese response was a plan that accepted the probable loss of the fleet to destroy the invasion shipping. Their carriers had no trained aircrew left, so the carriers themselves were used as bait: a northern force sent to lure the American fast carriers away while two surface forces converged on the landing beaches through separate straits. It nearly worked. The southern force was annihilated in Surigao Strait in the last battleship-versus-battleship action ever fought, with the American line crossing the Japanese T in the dark. Halsey took the bait in the north and went after the empty carriers with his whole fleet, leaving San Bernardino Strait unguarded, and Kurita's force of battleships including the Yamato came through it at dawn onto a screen of escort carriers and destroyers off Samar. That action is the extraordinary one: destroyers charging battleships to make smoke and force them to turn, aircraft attacking with depth charges after their bombs were gone, and Kurita withdrawing in confusion when he had won. The first organised kamikaze attacks were flown during the battle. Japan lost four carriers, three battleships and some 12,000 men, and effectively ceased to exist as a naval power. The Philippines campaign then ran another nine months. Kurita has never been satisfactorily explained. He turned away believing he faced fleet carriers rather than escort carriers, having been at sea under attack for three days with his flagship sunk beneath him, and he took the surviving ships home.
- Year: 1944 CE
- Category: Military
