Leyte Gulf: A New History of the World’s Largest Sea Battle

Mark Stille

Leyte Gulf is where American planners decided to land the United States Sixth Army in October 1944 in fulfillment of General Douglas MacArthur’s promise to return to the Philippines, which he had escaped in March 1942. The Americans pursued a two-pronged strategy against Japan. In the southwest was a land-based slog against Japanese positions from the Solomon Islands to New Guinea and then the Philippines. This was favored by MacArthur, though it required heavy involvement by the navy. Admiral Chester Nimitz favored an island-hopping westward thrust through the Central Pacific. The Pacific theater of the war was divided accordingly between these two commanders.

Following the Japanese defeat in the battle of the Philippine Sea in June 1944, during which the Japanese lost three aircraft carriers and roughly 600 planes, the way was open to the Philippines. In the spring, the Joint Chiefs of Staff scheduled a November 15 landing on Mindanao, but in September they moved the place landing site north, to Leyte, and the deadline back, to October 20.

Mark Stille’s Leyte Gulf: A New History of the World’s Largest Sea Battle does an excellent job of laying out the back story of the battle for (or of) Leyte Gulf, or as it was originally and perhaps more accurately known, the Second Battle of the Philippine Sea. Rather than offering a strictly chronological account of how the engagements played out, his approach is thematic. This has the benefit of allowing him to concentrate on the parameters that defined the strategic decisions made on both sides, although there is enough detail to satisfy those eager for a minute-by-minute accounting of the major engagements.

Stille’s thesis is that the memory of Leyte Gulf is encrusted with myths. The first is that the Japanese had a plausible hope of success. They did not. They brought to the battle 69 ships, of which they lost 28 were sunk and four were out of action for months. The Americans had 235 surface combatants and lost 6. In addition, the point of the Japanese plan was to prevent the landing of 132, 400 American troops, most of whom were ashore before the Japanese were even scheduled to arrive.

That Admiral William F. Halsey’s decision to take Task Force 38 north to engage Admiral Ozawa Jisaburo’s aircraft carriers was an unforced error that robbed the Americans of a decisive victory has been received wisdom since the smoke cleared. Stille argues that given what he knew at the time, his decision made sense. Moreover, while Halsey’s mission was to protect the landings, Nimitz had written that if the “opportunity for destruction of major portion of the enemy fleet is offered … such destruction becomes the primary task.”

People also believe that Vice Admiral Kurita Takeo’s 1^st Diversionary Task Force of surface combatants should have annihilated the Seventh Fleet’s Task Force “Taffy” 3 of escort carriers and destroyers at the battle off Samar on October 25. As he notes, the supremacy of naval aviation over surface ships “was the established norm from the very first day of the Pacific War.”

The final double myth is that following the battle of Samar Kurita could have easily entered Leyte Gulf after Samar and that if he had he could have taken out a force of critical importance to the American war effort. Neither was true, and Kurita wisely decided not to sacrifice his crews and ships to no purpose.

To these myths I would add another, which Stille has perhaps inadvertently illuminated: that the standard dating and description of “The Battle of Leyte Gulf” (as he opens the book) is incorrect. By convention, the battle took place between October 23 and 26 comprises a number of minor and four major engagements: the battles of the Sibuyan Sea, October 24; the battles of Surigao Strait (the least important) and Samar (the most important), October 25; and the battle off Cape Engaño (October 25–26).

All of these battles of or for—but not actually in—Leyte Gulf centered on the American landings there, which usually get short shrift. Antecedent to but wholly in support of this amphibious effort was the “largely unknown” air battle off Formosa, October 12–16. In this “true beginning of the Battle of Leyte Gulf,” Halsey’s carrier aircraft destroyed between 492 and 655 Japanese land-based aircraft intended to support Japan’s defense of the Philippines. Both this prolonged action and the landings themselves deserve a bigger place in the history of the battles centered on Leyte Gulf.

Stille, Mark. Leyte Gulf: A New History of the World's Largest Sea Battle. Oxford: Osprey, 2023.