World War II Day by Day

Leyte, Philippines · October 20, 1944

In October 1944 Lt. Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita commanded 225,000 Japa­nese sol­diers in the Philip­pines. On this date in 1944, on a 25‑mile stretch of Leyte Island in the Philip­pines, an Allied fleet of more than 730 trans­port and escort ves­sels, supported by air­craft carriers and 100 war­ships, put 160,000 U.S. troops ashore under the watch­ful eye of Gen. Douglas Mac­Arthur aboard the USS Nash­ville. In the after­noon, Mac­Arthur, wearing a crisply starched uni­form and sun­glasses, waded ashore from a landing craft—he repeated this again for the bene­fit of assem­bled press camera­men—approached a port­able radio set, and spoke into the micro­phone: “People of the Philip­pines: I have returned!” Ini­tially, the in­vading forces met mini­mal resis­tance, and Japa­nese rein­force­ments took signi­fi­cant casu­al­ties. In the last great naval battle of World War II, the Battle of Leyte Gulf (Octo­ber 23–26, 1944), the Japa­nese Navy was deci­sively defeated in its attempts to inter­vene. Every facet of war­fare was in­volved in the largest, most com­plex naval battle ever fought, one that en­gaged 200,000 men and close to 300 U.S., Aus­tra­lian, and Japa­nese ships over more than 100,000 sq. miles of sea. Ulti­mately, the Japa­nese had no an­swer to the Allies’ over­whelming land and air fire­power and by Decem­ber 25 Leyte was secured. Though it took the re­main­der of the war to sub­due the enemy—e.g., the Battle of Ma­nila (Febru­ary 3 to March 3, 1945) cost the lives of 1,000 U.S. ser­vice mem­bers and 100,000 Fili­pino civil­ians—the fighting in the Philip­pines severed Japan’s life­line to the min­er­al resources of the East Indies and sounded the death knell for the Empire of Japan. A con­tin­ual flow of U.S. ser­vice per­son­nel, aug­mented by new ships, carrier and land-based air­craft, tanks, artil­lery, rifles, am­mu­ni­tion, and other items pouring out of Amer­i­can fac­tories, pushed the Japa­nese back more than 2,000 miles, back through the ruins of their in­ner defense ring, and back to the Home Islands them­selves. Emperor Hiro­hito (posthumously referred to as Emperor Shōwa) sued for peace on August 15, 1945, after learning of the utter destruc­tion of two Japa­nese cities (Hiro­shi­ma and Naga­saki) by a new wea­pon in the U.S. arsenal and hearing about the mil­lions of Soviet soldiers who were making mincemeat of his Kwangtung Army on the Asian mainland.

The Philippines and the Chief Players in the Battle of Leyte Gulf

Above: Map of the Philippines showing the location of the islands of Luzon in the north and Leyte in the middle. Also in the middle is the San Bernardino Strait.

Left: Adm. William F. “Bull” Halsey (1882–1959) commanded the U.S. Third Fleet in June 1944 for the advance on the Japa­nese-held Philip­pines. While taking part in the Battle of Leyte Gulf, Halsey fell for Japa­nese Vice Adm. Jisa­buro Ozawa’s ruse and led his 64‑ship fleet (Task Force 34) after 17 decoy ships, leaving both the San Bernar­dino Strait (between Luzon and Samar islands) and Gen. Douglas Mac­Arthur’s inva­sion forces on the Leyte beaches unpro­tected. Never­the­less, Halsey sunk all four of Ozawa’s car­riers, destroying the rem­nants of enemy naval air­power (Battle of Cape Engaño). In Decem­ber 1945, Halsey was promoted to the rank of fleet admiral, becoming the fourth and last officer to hold that rank.

Right: Gen. Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964) commanded U.S. and Filipino service­men on the eve of the World War II. After being caught by sur­prise by the Japa­nese assault on the Philip­pines, the eva­cu­ated gene­ral redeemed him­self with a bril­liant, hard-hitting cam­paign in the Pacific Theater that wore down enemy resis­tance. On V‑J Day, August 14, 1945, Presi­dent Harry S. Tru­man appointed Mac­Arthur Supreme Com­mander for the Allied Powers, or mili­tary ruler, in occu­pied Japan (1945–1950). He accepted Japan’s formal sur­ren­der for the United Nations on September 2, 1945, in Tokyo Bay.

Left: Vice Adm. Jisaburo Ozawa (1886–1966) was respon­sible for Japa­nese naval oper­a­tions in the South China Sea and was the last com­mander of the Com­bined Fleet, which Adm. Wil­liam “Bull” Halsey had ear­lier deci­mated in the Battle of the Philip­pine Sea in June 1944. At the Battle of Leyte Gulf in Octo­ber 1944, Ozawa came the closest of any Japa­nese com­mander to in­flicting a reverse on the U.S. Pacific Fleet.

Right: Lt. Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita (1885–1946) assumed the com­mand of the Japa­nese Four­teenth Area Army in the Philip­pines in Octo­ber 1944, ten days before U.S. forces landed on Leyte Island on Octo­ber 20. Yama­shita used delaying tactics until Septem­ber 2, 1945, when his forces were reduced to under 50,000 by the tough cam­paigning by com­bined American and Fili­pino sol­diers. Between Octo­ber and Decem­ber 1945, an Ame­ri­can mili­tary tribu­nal in Manila tried Gen. Yama­shita for war crimes relating to the Manila Mas­sacre and many other atroci­ties in the Philip­pines and ear­lier in Singa­pore and sen­tenced him to death. He was hanged on February 23, 1946.

Battle of Leyte Gulf (October 1944) and the Liberation of the Philippines