BACK IN THE PHILIPPINES

AMERICA'S TRIUMPH WON WITH BLOOD

As the Allies in Europe advanced on Germany, the Americans in the Pacific were torn between General MacArthur's sworn intention to liberate the Philippines at the earliest possible opportunity, and the preference of the Admirals for bypassing the Philippines to take Formosa. By the end of September 1944, after some powerful argument by MacArthur, they had made their decision in favour of the Philippines, and had set a date for an invasion of the island of Leyte in the Central Philippines by the combined forces of Nimitz' and MacArthur's until now separate offensives. The date was October 20th.

Meanwhile, Admiral Halsey had successfully landed the US 1st Marine Division on the island of Peleliu in mid-September, an action that was to continue, with reinforcements by the US 85th Infantry Division, until November 25th before the last of the Japanese under Lieutenant-General Inouye had surrendered. MacArthur captured the island of Morotai to isolate the Japanese bases in the Moluccas, and at the beginning of October, Admiral Halsey's Task Force 38 attacked Japanese positions on the Ryukyu Islands to prevent them being used as bases for attacks on the forthcoming invasion of Leyte. Rear-Admiral Marc Mitscher's 1,100 carrier-borne fighters and fighter-bombers engaged almost as many Japanese aircraft during the attack on the Ryukyus, and scored a clear victory by destroying more than 500 of them for the loss of only 110 US aircraft, although two US cruisers were also torpedoed.

Leyte and the Battle of Leyte Gulf

With the Japanese ability to respond to a landing in the Philippines thus reduced, Vice-Admiral Thomas Kinkaid's 7th Fleet arrived in the Gulf of Leyte on October 17th with 174,000 men of the US 6th Army, and began a two day bombardment of the island to "soften up" the defence, which consisted of just one Japanese division under Lieutenant-General Makino. The Japanese had in fact realised the extent to which the island was under-defended, and General Yamashita, the Japanese C in C in the Philippines had been ordered to reinforce Leyte with another of his seven divisions. Fortunately for the Americans, the US Army got there first.

All through the day on October 20th the US 6th Army poured men and equipment ashore on the island and by evening a substantial bridgehead had been established on a seventeen mile front. MacArthur had himself landed during the day - Yamashita later said that he would have launched a suicide attack against the island if he had known that the hated MacArthur was there in person. As the bridgehead was strengthened and supplied the Japanese were not idle, and put into action a complex plan which was potentially brilliant in the short term if it succeeded, and failed almost as completely to provide for the long term if it failed.

The greatest single shortage from which the Japanese suffered was that of aircraft and the trained crews to fly them. We noted in an earlier chapter the failure of Japanese aircraft design and technology to keep pace with that of the Americans, and the consequent progressively greater outclassing of Japanese aircraft in combat. This had led by 1943 to the disproportionate losses of Japanese aircraft by comparison with US planes that characterised every battle from the Solomon Islands onwards - and, because virtually all these aerial engagements were fought over the sea, the loss of an aircraft usually meant the loss of a pilot.

Thus, by the time the Japanese came to respond to the invasion of Leyte Gulf in 1944, they were desperately short of aircraft and crews, and had aircraft carriers at sea that were down to less than half strength. The Japanese plan for the Battle of Leyte Gulf used this fact alongside the concept, alien to Western cultures, of willing acceptance of suicide as a glorious death for a warrior. Vice-Admiral Ozawa was ordered to take his task force of carriers, only four of which actually had operational aircraft, supported by two battleship-carriers, three light cruisers and eight destroyers, to the East of Luzon as a gigantic decoy. This, it was planned, would lure Vice-Admiral Mitscher's aircraft carrier force out to a battle that was virtually certain to result in the destruction of Ozawa's fleet, but which would cause the invasion force on Leyte to be virtually unprotected. Then, the plan went, Vice-Admirals Kurita and Nishimura would launch a pincer attack against Leyte with their fleets from North-East and South-West.

In the event, although it resulted in the greatest naval battle the world has ever seen, the Japanese scheme did not go entirely to plan. Kurita's 1st Striking Force, the more northerly of the two, ran into two American submarines, Dace and Darter , on October 23rd. In a short sharp engagement, Kurita lost the 13,200 ton heavy cruiser Maya , which blew up, her sister ship Takao , which had to retire from the operation for repairs, and his own flagship, also a 13,200 ton sister ship of Maya called the Atago , which sank. Nonetheless, bloody but unbowed, Kurita arrived off Mindoro, a Philippine island North-West of Leyte, on the 24th. On hearing of the exploits of the two submarines, Admiral Halsey, who had been tracking the movements of Rear-Admiral Shima's force coming from the North, and of Nishimura's fleet South-West of Leyte, decided that he could leave Vice-Admiral Kinkaid to cope with anything that Shima and Nishimura might offer, and set out with Task Force 38 to deal with Kurita.

During the afternoon of October 24th, Admiral Halsey's aircraft flew more than 250 sorties against Kurita's force, sinking the 64,000 ton battleship Musashi and damaging several other smaller warships against heavy anti-aircraft fire, but without significant opposition from Japanese aircraft which were elsewhere attacking the US 3rd Fleet, resulting in the loss on that same day of the 11,000 ton light carrier USS Princeton . Believing that he had effectively removed the danger from Kurita's fleet, and still under the impression that Admiral Kinkaid could handle any Japanese activity around Leyte, Halsey now did exactly what the Japanese High Command had hoped he would do - he set off Northwards to intercept what seemed on the face of it to be the main Japanese fleet. This was in fact Admiral Ozawa's half-empty fleet of carriers.

By sailing North, Halsey left the San Bernadino Straight unguarded - apparently because he over-estimated appreciably the extent to which his force had neutralised the potential for attack of Vice-Admiral Kurita's fleet. Although he knew soon afterwards that Kurita had turned back East, he pushed on, believing that Ozawa's fleet represented the more important objective. Vice-Admiral Kinkaid was therefore on his own with his fleet of 42 ships, divided as two Attack Groups, when he first encountered Nishimura's fleet on October 25th. This initial engagement went well for the Americans, the Japanese losing in rapid succession a battleship and three destroyers, and suffering severe damage to the 1917 vintage 35,000 ton battleship Yamashiro that was Nishimura's flagship. Despite this setback, Yamashiro pushed on with the 12,500 ton cruiser Mogami into Leyte Gulf. There they met Rear-Admiral Weyler's six battleships, which sank Yamashiro , killing Admiral Nishimura.

Vice-Admiral Shima's force, which had been a few miles behind Nishimura, ran into the same US Navy trap, and was attacked relentlessly by the torpedos of the PT boats and the aircraft of Kinkaid's carriers. By dawn on October 25th, only 2 of his 19 ships had survived.

On the face of it, the Americans had achieved at Surigao overnight a major victory, but they had reckoned without the presence of Kurita and the absence of Halsey. For Kurita was now hell bent on the destruction of the US Navy in Leyte Gulf, and by 7am that same morning Kurita's modern, fast and heavily armed fleet was off Samar Island shelling the nearest ships of the much slower and more lightly-armed American fleet in Leyte Gulf - Rear-Admiral Sprague's Task Force 77.4. Despite the Americans' situation being apparently hopeless, the US Navy fought hard and well against an adversary which, fortunately for them, seemed to lack a cohesive plan of attack or any direction. The American commanders created as much confusion as possible by laying smoke, and thereby heightened the misdirection of effort of the Japanese fleet. Nonetheless, the Japanese advantage was colossal, and the escort carrier Gambier Bay , the destroyer Samuel B. Roberts , the Johnston and the Hoel were lost. Remarkably, however, the Japanese did not have it all their own way, for they lost the cruisers Chokai and Chikuma and the Kumano . But it seemed that the Japanese could not fail to defeat the US Task Force in the end, so severely outnumbered were the US ships.

Then, at almost 9.30am, the Japanese ships turned tail and retreated, apparently because they were sufficiently confused to believe that they were in battle with Halsey's Task Force 38 after all. Whether they were actually confused, or whether there were other reasons that have never come to light, we shall probably never know, but by retreating from the Battle of Leyte Gulf, Vice-Admiral Kurita cost the Japanese their best chance of a victory in 1944. Later that same day, October 25th, Admiral Kinkaid's fleet had to contend with a new menace - the infamous Kamikaze attacks. Fanatical pilots flew suicide missions in aircraft loaded with explosive and converted, in effect, into piloted bombs. Dived directly at the deck and superstructure of an Allied ship, the Kamikaze aircraft was a formidable weapon. During the 25th, one such attack hit and sank the escort carrier Saint Lo , and five other suicide attacks caused substantial damage to a further five ships. Kamikaze, incidentally, literally translated as "Divine Wind", was the name given in the Middle Ages to a storm that saved Japan from invasion by blowing away enemy ships. The symbolism was apposite.

The battle off Samar Island cost the US Navy five ships, 23 aircraft and 2,043 men killed or wounded. Far to the North, Admiral Halsey was about to do battle with what was left of Ozawa's fleet, and early in the morning on October 26th the first of six attacks totalling 527 sorties took off. By mid-day, the Japanese fleet had lost four carriers either sunk or put out of commission, including the 25,675 ton Zuikaku , completed in 1941, the last remaining carrier of those that had launched the attack on Pearl Harbour. During the afternoon another Japanese carrier went to the bottom.

Taking all the engagements of the Battle of Leyte Gulf together, it was undoubtedly the greatest naval battle in history by tonnage (just over two million tons of warship employed), although the Battle of Jutland brought together ten more ships than the 244 at Leyte Gulf. The Japanese lost an incredible 306,000 tons to the US Navy's losses of 37,000 tons. The way to the final re-conquest of the Philippines was open.

MacArthur's Promise Finally Fulfilled

The efforts of the US Navy in Leyte Gulf had ensured that the Japanese fleet's original objective of being able to attack the US invasion of Leyte in force could not be fulfilled. As a result, the initial American landing was successful, the Marines' stores and vehicles were put ashore without serious losses, and the beach-head was established on a broad front by nightfall on the first day ashore. General MacArthur made a (justifiably) emotional broadcast to the people of the Philippines announcing his return, and asked the population of the islands to rise against the Japanese and assist the Americans with the reconquest of their homeland.

General Makino's 16th Division was ordered by General Yamashita to hold the airfields at all costs so that two more divisions and a brigade could be flown in from Luzon, to the North. Makino's orders were to hold a line well back from the coast and, by November 2nd, MacArthur's 6th Army of 183,000 men had advanced well inland and had captured all of the available coastal airstrips. During November, heavy USAAF and US Navy attacks on Japanese convoys bringing men and equipment to Leyte succeeded in reducing the effectiveness of the Japanese High Command's attempt to reinforce the island, but did not prevent them quadrupling the number of defenders to 60,000 - still less than a third of the strength of the US 6th Army. Yamashita decided to counterattack, and to launch his assault by destroying the airfields that the Americans were using to supply the army.

A series of misadventures made several attempts by army demolition engineers and parachutists to land and destroy the installations almost farcical, and not until December 7th did the Japanese Army manage to put down a paratroop attack in any force. Even that fizzled out after two nights of fighting. The situation began to look like a stalemate, and with MacArthur's original optimistic date of December 20th for the invasion of Luzon already deferred, delay could not be tolerated. General Walter Krueger, commanding the 6th Army, decided to make a second landing at Ormoc with the objective of dividing the enemy force and weakening its resistance. When the US 77th Division came ashore on December 7th they met virtually no resistance, and by December 10th they had taken Ormoc, the principal Japanese base on Leyte, before General Suzuki could reach and reinforce it from his former position opposing the original landing.

By December 20th the two American forces had joined up, and on December 25th they took Palompon, the last significant port on the island. Although organised Japanese army resistance was over, Yamashita had ordered his countrymen to fight to the death while he concentrated on the defence of Luzon. Thus isolated skirmishes continued on Leyte until the end of March. The capture of the island had cost the US Army over 15,500 casualties, including more than 3,500 killed.

The Assault on Luzon

On December 15th, while the battles on Leyte were still being fought to their close, the small US "Western Visayan Task Force" under Brigadier-General Dunckel had landed on and taken unopposed the small island of Mindoro to build two airstrips for the assault on Luzon. By Christmas, they were in use, building up the aircraft that were to support the January landing on the principal island of the Philippines.

On Luzon itself, General Yamashita had 250,000 men of the 14th Area Army, but only 150 aircraft. Although his force seemed adequate for the defence of the island at first sight, it must be remembered that the great damage inflicted upon the Japanese fleet during the recent Battle of Leyte Gulf and in earlier encounters had removed virtually all possibility of reinforcement from the sea. Like Hitler's Germany, thousands of miles away in Europe, Japan was, and was looking, a spent force. Nonetheless, MacArthur's army faced the prospect of defeating a quarter of a million Japanese soldiers whose culture and commander alike demanded that they die for their country rather than surrender.

To achieve that defeat, the US 6th Army under General Walter Krueger had almost 200,000 men, with plenty in reserve, and the resources of Admiral Kinkaid's 7th Fleet of over 850 ships. The plan for the invasion required that the 6th Army land on the broad open beaches of Lingayen Gulf and then establish rapidly a large beach-head on the central plain of Luzon. This opens immediately beyond the beaches, and leads directly to Manila, the capital of the Philippines. General Yamashita, a veteran of amphibious landings, decided not to attempt to repel the Americans on the beaches, but to position his entire army in the high ground surrounding the central plain of the island, and thereby fence the invaders into their beach-head. He also issued orders that the new Kamikaze weapon was to be used to the greatest possible extent against the US Fleet that brought the invasion.

Thus, when Vice-Admiral Jessie Oldendorf's battle-fleet sailed for Luzon on January 2nd to begin the bombardment prior to the landing, the Kamikaze attacks were vicious, frequent and damaging. On January 4th, the escort carrier Ommaney Bay was lost. On the 5th, eleven American and Australian ships including two escort carriers, two cruisers and two destroyers were hit and damaged. On the 6th, as Oldendorf's ships reached Lingayen, the Kamikaze attacks reached a shattering climax as two battleships, three cruisers, three destroyers and several other ships were damaged. Fortunately, the next day saw successful attacks by Halsey's carrier-borne aircraft against the airfields of Luzon, which were so badly hit that all the Japanese aircraft left on the island were withdrawn.

Now Oldendorf's bombardment, for which the men of his fleet had endured so much, could begin. For three days the guns roared and the bombs dropped on the invasion zone. On January 9th the troops of the 6th Army went in expecting their toughest reception yet - but, because Yamashita had chosen not to fight on the beaches, there was not a Japanese in sight. Quickly, the army capitalised on its good fortune, got its supplies ashore and established its beach-head. By nightfall the 6th Army had secured an area seventeen miles wide and, in some places, four miles deep. General MacArthur had landed too - this was one day he had no intention of missing.

Now the 6th Army was to fight as two Corps, one (I Corps) under Major-General Swift with the task of securing the left flank of the proposed path of advance, the other under Major-General Griswold to advance to and take Manila. Krueger's orders to Griswold were to bide his time until Swift had tackled the immediate opposition in the high hinterland beyond the plain - the "Shobu" Group, made up of 152,000 of Yamashita's men well dug-in along a 25 mile line. Swift found the battle tough going, but made gradual progress, and by the end of Janaury had pushed Yamashita's troops back into the mountains, had cut across the land to the Eastern shore, and had thereby cut Yamashita's communications with a large part of his army. Meanwhile, Griswold had begun to advance in the wake of Swift's gradual success, with little trouble or opposition in the early stages.

The Liberation of Manila

By January 17th MacArthur was pressing for faster progress towards Manila, partly to be able to take over and use Clark Field for air operations, partly to liberate the ill-treated prisoners of the Japanese. As Griswold attempted to comply he ran into another smaller group of Yamashita's troops, the "Kembu" Group, made up of 30,000 men, whose task was specifically to prevent the Americans gaining access to Clark Field. The fighting was bitter, but by January 31st the "Kembu" Group was beaten back into the mountains, American troops were cleaning up Clark Field, and Griswold had resumed his drive on Manila.

Meanwhile more troops had landed on Luzon at fresh invasion points - XI Corps on the West coast above Bataan Peninsula, part of the 11th Airborne at Nasugu Bay, 50 miles South-West of Manila, and the rest of the 11th Airborne on February 3rd at Tagaytay Ridge, well inland and South-West of the capital. As the combined strengths of the American forces now on the island converged on the capital the Japanese resistance strengthened to the point where it was all the Americans could do not to retreat. No further progress was being made from the southerly side of the city.

Realising the position even before it had fully developed, MacArthur had therefore given the 37th US Infantry and the 1st US Cavalry the unenviable task of taking Manila from the North. By February 3rd, real progress was being made, as the 1st Cavalry liberated the Santo Tomas civilian internment camp, and the 37th Infantry opened up another prison and freed 1,300 civilians and prisoners of war. But at that point progress stopped. Detachments of naval troops had been ordered to defend Manila to the last, regardless of the damage this would do to its ancient buildings, and, after a week's reluctance to embark on shelling and street fighting, the Americans began what was to prove to be the only street battle of the Pacific War.

The fighting was fierce and bloody, and took a terrible toll of civilians, whom the Japanese refused to allow to leave the city. Not until March 3rd was Manila finally taken, and by then it was a city in ruins, with over 100,000 of its civilian population dead. Over 6,500 Americans were killed or wounded in taking the city. Virtually every one of the 17,000 Japanese Navy men defending it died.

By the third week of March 1945, the Bataan Peninsula had been cleared of Japanese troops, the Japanese defenders on the island of Corregidor having capitulated on the 28th of February after two weeks of bitter fighting. Not until mid-April was the centre of Luzon and Manila Bay officially clear of enemy influence, but even then there were still almost 200,000 Japanese troops on the island, still commanded by Yamashita, and holding the North and South-East of Luzon.

General Krueger's first target was the "Shimbu" Group, which had given General Swift so much trouble, and which was now dug in East of Manila. The battle to dislodge General Yokohama's 80,000 troops was to prove long and arduous.By the end of March, General Griswold's troops had managed to penetrate Yokahama's army and divide it into two groups, but not until the end of May was the "Shimbu" Group finally annihilated. During the same period, three other Groups of Japanese had been wearisomely attacked, worn down and defeated, and the South of Luzon was clear by the end of May. But still there remained the largest and most fearsome Group of all - that commanded by Yamahsita himself, and consisting of 110,000 dedicted troops in the North of the island. After a month of unremitting fighting through June, an Airborne Division landing and many men's lives lost, Yamashita still had 65,000 men under his command in his mountain stronghold. There they stayed for the remaining weeks of the war, the only Japanese to succeed in holding any part of the Philippines until their Emperor bade them leave.