On the evening of July 27, 1944, at the Holmes Villa in Waikiki, President Franklin Roosevelt
held conference with his Southwest Pacific Area Commander, General Douglas MacArthur,
and with his Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Ocean Areas, Admiral Chester Nimitz.
This was an anxious gathering.
Tensions were running high because several high-profile military operations were incomplete.
The invasion of the Marianas Islands was in full swing, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff
had authorized Nimitz and MacArthur to work together to invade the Palau Islands and the
Philippine island of Mindanao.
But an important question remained.
Where would the Allies go next?
After dinner on the 27th, Roosevelt turned to MacArthur and asked him, point blank, “Douglas,
where do we go from here?”
According to MacArthur’s recollections, he had a specific location in mind.
He replied: “Leyte, Mr. President, and then Luzon!”
Ever since his hasty departure from the Philippines in March 1942, MacArthur had dreamed of returning
to the archipelago and wresting it from Japanese control.
With little doubt, MacArthur’s motivations were self-serving.
He wanted to erase the proverbial stain of his 1942 defeat.
In fact, MacArthur’s friends in the United States had badly wanted him to run for President
in 1944, but he had to decline their invitations.
He knew he would get nowhere if history continued to remember him as the general who lost the
Philippines.
But with more noble sentiment in mind, MacArthur also knew that an early return to the Philippines
would liberate millions of oppressed Filipinos and release thousands of American detainees
held inside Japanese-run concentration camps.
Such an operation would be risky.
It would prolong the bloodshed of the Pacific War and it would divert resources away from
America’s true goal, the attack against the Japanese home islands.
MacArthur’s desire to go to Leyte touched off a lengthy debate with Admiral Nimitz,
who believed that all available U.S. forces should be used against another target: Formosa,
an island that could serve as a forward base from which ships and planes could sally forth
to cut Japanese supply lines.
But by the end of the discussion, MacArthur had swayed Roosevelt to his point of view.
The Philippines needed to be retaken by the Americans—not by another member of the Allies—and
they needed to be retaken as soon as possible.
As Roosevelt told reporters that evening, “We are going to get the Philippines back,
and without question, General MacArthur will take a part in it.”
No definitive account of the Waikiki meeting exists, and MacArthur’s recollections are
suspect.
But one thing is certain.
Roosevelt promised MacArthur that a full-scale invasion of the Philippines would occur at
a time and place to be later determined by the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
In that moment, the seed had been planted for the Battle of Leyte Gulf.
A few weeks later, that seed sprouted thanks to the influence of another officer, Admiral
William Halsey, the commander of the U.S. Navy’s 3rd Fleet.
In September, his fast carrier task force conducted air raids against the eastern shores
of the Philippines.
Reports from Halsey’s pilots indicated that Japanese forces had established only limited
antiaircraft defenses along the shores, and intelligence gathered by Filipino resistance
fighters identified Leyte as the archipelago’s weakest link.
On September 13, Halsey sent messages to Nimitz and MacArthur suggesting that an invasion
of Leyte could occur within the next month.
MacArthur reacted to Halsey’s report.
He pointed out that if the force scheduled to attack Mindanao could be rerouted to Leyte,
American forces could go ashore as early as October 20.
Although Nimitz had long resisted MacArthur’s strategic vision, in this instance, he did
not protest.
Nimitz did not relish the idea of attacking Formosa without first securing all of the
Philippines, and thus, he seconded Halsey’s recommendation.
Overnight, MacArthur cabled the Joint Chiefs, requesting an invasion of Leyte.
Those chiefs, who were then meeting in Quebec, held a ninety-minute conference, approving
MacArthur’s appeal.
Within days, MacArthur collected a vast armada of 580 transports at Hollandia to carry his
174,000 assault troops.
The invasion was underway.
But in Tokyo, Japanese high command had already prepared for this very contingency.
The head of the Combined Fleet, Admiral Soemu Toyoda, had prepared four plans of counterattack
in the event that the Americans attempted to liberate another of Japan’s colonial
possessions.
These operations could be triggered if the Americans attempted to go after Formosa, the
Ryukyu Islands, the Kurile Islands, or the Philippines.
When it became obvious that MacArthur’s troops were on their way to Leyte, Toyoda
called for Shō-Gō 1—the plan for the Philippines—to go into effect.
Shō-Gō 1 was complex and perilous.
It called for the Combined Fleet to move in three separate groups.
One group, Vice Admiral Jisaburō Ozawa’s carrier task force—dubbed the Northern Force—needed
to come down from Oita, cross the Philippine Sea, and lure American naval forces away from
the archipelago.
Then, when the American ships gave chase, the other two groups needed to thread the
Philippine straits and catch MacArthur’s amphibious forces in a vice.
Two small task forces—Task Force C under Vice Admiral Shoji Nishimura and the Second
Striking Force under Vice Admiral Kiyohide Shima—had orders to combine in the Sulu
Sea to form the “Southern Force.”
The Southern Force would then move through Surigao Strait and enter Leyte Gulf from the
South.
Finally, Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita would take his Center Force from Brunei in North Borneo
and sail through the Palawan Passage.
After that, his ships would head through the Sibuyan Sea and then exit through San Bernardino
Strait.
Kurita’s force, which contained 3 battleships, 2 battlecruisers, 8 heavy cruisers, 3 light
cruisers, and 15 destroyers—would enter Leyte Gulf from the northeast.
For the Japanese, it was a bold plan.
They were badly outnumbered, but if they caught MacArthur flatfooted, there was a real possibility
they could stop the landings at Leyte and perhaps even capture MacArthur and his 6th
Army inside Leyte Gulf.
This could give Japanese diplomats an opportunity to negotiate with one of the other Allied
powers.
In that event, Japan might witness an end to the Pacific War that served its imperial
interests.
But still, the Japanese admirals did not harbor any illusions.
They knew that, even if they stopped MacArthur’s landings, they could not turn the tide of
the war.
The Combined Fleet was desperately short on oil, and in a few months, it would only be
able to range off the coast of the home islands.
When General Kenryo Sato of the Imperial Army objected to the implementation of Shō-Gō
1 because it would waste over 60,000 tons of oil, Rear Admiral Tasuku Nakazawa admitted
that this naval operation was not based entirely on sound strategy.
It also stemmed from a desire to choose the circumstances of the Combined Fleet’s demise.
Shō-Gō 1 was no war-changing stratagem; it was a last chance for the Combined Fleet
to die a glorious death.
“This,” said Nakazawa, “is the Navy’s earnest wish.”
With that, the die had been cast.
Two mighty fleets were on their way to fight the largest naval battle of the Pacific War.
In the following videos, you will hear the words of participants from that battle.
Many of the veterans who fought at Leyte Gulf have since passed on, but before they died,
they left behind vivid accounts of their experiences.
Voice actors will read aloud their words to bring their experiences back to life.
From them, we can learn what it was like to have witnessed one of the largest naval battles
in world history.