History of the Second World War (106 page)

After the sea-air battle the conquest of the Marianas was no longer in doubt, although the resistance on land continued to be tough. The three divisions landed in the south of Saipan pushed their way steadily north, with strong air and naval support, and by June 25 the commanding height of Mount Tapotchau was captured. On July 6 the two top Japanese commanders on Saipan, Admiral Nagumo (the former carrier chief) and General Saito, committed suicide ‘in order to encourage the troops in their final attack’. Next day the surviving 3,000 troops virtually did likewise by a vainly suicidal charge against the Americans’ lines. The campaign cost the Japanese over 26,000 men, whereas the American casualties were 3,500 dead and 13,000 wounded or sick.

On July 23, the two Marine divisions on Saipan were shipped to Tinian, and within a week that island was captured, though mopping-up took longer. Three days before the Tinian landings the force allotted for the Guam invasion, which had been sent away when Ozawa’s fleet threatened to interfere, returned to carry out its mission, reinforced by a further Army division. Although Japanese resistance was tough, and helped by an intricate network of cave defences, the island was cleared by August 12.

The fall of the Marianas, and the shattering naval defeat that preceded it, made the weakening situation of Japan very clear, even though Japanese pride still would not face realities. Very significantly, however, these dramatic events were followed by the resignation of General Tojo’s government on July 18.

Four days later, General Koiso formed a Cabinet dedicated to the task of creating a better defence against the American advance. Although the campaign in China was still to be pursued, the primary concern was the defence of the Philippines — based on a recognition that if this great group of islands was lost, Japan’s forces would be fatally affected by lack of oil supplies from the East Indies.

Even as it was, the Japanese situation had become badly handicapped by shortage of fuel supplies. In producing that effect the American submarine sinkings of Japanese oil tankers was a most important strategic factor. The much reduced scale of oil supplies reaching Japan restricted the training programme of aircraft pilots. It led also to the Japanese fleet being kept at Singapore, so as to be near the source of supply — and when the fleet was brought up to intervene it sailed without sufficient oil fuel to take it back.

At this stage of the war it might well have been possible for the United States forces to by-pass the Philippines, and move on in their next bound to Formosa, or to Iwo Jima and Okinawa, as Fleet Admiral King and several other naval chiefs urged. But political considerations, and MacArthur’s natural desire for a triumphant return to the Philippines, prevailed against such arguments for by-passing these great islands.*

* For map, see p. 614.

There were several small objectives whose capture had been considered necessary prior to the invasion of the Philippines. The original scheme had been to capture Morotai Island near the Halmaheras (west of New Guinea), the Palau Islands, Yap Island, the Talaud Islands, and then Mindanao — the great southern island of the Philippines — building advance air and naval bases to aid the main attack on the Philippines. Early in September, however, Admiral Halsey’s 3rd Fleet (called the 5th Fleet when Spruance controlled it) found that the defences of the Philippine coast were very weak, and he accordingly proposed that the intermediate stages should be dropped. However, the early parts of this original plan were retained as they were almost under way, and felt to be an extra insurance.

A detachment from MacArthur’s forces landed on Morotai Island on September 15, meeting little opposition, and by October 4 American aircraft were operating from the newly built air base there. On September 15, also, the Palau Islands were invaded by Admiral Halsey’s Central Pacific forces, and were mostly occupied within a few days. That provided them with advanced airfields only 500 miles from Mindanao, more than half way from Guam.

The two main lines of advance across the Pacific, MacArthur’s and Nimitz’s, had now converged, and were within direct supporting distance of one another — ready and able to attempt the reconquest of the Philippines.

The Japanese plan for the defence of the Philippines, known as ‘SHO-I’, was two-fold. On land, it was entrusted to the 14th Area Army under General Yamashita, the conqueror of Malaya in 1941-2, who had for the purpose nine infantry divisions, one armoured division, and three independent brigades, plus the 4th Air Army. His command included in addition the naval forces around Manila, which numbered some 25,000 men capable of land fighting. The key part of the plan, however, was the intended action at sea, and on this the Japanese High Command was now disposed to stake everything. As soon as the location of the American landings was known, the Japanese carrier forces were to lure the American fleet northward, while the American landing forces were to be pinned by Yamashita’s troops and ‘pincered’ by the two Japanese battleship groups. Toyoda calculated that the Americans, who had come to value the carriers above all, would be the more likely to rush after their opposite numbers as they themselves had always used battleships as the decoy, and carriers as the striking force.

The plan was influenced by Japan’s growing weakness in the air, but buttressed by continued faith in battleships. The admirals’ pride and confidence had been unduly heightened by the completion of two colossal battleships, much the biggest in the world — the
Yamato
and
Musashi.
These had a displacement of over 70,000 tons and mounted nine 18-inch guns — they were the only warships in the world to mount so many guns of that size. By comparison the Japanese had done little, far too little, to develop their carrier-force and the aircraft it required. As so often happens in history, they had been slower than their opponents to apply the lesson of their own great successes at the outset of the war.

Accelerating the planned programme by two months, the Americans made their next big bound, to the Philippines, in October. These islands stretch a thousand miles — from Mindanao in the south, as big as Ireland, to Luzon in the north, nearly as big as England. The first thrust was delivered against Leyte, one of the smaller central islands, thus splitting the defence. MacArthur s troops — four divisions of Lieutenant-General Walter Krueger s Sixth Army — began to be landed there on the morning of October 20 by Admiral Kinkaid’s 7th Fleet — a convoy and support fleet composed of old battleships and small escort carriers. It was backed and covered by Admiral Halsey’s 3rd Fleet — which took up its station, in three groups, a little east of the Philippines. This was the main battle fleet, composed of the newer battleships and of large carriers, all fast.

The invasion had been preceded by a series of air strikes from October 10 on for a week by Mitscher’s carrier forces (of Halsey’s 3rd Fleet) against Formosa, and to a lesser extent against Luzon and Okinawa, that were of devastating effect and proved of great importance in their influence on subsequent events. On the other hand, the Japanese pilots made such exaggerated claims that their government in official communiques and broadcasts claimed to have sunk eleven carriers, two battleships, and three cruisers. Actually these American carrier strikes had destroyed over 500 Japanese planes, while losing only seventy-nine of their own — and none of the ships that the Japanese had claimed. Momentary belief in the truth of these claims led the Imperial G.H.Q. to move forward the rest of the forces for the ‘SHO-I’ operation. The naval forces soon discovered the absurdity of these claims, and withdrew, but the Army’s plans were permanently changed in consequence — three of Suzuki’s four divisions in the southern part of the Philippines being ordered to stand there instead of being kept ready for use in the north, in Luzon, as Yamashita had intended.

As already mentioned, the Japanese High Command had planned a crushing counterstroke with all available naval forces when and where the thrust came. Two days before the landing on Leyte Island, an uncoded message sent out from one of the American chiefs provided the Japanese with the vital information they required as a guide for their counterstroke.

Toyoda realised that it was a gamble, but the Japanese Navy depended for its fuel supplies on the oil from the captured East Indies, and if the Americans established themselves in the East Indies that line of supply would be cut. When questioned after the war, Toyoda explained his calculations thus:

If the worst should happen there was a chance that we would lose the entire fleet; but I felt that that chance had to be taken . . . should we lose in the Philippine operations, even though the fleet should be left, the shipping lane to the south would be completely cut off so that the fleet, if it should come back to Japanese waters, could not obtain its fuel supply. If it should remain in southern waters, it could not receive supplies of ammunition and arms. There would be no sense in saving the fleet at the expense of the loss of the Philippines.

The decoy was to be provided by Admiral Ozawa’s force, coming south from Japan. It included the four aircraft-carriers that remained serviceable and two battleships converted to carriers, but could not act as much more than a decoy since its total of aircraft was down to barely a hundred and most of the pilots lacked experience.

So in this great gamble for victory the Japanese relied on an old-fashioned fleet — of seven battleships, thirteen cruisers, and three light cruisers — which came up from the Singapore area. The commander, Admiral Kurita, sent a detachment to push into Leyte Gulf from the south-west via the Surigao Strait, while he came in with the main force from the north-west, through the San Bernardino Strait. He hoped to crush MacArthur’s transports and their escorting warships between his two jaws.

He thought the
Yamato
and
Musashi,
with their 18-inch guns, easily able to pulverise the older American battleships and believed them to be almost unsinkable owing to their armoured decks and much subdivided hulls. Moreover air attack should not be heavy if Halsey’s carrier-force was off the scene. It was hoped that this would have been lured away by the time that Kurita broke into the Leyte Gulf — a stroke timed for delivery on October 25.

But the decoy did not work. On the night of the 23rd Kurita bumped into a couple of American submarines, the
Darter
and the
Dace,
which had been cruising off the coast of Borneo. These promptly hurried northward, keeping ahead of the Japanese fleet by running full speed on the surface under cover of the dark. When first light came they submerged to periscope depth, awaited the oncoming fleet, and then fired their torpedoes at close range — sinking two of the Japanese cruisers and crippling another. Kurita himself was in the leading cruiser, and although he was rescued before it sank — and later transferred to the
Yamato
— it was a shaking experience. Moreover the American admirals had been made aware of the enemy’s approach and strength.

When Ozawa heard of Kurita’s clash with the submarines, he made haste to reveal his own approach from the north, sending out uncoded signals repeatedly to catch Halsey’s attention. But his signals were not picked up by the Americans. Nor was he spotted by any of their reconnaissance planes — as all of them were sent westward to watch for Kurita’s approach!

Soon Halsey’s carriers launched their bombers and torpedo-bombers in waves against Kurita’s fleet. The only interruption to their onslaught came from the relieving attacks of Japanese land-based aircraft from the islands, and also from Ozawa’s carriers. These were beaten off and more than 50 per cent of the attacking planes shot down, though the carrier
Princeton
was badly hit and. had to be abandoned.

The American naval planes achieved a greater success in their attacks on Kurita’s fleet. For the Goliath-like
Musashi
capsized and sank after the fifth attack, in the afternoon — after a total of nineteen hits by torpedoes and seventeen hits by bombs. Although the American pilots reported that three other battleships and three heavy cruisers had been heavily hit, actually only one ship, a heavy cruiser, was too badly damaged to continue. After the fifth onslaught and the sinking of the
Musashi
, however, the Japanese fleet turned about and steamed away to the west.

On getting these reports from his air observers it appeared to Admiral Halsey that Kurita was definitely in retreat. But the fact that no aircraft carriers had been seen in either part of Kurita’s fleet had led Halsey to send out reconnaissance planes on a wider search for them, and about 5 p.m. Ozawa’s force was spotted on its way southward. Thereupon Halsey decided to dash north and smash it at dawn, following his motto ‘Whatever we do, we do fast.’ To make sure of annihilating Ozawa’s force he took the whole of his available fleet, leaving nothing behind to guard San Bernardino Strait.

A quarter of an hour after announcing his decision in a signal to Kinkaid, a report was received from a night reconnaissance plane that Kurita had turned round again and was steaming at high speed towards the Strait. Halsey discounted the report. Now that he saw the opportunity of playing the kind of bold and dashing game he loved he became blind to other possibilities. Early in the war he had been aptly nicknamed ‘The Bull’.

Kurita’s retreat had been only a temporary expedient to get out of reach of air attack while daylight lasted, with the intention of returning under the cloak of darkness. Apart from the sinking of the
Musashi
none of his bigger ships had been seriously damaged — contrary to what the American pilots had optimistically reported.

At 11 p.m., when Halsey had gone 160 miles northward, Kurita’s fleet was again spotted by reconnaissance planes — still heading for San Bernardino Strait and now only forty miles away. Halsey could no longer ignore its advance, but discounted the seriousness of the threat, regarding the renewed advance as merely a sacrificial effort on traditional Japanese lines by a badly crippled fleet. He pushed on northward, confidently assuming that Kinkaid’s fleet would easily be able to beat off what he supposed to be a much weakened attacker.