And now we come to the naval climax of the war, the greatest of all sea battles: Leyte Gulf. This chapter is jam-packed, and as such, Morison keeps the strategy section fairly short, and with only one obvious lie, that Admiral King wasn't anti-British. He was in fact a very confirmed Anglophobe, although possibly only as an extension of general misanthropy. Then there's the decision to massively accelerate the landings on Leyte, which Morison if anything undersells as a truly awe-inspiring logistical achievement. The actions of TF 38 before the attack get fairly short shrift, with the escape of Houston and Canberra from the waters off Formosa getting only a brief mention. It's one of the war's great epics of naval engineering, and I really need to write it up at some point.
But all of this brevity is in service of getting to the main event. Sibuyan Sea is quickly dealt with, but he spends plenty of time on Suriago Strait, the last action between battleships, which Morison gives a fitting rhetorical sendoff to. Then Samar, where I would complain that he falls into the too-common trap of focusing on Johnston over the other escorts in Taffy 3, but I'm also wildly biased in favor of Hoel for various reasons. The other major factor that I think gets ignored in Morison's account of Samar is Kurita's probable sleep deprivation, and the mental strain of having a couple flagships shot out from under him, which likely contributed to his remarkably bad decision-making.
And then there's Cape Engano and the infamous incident with Task Force 34, and I think Morison sort of drops the ball on this one, because there's really no discussion of the confusion that led to the San Bernadino Strait being uncovered beyond the bare fact that it happened. For those who don't know, the conventional view is Halsey is primarily responsible for the screwup, although I'm in the more recent revisionist camp that points out that Halsey's priority was the Japanese carriers, not covering the landings directly, so it was ultimately up to Kinkaid to make sure he was covered. (Although this doesn't excuse Halsey's poor phrasing of his orders, which everyone outside Third Fleet misunderstood.) I also feel compelled to point out that if he had left TF 34 to block Kurita, it would have done wonders for the historical reputation of the battleship, because nobody would believe how little damage Kurita's fleet did to Taffy 3 in real life. But Morison basically skips all of this because he can gloss over it and talking about it doesn't really make the USN look good.
Comments
The author Evan Thomas believed Kurita turned back because he didn't want to get anymore Japanese sailors killed. Having his flagship sunk beneath him and still recovering from dengue fever probably impacted his decision making.
https://www.usni.org/magazines/naval-history-magazine/2004/october/understanding-kuritas-mysterious-retreat
I read similar comment (which I'm still trying to track down) that Kurita knew the war was lost and he wasn't going to waste anymore lives on a lost cause.
I quite enjoyed this chapter. I agree that he messed up with his characterization of King as not anti-anglo.
I've always felt that during the battle, something changed and Kurita's goal went from "Destroy (or at least do all the damage you can to) the landing force" to "Survive the war".
Its entirely possible that was due to having two flagships shot out from under him.
Anyway, the first major mistake is "General Chase" order, rather than running the battle in a controlled manner. It seems to me that it would have made far more sense to assign targets to each ship, and once your target was broken, to move on to a new one. All the subsequent errors merely served to compound the initial one.
Its a miracle of the first order that so many of the Taffy 3 carriers survived. As you said, no one would believe it if it was an alt-history.
Read assessment of Kurita not wanting to lose anymore sailors as well. Also included his Chief of Staff creating a phantom sighting to the north of US BBs. I do not know if that is all true but sounds reasonable if Kurita thought the was lost (which he probably did)
On the other hand.....(this always happens)
He was also the guy who left IJN headquarters and went to the Yamamoto in late March of 45 to explain to them why they had to launch a seaborn kamikaze attack on the US fleet off Okinawa. Included in that meeting (between Kurita and the various Captians of the Yamato Task Force) was on Destroyer Captain asking Kurita "if headquarters thinks this action is worth it, why doesn't Admiral Toyoda (sp) come down and join us."
Kurita's reaction is not recorded.
it's fair to say King was not only an Anglophobe; he was an "I don't command it"-phobe. no doubt he wished he was President too.
Halsey should have sized up the situation and realised his first priority (as it is writ in stone now) was to defend the amphibious forces, because of the thousands of men and precious amphib capabilities that could have been lost. if anything his mistake was haste in not splitting up his forces to adequately do both missions. in Halsey's defence, it must be said that since 1941 the US Navy's overriding Pacific strategy was "kill Japanese carriers", and both King and Nimitz had reinforced this strategy in personal orders, so his decision is somewhat understandable.
I don't know that King would have wanted to be President. I suspect he'd have considered it a demotion.
And as the post said - close cover of the landing force was 7th Fleet's responsibility, not 3rd Fleet's. In the alternative history where Kurita stayed turned around after Sibuyan Sea, but Halsey remained off the mouth of San Bernardino Strait just in case, he'd be catching just as much crap for "wasting" 3rd Fleet and letting Ozawa slip away with the IJN carriers. Again.
The criticism of Halsey is absolutely warranted, for a few reasons. Note that this has nothing to do with the decision to go after the Japanese carriers with the Northern Force. Going after the carriers was absolutely the right thing to do as by this point in the war it was beyond obvious carriers were the most powerful unit and no one could know the carriers were basically empty of planes. Halsey had to go after Northern Force when it was detected. Rather the problems were:
1) Not covering San Bernadino Strait. First, it shouldn't be said that Halsey was responsible for the carriers and Kinkaid for covering the landings. Rather, Halsey was responsible for engaging the Japanese fleet while Kinkaid for conducting and supporting the landings. Kurita's Center Force absolutely constituted a major part of the Japanese fleet, and thus it was Halsey's responsibility to deal with it. This responsibility was not absolute (c.f. Kinkaid's battleships defending the Surigao Strait against the Southern Force) but Halsey had the combat power to deal with both Center and Northern Forces yet ran off with all of it to deal with only one on the morning of the 25th. This problem has several subparts.
First is that San Bernardino Strait was obvious key terrain as one of the two main approaches to Leyte, along with Surigao to the south. Even if there were no enemy forces around, guarding it should be seen as a basic requirement of any competent commander, just like a junior officer on land should always post sentries before letting the rest of his unit go to sleep.
Next, San Bernardino's importance was even more obvious when the Center Force was spotted and engaged in the Sibuyan Sea, heading right towards it. Halsey knew that there was a possibility of needing to block it because of the message he sent that had literally everyone else in the Pacific Theater believing he had formed TF34 to do just that.* Halsey had two task groups of carriers (TG 38.1 and 38.4) heading to Ulithi for resupply, but only recalled 38.4 on 23 October when the submarine Darter spotted the Japanese forces in the Sibuyan Sea. A side problem here is that Halsey did not make a very good effort to destroy the Center Force. Only 259 sorties were launched against it versus the 527 sorties launched the next day against the almost-empty carriers of Northern Force the next day.
Third, Halsey ignored the intelligence the night of the 24th/25th that the Center Force had turned around and was heading back to San Bernardino Strait. This wasn't a case of misinterpreting the fragmentary information that often makes up the fog of war - a night reconnaissance flight reported the Japanese force heading east and that navigation lights had been turned on in the strait. Intelligence on what the enemy will doe does not come more clearly than this. Everyone who got this report (Lee, Bogan, Burke) interpreted it correctly - everyone except Halsey and his immediate staff, who ignored the danger and did nothing to block the strait.
2) Not responding right away when Taffy 3 came under attack. The first messages of the crisis came in around 8:00, but Halsey did not direct McCain with his returning TF 38.1 to engage until around 10:00 and did not finally form TF 34 and turn the battleships around until after 11:00. First, in the moment of crisis doing anything sooner was necessary. Halsey's claim that he didn't get messages of the situation until 10 am is bunk, Kinkaid thought the crisis was so great he was sending some messages in the clear, so there was no need to wait to decrypt them. And if Halsey's radio room and communications staff was so mismanaged and out of sync they didn't think to rush him those kind of messages then the blame still falls on him as a commander for having trained or instructed his men so poorly.
Second, the appropriate response should have been to turn around one of TF38's carrier groups, no rely on McCain (who was too far away) or turn the battleships around. McCain launched is strike from 380 miles away at 10:30, as best I can tell (detailed time-track maps of all units in the battle are not easily found, at least from my searching), the TF38 carriers were about 380 miles from the Center Force at 8:20 when Kinkaid was desperately calling for help. A two hour run to the south would have put them ~310 miles away at 10:30, which means their aircraft could have arrived sooner than McCains and with more fuel for a better attack. And from the north, rather than chasing from the east like McCain, they were in position to launch further attacks later in the day as Kurita withdrew.
But of course, no one could have predicted that Kurita would withdraw, which is another reason that a carrier TF should have been turned around, not TF34. Writer often note how turning around TF 34 right away would have meant that it would have intercepted Kurita as he headed back west through San Bernardino Strait after the battle, but the battleships had no chance to get south fast enought to influence the battle to help save Taffy 3, and could have done even less if Kurita had kept going south to the landing beaches. But a carrier TG from the north could have kept launching sorties if Kurita had not withdrawn, combined with McCain's TG.**
A final reason carriers should have been turned around, is that by this point Halsey's battleships had been formed into TF34 and pushed ahead of the American carriers towards the Japanese Northern Force. After the Japanese were pounded by the carrier airstrikes, the battleships were in position to close and mop up the remnants. But by sending TF34 south to 'help' Taffy 3, he denied them the chance to finish off the Northern Force. TF34 should have been left to defend San Bernardino Strait, but having failed to do so, Halsey should have kept them committed to the attack in the north, where they could have done some real damage, instead of sailing back and forth like a ping pong accomplishing nothing, which is what happened.
Amateurs study tactics, professionals study logistics. With logistics being the development, deployment, and sustainment of combat power on the battlefield, Halsey failed the "deployment" piece of being a professional five times in two and a half days, and four times in just 25 hours: - He did not recall McCain's TG 38.1 on 23 Oct when submarines detected the Center Force approaching from the west, only Davison's TG 38.4. - He did not maximize his attacks on the Center Force on 24 Oct, launching half the sorties as were launched on the 25th. - He did not position TF 34 to block the San Bernadino Strait when the rest of his forces north to deal with the Japanese carriers. - When he became aware that Center Force was engaging the escort carriers of Taffy 3, he did not immediately send forces to help.
- Turning the battleships around at that point just meant that they were unable to engage the Northern Force when they were almost within range. They really never participated in the battle.
Halsey never deserved the fifth star. Although Congressional politics got it for him anyway, the Navy did not seem to forget. Although Nimitz, Spruance, Burke and Leahy all got classes of ships names after them in the 60s and 70s, Halsey only got a ship.
*The fact that he sent the clarifying message that TF34 was conditional, not formed yet, via voice radio that others could not pick up, after sending the order seeming to create it via HF radio that everyone could read, isn't directly responsible for his failings in the battle, but it is another mark against his ability as a commander that he mismanaged his outgoing communications.
**Although had Kurita stuck to the "sacrifice everything attacking the landing forces" plan, it probably would have fallen to Oldendorf and the Pearl Harbor battleships to engage and defeat a second Japanese force that day.
regarding ship-naming politics, Nimitz, Spruance, Burke and Leahy all didn't (appear to) screw up in the eyes of the public and their brother officers. not only is Halsey controversial, so was King, and King didn't get a warship class either. only a measley little Farragut.
I wouldn't read too much into class naming. King got a ship named after him within a year or so of his death, as did Halsey. Both were close to the start of the class, but not so close that it's obvious there was a deliberate decision not to name the class after them. (More plausible in King's case because that name seems tailor-made for confusion.) Nimitz and Spruance both had the good sense to die very shortly before major classes were ordered.
Leahy and Halsey died within weeks of each other, yet Leahy got the class named after him. Arleigh Burke got a class named after him while he was still alive (a practice I believe you share my disapproval of). There is more going on here than simple timing of when someone died vis-a-vis when the the lead ship of a class is named.
Also, a bit more indirect, but Nimitz (commander of the Pacific Fleet), Spruance (commander of PacFlt carriers), Richmond Tuner (commander of PacFlt amphibious ships) and Charles Lockwood (commander of PacFlt submarines) all made an agreement to be buried together at the national cememtery south of San Francisco. There was of course a co-commander of the carrier force, Halsey, who apparently wasn't invited to this agreement, or perhaps was and didn't choose to participate. Either way it shows how there was a successful team leading the Pacific War for the US, plus an extra Admiral whose reputation was greater than his success. Unlike Montgomery (with El Alamein) and MacArthur (with Inchon), I can't think of anything Halsey did to offset his numerous failures at Leyte. Maybe the raid on Rabaul, but I think the threat from a cruiser-only force in November 1943 was far overstated.