Storm Over Leyte

by John Prados

  This sequence had not been cast in stone. For months, the Combined Fleet had been deliberately conserving JNAF strength. All the top leaders anticipated the big battle in the Philippines and soon. One more conservation-of-force operation was perfectly feasible. If Second Air Fleet commander Vice Admiral Fukudome Shigeru needed to escape combat by surging his planes into the Philippines, it would only have improved the Japanese deployment there. Even keeping warplanes in the Home Islands remained an option, because there were so many bases along the aerial pipeline to the Philippines that Task Force 38 could not neutralize them. In the Philippines itself the same condition existed. It was a true “unsinkable aircraft carrier.”

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  A robust air fleet in the Philippines, launching attacks as the Allied task forces and invasion flotillas neared Leyte, would have covered the approach of the Kurita fleet. Even supposing the JNAF inflicted no losses whatsoever on Halsey’s carriers, that offered at least two immediate possibilities. First, Halsey’s fleet would have been unable to stand off and punch at Japanese surface forces passing through the Philippines. Allied air attacks would have been reduced by the distraction of simultaneously defending their own forces. The same preoccupations would have reduced the potential for Allied air strikes aimed at the JNAF’s bases. Equally important, the assaults of the Sea Eagles, successful or not, would require Task Force 38 surface ships to focus on fleet air defense. That would have made it impossible for Halsey to order the concentration of his own surface action group, Task Force 34. This might preclude Halsey from using heavy ships to bar the Kurita fleet’s passage through the Philippines.

  Both contingencies awarded the advantage to the Japanese. Admiral Toyoda could have squelched the air-only Sho and held the planes back. He did not.

  The Imperial Navy had some very smart officers at the center of these events. At Hiyoshi, Kusaka Ryunosuke, while not actually a pilot, had been around airplanes so long that he might as well be considered one. Kusaka thought of himself as an aviation broker. The air fleet leader on Taiwan, squarely facing Halsey’s carriers, Fukudome Shigeru, was Kusaka’s friend and colleague, classmate at the Naval War College; not a pilot either, but an officer whose aviation experience included helping plan the Pearl Harbor attack. The other JNAF fleet commanders were aviators. The air staff officer with Combined Fleet headquarters, Captain Fuchida, was a skilled pilot—and he had been air group commander aboard carrier Akagi when Kusaka skippered that ship before the war. Air officer at the NGS was Captain Okumiya Masatake, who probably had the most varied experience of any Japanese aviator.

  A year earlier, at Rabaul in the Solomons, Kusaka had been chief of staff of the air fleet that conducted a series of embarrassingly ineffectual air battles in response to the Allied invasion of Bougainville. Captain Okumiya had been the air staff officer of one of the carrier division air flotillas that participated. At home the Bougainville air battles had been portrayed as a brilliant victory. It is not clear whether Kusaka and other line officers believed that, but what is true is that the JNAF had called off the operation when its air groups ended up virtually destroyed. Now the same danger existed at Taiwan.

  Admirals Kusaka and Fukudome, Rear Admiral Takata Toshitane, Fuchida and Okumiya, and Captain Inoguchi Rikihei, the air staff officer for the First Air Fleet, were all highly professional staff officers, flexible thinkers who had absorbed the fine points of aviation operations. All knew the score in terms of the decline of the Sea Eagles. Skill and potency were much diminished. Any one of them could have advised against the air-only Sho. No one did. Japanese aviation leaders’ hearts were set on their own decisive battle.

  • • •

  WHEN THE FIGHT began at Okinawa, Toyoda mandated consultations with the NGS and IGHQ. Colonel Hattori Takushiro, a senior operations planner for the Japanese Army, notes that the power to decide which version of the Sho plan would be implemented was supposed to be reserved for Imperial General Headquarters. Instead, Vice Admiral Kusaka issued the alert order for an air-only Sho at 9:30 a.m. on October 10.

  Not only did the Navy take away an IGHQ prerogative; it had no plan. Neither the NGS nor Combined Fleet had ever reviewed contingencies for an air-only Sho. There was an NGS directive to govern air activities overall, attempting to foresee what form the scheme might take in each region where Sho might have to be implemented, but this amounted to an operational policy, not a battle plan. This air-only decisive battle would be entirely improvised. Kusaka believed in its absolute importance. That faith marked the beginning of a terrible nightmare, one punctuated by Bull Halsey’s invincible striking force.

  At the moment Task Force 38 began its onslaught, U.S. intelligence (JICPOA) assessed there were 125 JNAF aircraft in the islands, about half bombers, a quarter fighters, and the rest mixed types. On Taiwan, JICPOA believed there were 241 combat aircraft but a whopping 560 trainers. The warplane estimate broke down as 100 fighters, 64 twin-engine bombers, and 39 single-engine attack planes. Captain McCollum’s Seventh Fleet Intelligence Center estimated Taiwan air strength at 223 combat aircraft and more than 600 trainers. Against Halsey’s 1,000 aircraft, these JNAF forces stood no chance whatever.

  At midafternoon, Japanese scout planes first sighted the American carriers.

  For the Combined Fleet, Admiral Fukudome—and the NGS, if they were to conduct a battle—the first order of business had to be regrouping scattered air units. On October 10, JNAF planes in the southern Philippines were ordered to Luzon airfields. The NGS reassigned several attack units to the 762nd and 763rd Air Groups of the T Air Attack Force.

  At 2:25 p.m. Captain Kuno’s elite bad-weather fliers were ordered to carry out a night attack on the Halsey fleet. A little while later, their base at Kanoya was heard requesting torpedoes. Admiral Fukudome ordered rigorous searches by his units—but no new sightings came in. Kuno Shuzo’s bombers had no weapons with which to strike. An hour after midnight, JNAF commanders canceled the attack orders.

  On October 11, the Americans disappeared from the Ryukyus. Some carriers hit the northern part of Luzon. Again, the Allies achieved no surprise. At 6:50 p.m. the previous day, the Japanese command responsible for that sector received orders to be ready for battle the next morning. The strikes kept the Japanese on edge while groups of Task Force 38 refueled for the Taiwan air battle. Mostly Admiral Mitscher occupied himself with preparations for that. That twenty-four-hour reprieve afforded the Imperial Navy commanders one last chance to reconsider their course. Fukudome and Kusaka could have stripped Taiwan of JNAF aircraft, protecting the planes in the Empire. Those were the tactics favored in the war games held in the summer, before the new crisis. They now knew from Imperial Navy intelligence that Halsey’s fleet had no transports and therefore no invasion impended. And Japanese analysis had also indicated that carrier attacks in surrounding regions presaged invasions elsewhere. Here was the moment to play the long game against a Philippine invasion.

  Instead, the Japanese continued to concentrate for a Taiwan battle. Right into the evening of October 10, the radio circuits hummed with details of which air units would shift to what fields, and where they might refuel en route. The Third Air Fleet would provide staging bases for movement of 170 warplanes of the 51st Air Flotilla from northern Japan. Admiral Ozawa of the Mobile Fleet received instructions to make all his aircraft available with the exception of a small number that were to sail with his carriers. The less-trained fliers preparing for future carrier assignment would be thrown into the fray. Ozawa had anticipated an order like this. His staff had already held meetings with Fukudome’s planners regarding what bases Mobile Fleet’s warplanes should use. Meanwhile, the T Air Attack Force shifted from Third to Second Air Fleet command. On the evening of the tenth, Vice Admiral Shima Kiyohide, commanding the 2nd Diversion Attack Force, received orders to have his warships ready, with steam up, in the morning.

  While Mitscher’s tas
k force gulped down precious oil from a replenishment group, it held to a westerly course. Captain James T. Acuff’s oilers dispensed 331,000 barrels of oil and 542,000 gallons of aviation gasoline. Lost planes were replaced from the escort carriers Nehenta Bay and Nassau. Bill Halsey later reflected that the Luzon attack had been a mistake, simply giving the Japanese another day to reinforce Taiwan. The mistake would have been bigger had the enemy used that time to pull their aircraft back to safety.

  On the Japanese side, shortly before noon on October 11, Captain Kuno of the T Air Attack Force received the order reinstating his instructions to smash the Big Blue Fleet. His bombers should leave Kanoya and move to Taiwan, refueling on Okinawa and striking the U.S. fleet on the way.

  But the headaches of mounting this mission continued. Next to the torpedo shortage, there were weather problems from the typhoon. Kuno could not overcome them. Rear Admiral Sugimoto Shie, Fukudome’s chief of staff, was obliged to accept another delay of the planned attack. That night an Enterprise night fighter splashed a Betty scout fifty miles away from the task force. While the Japanese struggled to cobble together their response, Admiral Mitscher’s wolfhounds leaped forward and struck Taiwan.

  • • •

  THE SUN ROSE on October 12 at a quarter to seven. Weather watchers on the Essex noted a moderate sea, visibility at twelve miles, with broken clouds starting at 2,000 feet. Wind was from the northeast at sixteen to twenty knots. Admiral Halsey had all four groups of Task Force 38 on line. Essex reckoned her position at seventy-five miles off the Taiwanese coast.

  As usual the Air Group 15 boss led the way. Commander McCampbell would be target coordinator for Essex. Defended by a flight of three other Hellcats, he would control the laydown of the strike. McCampbell found ground fog and haze over the western side of Taiwan together with partly cloudy conditions. A fighter sweep began the action.

  This time it would be the Americans who were surprised. Taiwan had been on alert since the predawn hours, defensive radars lit, so even a launch at 5:44 a.m. afforded the Americans no shock value. A radar-equipped scout from the JNAF 901st Air Group, a unit that specialized in detecting submarines, filed the first sighting report at 2:10 a.m. Air raid sirens on Taiwan first sounded twenty minutes later. With early radar detection (at 6:10, more than half an hour before the Allies engaged), the JNAF could scramble fighters, and American planes arrived over Taiwan to find the Japanese stacked above them, with the critical dogfight advantage of altitude.

  Even with this promising beginning, the air-only Sho quickly hung on a razor’s edge. One version has Admiral Toyoda stepping from the shower in bathrobe and sandals, learning of JNAF preparations with glee, then finding the Second Air Fleet in extremis by the time he dressed. Admiral Fukudome has left his own account of an emotional roller coaster that starts from exuberance and descends to despair.

  The Second Air Fleet had yet to complete its concentration—so far just 100 or so fighters and a dozen flying boats had moved down from Japan. There were more than twice that many Japanese Army planes, mostly at two aerodromes, that had come under naval command. Fukudome did not think too much of their quality but nevertheless felt somewhat reassured because he would have a mass force for defense—more than 230 fighters, which he figured for at least a 3:2 advantage over any U.S. airstrike—and the pilots would be defending their homeland.

  Despite knowing of “the manifest inferiority” of JNAF airmen, Admiral Fukudome had been expectant. One new trick would be that some Second Air Fleet fighter-bombers were armed with incendiary bombs that they could sling at the Americans while maneuvering.

  With their height advantage, the Japanese dropped down through the American formations and got off a first burst. It looked at first like the Japanese might fight by sections and divisions—the kinds of units that conveyed flexibility and power to aerial combat. Unit tactics were scripture by now to the U.S. Navy and most other air forces. But the JNAF pilots were not proficient enough to keep close on their wingmen through the acrobatics of a dogfight. One after another the flights of Japanese fighters peeled apart, to be engaged by units of American warplanes. At medium altitudes, the U.S. planes had speed and agility to match, and armor for survivability. Few JNAF aircraft made it to low altitude, where the maneuverability profiles reversed, or if they did, it was with masses of American fliers on their tails. It was almost a no-win situation. Fukudome lost a third of his fighter strength, including many of his best pilots, to Task Force 38’s first wave.

  The scenarios played out repeatedly when flights of sweeping Americans encountered Japanese fighters or bombers that had just taken off or were forming up over their bases. Lieutenant Cecil E. Harris flew an F-6F with the Fighting 18 squadron aboard Intrepid and participated in the fighter sweep that kicked off the Taiwan raids. As he crossed the coast, Harris took his flight of four Hellcats down from 15,000 feet to check out an enemy airfield. They found half a dozen twin-engine Japanese bombers had just taken off. As the American fighters began to engage, JNAF Zeros dropped on them from above. Harris flamed a pair of the bombers, then turned to the Japanese fighters. He blasted a couple of those as well. His formation as a whole tallied four of the bombers and three fighters, losing one plane to the twenty Zeros that had jumped them.

  Fred Bakutis of Fighting 20 on the Enterprise was inbound with his sweeping fighters when combat controllers on the carrier recalled him to CAP positions, as they flung fighters into the air that were slated to escort the next attack wave. The Japanese seemed to be closing in for their strike—but nothing happened.

  Once the fighters were released, Bakutis led them back, finding a mixed group of Japanese Army and Navy interceptors scrambling to climb. With the altitude advantage, the Americans destroyed nearly half of a twenty-plane enemy formation. Ensign Douglas Baker got three.

  A Japanese Army flight entirely composed of aircraft instructors claimed to have shot down five U.S. planes for two of their own. On the other hand, only eight of thirty-two interceptors of the Army 32rd Fighter Group returned to their base, and all eight planes of an Army training unit were blasted when they tried to fight. Over Taiwan, a unit of nearly forty Navy Zeros engaged a similarly sized U.S. formation only to lose seventeen planes. They claimed seven Hellcats downed, plus several probables. Admiral Fukudome clapped when he saw planes fall from the sky, assuming them to be American. He soon found out otherwise: “Our fighters were nothing but so many eggs thrown at the stone wall of the indomitable enemy formation.”

  Essex Hellcats encountered the Jack, or Raiden, for the first time. The American pilots were amazed to see it outclimb them at 18,000 feet. They held formation while the Jack made a firing pass and then went after it, putting it down. Ensign C. W. Borley of Fighting 15 flamed four of the enemy in just a few minutes. This combat also proved the first for the Shiden, or George, about thirty of which battled double that number of Hellcats. The JNAF 401st Air Group claimed ten F-6Fs shot down but lost fourteen of their own planes. Petty Officers Hirakawa Hideo and Yamada Takeo were each believed to have accounted for four American aircraft.

  Scenes like this played out all across Taiwan. William F. Halsey thought Fukudome’s tactics were rather erroneous—the Japanese, he later wrote, should not have bothered defending at all but should have gone after Halsey’s fleet with every single plane. Admiral Ted Sherman of Task Group 38.3 agreed. Fukudome Shigeru actually thought along similar lines, recalling his conviction that the best way to get at the American carriers would be with a mass formation accompanied by the strongest possible fighter escort, with the confusion serving to screen the approach of the T Air Attack Force. But when the moment came, the Second Air Fleet commander committed his fighters to a defensive role instead. Fukudome noted that his planes had been able to rehearse the large-scale attack tactic only a few times, and only immediately prior to Halsey’s onslaught.

  Many interceptors opposed the first U.S. sweep. Only about 60 aircraft rose to
contest the second wave. The third and succeeding waves encountered little opposition. The bombers went in after the fighters to plaster Japanese airfields and other targets. Task Force 38 flew 1,348 sorties on October 12. Halsey estimated destroying 200 Japanese planes.

  At Takao, fleet chief of staff Sugimoto suggested that Fukudome stay away from his bomb shelter, remaining instead in aboveground administrative offices. The C-in-C snorted. Any morale impact of showing bravery through vulnerability would surely be strictly limited, since they were on just one of dozens of airfields. Admiral Fukudome moved to his underground command post, recently installed in a cave about four kilometers from the offices. Sure enough, American bombers obliterated the administration building. Rear Admiral Sugimoto admitted, “If we had stayed in the administration office, all of us—the admiral and all other headquarters personnel—would have been finished.” Sugimoto and Fukudome could only laugh ruefully at their good fortune.

  The Americans came in little packets of twenty or so aircraft, with larger formations of thirty to fifty planes sent against specified targets, under the watchful eyes of strike coordinators. Planes broke formation and commenced individual attacks while still outside the flak perimeter. The Japanese countered with a fixed barrage—antiaircraft shells fused to burst after intervals of two to five seconds. Seaman Jack Miller, the Bombing 15 turret gunner from Essex, flew in the second wave and recorded the antiaircraft fire as heavy. His flight attacked before 8:00 a.m. The squadron suffered no losses.

  Others were not so fortunate. A third wave hit around 10:30. Damaged aircraft tried to ditch at sea where there was a chance U.S. submarines or seaplanes might rescue the crews. Task Force 38 lost forty-eight planes on the first day. The rescue subs would do a brisk business. They retrieved almost two dozen airmen over the following week.