The Battle of Leyte Gulf, which took place off the coasts of the Philippine islands of Samar and Leyte in October of 1944, was, and remains, the largest naval battle in human history. It was the battle that officially ended the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) as an effective fighting force and paved the way for the Americans to continue its drive to the Japanese home islands. Mr. Stille, in his new book “Leyte Gulf: A New History of the World’s Largest Sea Battle,” discusses the battle and its outcomes, the naval officers and their decisions, the logistics, the casualty figures, along with the myths and misperceptions that have been perpetuated.
Mr. Stille discusses in detail how the IJN were fighting a losing battle. With every passing day, it seemed that the situation was becoming more and more hopeless, yet the IJN command, much like the commanders of the Imperial General Headquarters in Tokyo, pressed its subordinates to continue at any and all costs.
Holding the Line
Early in the book, Mr. Stille explains that the IJN hope was to hold the line of defense in the South Pacific against American invasion, a line that included the Home Islands, the Ryukyus, Formosa (Taiwan), and the Philippines. The defense was not solely about maintaining geography, but maintaining oil and resources. As Mr. Stille states, “If this defense was penetrated, the war would be lost. … Without oil, the (IJN) Combined Fleet [IJN’s main ocean-going component of its navy] surface ships and submarines would be worthless.” Mere survival seems to be the motivation; but if that was the case, Mr. Stille makes it clear that the Japanese were making counterproductive decisions to secure that outcome.These counterproductive decisions culminated in the plans for holding that defensive line with the operation of Sho-I. Because the IJN was utterly outnumbered (as seen in Mr. Stille’s “Total Forces” graphic that highlights how the U.S. Navy overwhelmed the IJN in practically every naval category), the author indicates that even “the planning basis for Sho-I was simple and utter desperation.”
He adds that the plan was assembled with a “fatalistic strain,” adding that “the battle for Leyte might be the Combined Fleet’s last opportunity to die with honor. Going down to defeat was preferable to the fate of surrendering the fleet.”
IJN and USN Dysfunctions
The book pinpoints the dysfunction between the IJN staff and its admirals. For some of the admirals, the idea of an “honorable” suicide mission was less than palatable. But the dysfunction hardly ended at the drawing room. Already facing impossible odds, the IJN admirals put themselves in worse straits. “The refusal to coordinate the actions of Nishimura’s and Shima’s forces even though they were operating in the same restricted waters and were pursuing the same objective staggers the imagination,” Mr. Stille notes.Numerical superiority, access to oil and resources, and logistical and technological superiority all led to the United States’s trampling of the IJN. But Mr. Stille notes that the victory could have and should have been more emphatic.
In many ways, “Leyte Gulf” is a critique of what took place before, during, and after history’s largest naval battle. There is hardly any other decision and action more critiqued than U.S. Adm. William Halsey’s pursuit of an IJN force in the north that left Leyte Gulf undefended and allowed for the IJN to disembark soldiers and materiel.
Not Simply a Critique
Mr. Stille’s work, however, is hardly a study of “pointing out how the strong man stumbles” (to reference Theodore Roosevelt). Hindsight is always 20/20, and Stille obviously recognizes that, which is why he also comes to the defense of admirals for both the IJN and the USN.He suggests that since the battle, naval historians and critics have at times been too critical. Too often they have relied on the unfair advantage of hindsight to render their assessments. Even concerning Halsey’s great error, he suggests that some leniency should be provided because his decision was based on what he knew and what he didn’t know.
Mr. Stille also says that Halsey simply acted according to the dictates of his typical and well-known aggressive military character. Given that, some of the criticism falls at the feet of Adm. Chester Nimitz, who was overall commander of the Pacific Fleet.
“Leyte Gulf: A New History of the World’s Largest Sea Battle” is not a work of excitement and intrigue. It is a meticulous study of what took place during the several engagements over the four-day period known as the Battle of Leyte Gulf. There are details of the conflicts―ships sunk, sailors lost, aircraft used, naval vessel types and names, and so on―but it is not written with a flare for the dramatic, nor is it exhaustive. To do so would have required a multi-volume work. To do so would have also altered the essence of the book.
What Mr. Stille presents is a dissection of the people, the decisions, the types of vessels, the motivations, and what-ifs of the Pacific War battle. He provides new answers and several alternative ways to view the people, the decisions, and the execution of those decisions. In some instances, there are questions we will never truly know the answers for, such as the motivation and the reasoning behind IJN’s all-out, yet knowingly suicidal engagement. Was it for honor? Was there an actual belief in a possible military miracle? For all intents and purposes, the answer to the latter is no, which makes the answer to the former all the more unanswerable to our modern views. It proves that even with hindsight, some answers to historical questions are indigestible, while others are unanswerable.
For naval, World War II, or simply Pacific War history enthusiasts, “Leyte Gulf: A New History of the World’s Largest Sea Battle” is a prime read.
