Battle of Leyte Gulf remembered during Bush visit

The visit of US President George W. Bush to Manila this month will be doubly significant with the celebration of the world’s greatest naval battle between America and Japan in the Gulf of Leyte 59 years ago.

This will be the first time that an incumbent American president will be visiting the Philippines during the celebration of the historic landing of US forces led by Gen. Douglas MacArthur on the shore of Palo, Leyte on Oct. 20, 1944, to fulfill his promise of "I Shall Return."

The Leyte Gulf landing preceded history’s greatest naval battle that involved more than 300 warships and submarines, over 2,000 planes and some 200,000 combatants.

To this day, that monumental gathering of warships, planes, weaponry and fighting men has been unrivaled even by the invasion of Iraq by US and British forces last May.

The only difference was the high-tech weaponry used during the one-sided Iraq war that saw American and British troops easily triumph over Saddam Hussein’s forces.

But in terms of the area of conflict, the Leyte Gulf was so vast that it covered over 150,000 square kilometers of sea extending up to Papua New Guinea.

Though unrivaled in intensity, the Battle of Leyte Gulf was not as popular as the Allied Landing in Normandy or even the Battle of the Bulge during the Second World War.

This is because the fighting between American and Japanese forces happened in the homestretch of the war when the outcome was a foregone conclusion in favor of the Allied forces.

The Battle of Leyte Gulf was so ferocious that thousands of sailors and airmen were killed defending their respective countries.

The world’s most spectacular naval battle from Oct. 23 to 26, 1944 saw the sinking of the largest battleship ever built, with thousands of men going down with it.

So great was the intensity that the fighting involved air, surface, submarine and amphibious warfare, using every weapon invented by man at the time, except the atomic bomb which was used later by the United States in bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki that forced Japan to surrender.

Never in the history of mankind had a great quantity of bombs of every type, torpedoes, mines, rockets and the forerunner of guided missiles been used in combat.

It was the Battle of Leyte Gulf that saw the largest number of American sailors die and sink to the bottom of the sea together with their ships.

For the first time, an American aircraft carrier was sunk during the battle with the Japanese Imperial Navy.

The Leyte Gulf naval warfare was also the last stand of Japan to alter the outcome of the Pacific War.

But the United States was more prepared this time in terms of planning, armaments, training and logistics. With the memory of Pearl Harbor giving them the adrenaline, the Americans were bent to fight for victory.

The liberation of the Philippines was almost bypassed but MacArthur lobbied for it and got the nod of then US President Franklin Roosevelt to go ahead.

During the deliberation, some US generals suggested that America attack and seize Formosa, then invade Japan.

But MacArthur insisted that the priority must be the Philippines or America would lose face of not fulfilling its promise to the Filipinos.

Admiral William Halsey, known as "The Bull," and Admiral Chester Nimitz greatly helped in the liberation when their respected forces clobbered the Japanese Imperial Navy several months before the Leyte landing.

By the time the Japanese confronted the Americans in Leyte Gulf, the Japanese Navy was crippled with lesser combat ships and planes. The Japanese also suffered shortage of pilots during the final showdown. –PNA