Remembering the Battle of Leyte Gulf

One of the greatest failures of the Philippine government is the fact that our annual budget for education never caught up with our population growth. Please don’t blame our population explosion… blame the politicians for not anticipating our population growth! Add to that list those so-called "nationalists" who promote only "Filipinism" to the detriment of our ability to speak English… now where has all this gotten us?

Indeed, we’ve got a great number of teachers who speak at the very least, horrible English… and in turn, they teach this to our children. No wonder our local newspapers find it difficult to hire good reporters… no wonder the call centers are always looking for more applicants to hire, whose requirement is only to speak good English. We can’t even find good teachers!

It is crystal clear that if only the DepEd taught Filipinos to speak better English like the way we used to do in the 50s or 60s, that would have assured many of us of employment. Naturally, it follows that when one can’t speak English, that person also cannot read English. This situation gets worse because most articles, good or bad, are written in English, like our national dailies, magazines or books on technology or history.

Talking about speaking English, Mrs. Suzanne Faelnar Camara, the daughter of my good friend Lino Faelnar, e-mailed me the wordings of the songs from an Alan Jay Lerner, Fredrick Leowe Broadway play, which became a Warner Brothers hit musical movie, My Fair Lady, which was shown in the mid-60s. I have always been a great fan of Broadway musicals since I first saw that Broadway rock musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber, Jesus Christ Superstar, back in New York in September of 1972.

After the overture, the first scene was Prof. Henry Higgins (played by the dashing Rex Harrison) singing a lament with Col. Pickering (played by Wilfrid Hyde-White) and Ms. Eliza Doolittle (played by Audrey Hepburn) about the capability of the British people to speak proper English. It’s entitled, "Why can’t the English teach their children how to speak?" Here are just a few wordings for you to sample:

"Why can’t the English teach their children how to speak? This verbal class distinction by now should be antique. If you spoke as she does, sir, instead of the way you do… Why, you might be selling flowers, too. An Englishman’s way of speaking absolutely classifies him; the moment he talks he makes some other Englishman despise him. One common language I’m afraid we’ll never get. Oh, why can’t the English learn, too… set a good example to people whose English is painful to your ears? The Scots and the Irish leave you close to tears. There even are places where English completely disappears. In America, they haven’t used it for years!"

Again, thanks to Mrs. Camara for those lyrics. As for our readers, I hope they saw a DVD copy (hopefully, not pirated please) of this hit musical, as it is hilarious and a very wonderful musical. Alas, even musicals are fast disappearing even in Hollywood… no thanks to video pirates!

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So much for learning the English language. Let’s turn now to history. In our last column we reminded our readers that last Oct. 20 was the 61st anniversary of the Leyte landings, where Gen. Douglas MacArthur, together with President Sergio Osmeña Sr. and Gen. Carlos P. Romulo, waded ashore on Red Beach, Tacloban City, to come back to the Philippines. The black and white picture of that landing is now part of US and Philippine history.

But little do most Filipinos realize that two days later, also 61 years ago, began the First Battle of Leyte Gulf, which is dubbed the "Greatest Sea Battle in the World." Japan’s combined Imperial Fleet planned to demolish the American invasion force which was poised in Leyte Gulf, through a series of attacks by Japan’s remaining naval force, led by the formidable super battleship Musashi, flagship of the recently lost Admiral Mineichi Koga, a host of cruisers and destroyers, including the land-based Japanese air arm, which on Oct. 19 began its first Kamikaze attacks against the US invasion force in Leyte. The Kamikaze would continue all the way to Japan and the closing days of the war.

America’s naval might was headed by Admiral William "Bull" Halsey who commanded Task Force 38 and Vice-Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid commanding the US 7th Fleet. The Japanese fleet was led by Vice-Adm. Jisaburo Ozawa who came up with a decoy carrier force northeast of Luzon, to draw Adm. Halsey away from protecting the invasion force in Leyte.

Meanwhile, the First Strike Force under Adm. Takeo Kurita, and Shoji Nishimura sailed with the mighty Yamato (sister ship of the Musashi) from Brunei and split into two. Nishimura passed through the Bohol Straits between Mindanao and Bohol to sneak into Southern Leyte through Panaon Island in the Surigao Strait, while the other group sailed toward Palawan, crossed over southern Mindoro through the Sibuyan Sea into San Bernardino Strait between Samar and Sorsogon.

This was a pincer force designed to box in the American forces. The Second Strike Force under Adm. Kiyohide Shima came from the north, passing through the Calamian group and down into the strait of Bohol. This was the Second Battle of Leyte Gulf, which happened exactly 61 years ago, which lasted for two days. When the Japanese warships passed through the Surigao Straits, it was practically a "turkey shoot" where American PT-boats waiting in Panaon Island torpedoed many Japanese ships, sinking the famous hybrid half-carrier, half-cruiser Fuso and the cruiser Abukuma and the Kongo. The Musashi was also torpedoed and sunk in the Sibuyan Sea. Japan’s naval might was destroyed in this battle and never regained.

The Americans, too, lost a great number of ships, the jeep carrier Gambier Bay, the destroyers USS Samuel B. Roberts, the USS Johnston and the USS Hoel. The Kamikaze took its first toll, sinking the jeep carrier St. Lo and damaging the escort carrier Kalinin Bay. After the Battle of Leyte Gulf, there were no more dramatic battles between the Japanese Imperial Navy and the US Navy. The next phase was the bombing of Hiroshima.

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For e-mail responses to this article, write to [email protected]. Bobit Avila’s columns can also be accessed through www.thefreeman.com. He also hosts a weekly talk show, "Straight from the Sky," shown every Monday, at 8 p.m., only in Metro Cebu on Channel 15 of SkyCable.