TODAY IN THE PAST

Today, October 25, 1944, units of the American and Japanese naval forces fight in the Battle of Surigao Strait. The Americans are led by Admiral Jesse B. Oldendorf.

At the beginning of their occupation the Japanese conquerors boasted that the Americans would never return to the Philippines. In March 1943, Admiral Kichisaburo Nomura, former Japanese ambassador to the U.S., after visiting Corregidor, proudly told the Manila newspapermen: "The Americans will not be able to return, not in 100 years." The Filipino people, however, spurred the boast. They believed General MacArthur who had promised to return.

By August 1944, the tide of war was decidedly turned in favor of the United States. By his leap-frogging tactics, General MacArthur smashed his way from island to island in the Southwest Pacific arena of war, routing the Japanese forces and irresistibly approaching the Philippines.

The promise of General MacArthur "to return" became a reality when on October 20, 1944, an American force of 174,000 troops landed at Leyte.

Lt. Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita rushed reinforcement to Leyte by ships and by planes. It was then that the liberation forces of General MacArthur encountered stubborn resistance. However, the three Japanese naval forces were intercepted by the American task force under Rear-Admiral J.B. Oldendorf, Admiral William F. Halsey, and Rear-Admiral Thomas L. Sprague, and were annihilated in a series of naval engagements off Samar, Cape Engano and Surigao Strait.