WW2 BATTLE OF LEYTE

WORLD WAR 2 
BATTLE OF LEYTE
 
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 DAWN ATTACK ON LEYTE


 When the Americans were forced out of the Philippines General Douglas MacArthur had said, "I shall return."
 Exactly two years and six months later he did. At dawn on October 20 large naval forces approached the eastern coast of Leyte Island in the central Philippines, just 300 miles north of Morotai. The fleet is shown here just before the major amphibious operation was launched. At one stroke the Japanese in the Philippines were split into two forces. Landings were quickly effected under cover of a violent naval and air barrage. The troops and heavy armor pushed inland against light resistance and rapidly gained control of the coastal road and seized the town of Tacloban. But the campaign lasted two months before the Japanese were finally defeated on Leyte. The price: 11,217 American casualties as against 113,231 Japanese casualties
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When the Yanks invaded Leyte  , two large Japanese naval forces steamed into the central Philippines with the intention of disrupting the American supply lines  and harassing the landings. But Vice Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid's Seventh Fleet smashed the attempt, sinking or damaging every ship in the southern enemy force. Further north other units of the Japanese Imperial Fleet were intercepted by Admiral William F. Halsey's Third Fleet and decisively defeated and routed. Elements of the Third Fleet also assisted in the action in the central Philippines and it was from the Third Fleet that the Yamato was fleeing when she was attacked by a Curtiss Helldiver. The great battlewagon is pictured here as it shuddered under two direct bomb hits. In the complete action of the Second Battle of the Philippine Sea the Nipponese Navy was so devastatingly defeated that it could no longer offer serious resistance to the advancing American forces in the Pacific. Japan's total losses in this battle were 58 warships sunk or damaged, including four carriers and two battleships. American losses were negligible
 
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 the Japanese Imperial Fleet came out in strength to challenge the United States Pacific Fleet.
 The results for the Japs were catastrophic. The Third and Seventh Fleets took up the challenge in the central Philippines and in the Formosa area and decisively defeated and put to rout the major part of the Nipponese Navy

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 American carrier planes POUNDED JAPANESE NAVY of destruction at Manila Harbor on November 19. The vessel in the foreground is scuttled, another is blazing furiously

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 A miracle of supply at Leyte
November, 1944
 


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 members of the Women's Army Corps were the first to arrive in the Palau Islands in the Pacific. They stopped there en route to duty at Leyte in the Philippines


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 G.I. chow for  Filipino guerillas
January, 1945

 
The Filipino underground forces were very helpful in smoothing the path of the American forces in Luzon
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Filipino women stored their good clothing away, but when the Yank liberators arrived the natives put on their gayest costumes to celebrate their freedom. These modish young women from Santa Barbara are looking their bashful best for the conquering American heroes.
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Storm in the Pacific january 1945

The Japs were not the only menace in the Pacific. Here, a huge aircraft carrier of the Essex class is tossed about like a tin plate in the heavy seas of a January storm


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The Japs played the game of war for keeps, and few prisoners were taken  dead Japanese were trapped in a ravine
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 A B-26 of the Fifth Air Force swoops low to sow its deadly cargo in Pasaleng Bay, Luzon
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 American troops entered Manila, a part of the First Cavalry Division swooped swiftly down upon the Santo Thomas concentration camp, overcoming the garrison there and freeing hundreds of internees

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 American forces smashed into Manila on February 5  American forces smashed into Manila on February 5 but the fanatical Japs put up a bloody fight within the city, burning and pillaging as they retreated. They destroyed all bridges across the Pasig River but the Yanks swarmed across the river in assault crafts

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