num_pages: 414
description: By mid-October 1944, a vast amphibious armada was closing on the Philippines. Embarked on the 700 vessels of Admiral Kinkaid's Seventh Fleet were 200,000 men of the Sixth Army. Defending Kinkaid's invasion force was Adm. William Bull" Halsey's Third Fleet. With more than 1,000 planes on its aircraft carriers, accompanied by 79 other warships including 6 of the new Iowa-class fast battleships, Halsey's fleet was more than capable of dealing with anything the enemy navy could throw at it.The Japanese were desperate. American success in the Philippines would cut them off from the strategic raw materials to the south. In the face of this desperation, the Japanese Navy came up with a bold plan: the Combined Fleet would sortie to defeat the invasion. A decoy force including Japan's four remaining aircraft carriers would lure Halsey's fleet to the north, away from Leyte Gulf, and out of the battle. The Combined Fleet's remaining offensive forces, with super battleships Yamato and Musashi among its forty-six capital ships, would join to destroy Kinkaid's fleet, marooning any Sixth Army troops that had managed to land. Remarkably, the Japanese came within a hair's breadth of pulling it off. Only the decisive leadership of RAdm. Clifton Sprague and the heroism of a handful of sailors manning Sprague's so-called jeep carriers combined to save the day.The Battle of Leyte Gulf was the greatest battle in naval history. It marked the last chance the Imperial Japanese Navy would have during World War II to destroy a substantial portion of America's Pacific Fleet. The fate of hundreds of thousands of American soldiers and sailors hung in the balance. What resulted was the end of Japan's former invincible Combined Fleet.
language: English
title: Afternoon of the Rising Sun: The Battle of Leyte Gulf
titlecomplete: Afternoon of the Rising Sun: The Battle of Leyte Gulf
genres: History, World War II
ratings_count: 33
publisher: Presidio Press