The Waterbury Democrat., 1944-11-18

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 in both men and waterborne equip ment"
 The Navy listed as "seen to go down. during the battle two Jap anese battleshipS, four carriers, six heavy cruisers, two light cruisers land an undetermined number of destroyerS.
 Furthermore, 1t said, one battle ship, three heavy cruisers, two light cruisers and seven destroyers were "so severely damaged that they may have sunk before reaching port, and in any event removed from action for from one to perhaps six months" !"
 Damaging Hits
 Damaging hits," it said, were noted on six battleships, four heavy cruisers, one light cruiser and 10 destroyers.
 The U. s. fleet lost six ships sunk. Other American ships were damaged the Navy said, but because "the Jap- anese are still wondering what hit them" it is impossible at this time ito identify the composition of our naval forces or to describe the danl- age-other than losses suffered by us"
 All damage, however, was rened- fable and some of the United States ships hurt in the fight are already back on duty" it said.
 The communique told how the preliminaries to the Macarthur led invasion of the Philippines and the great sea-air battle there began about September l, when Vice Ad- miral Marc A. Mitscher's carrier task force of the Third Fleet under took a two-week series of raids which kept the Japanese forces of balance while whittling down their aerial strength by about 300 lanes. " The next-step, it said, came in mid- September with American landings on Peleliu and Morotai Islands south west of the Philippines. These suc- cesses, it said, indicated the feaS- ibiliy of advancing the date for the invasion of the Philippines" and the date for thta move was set for Oc- tober 20.
 Caught At Base
 It recounted how, beginning on October g, surface and carrier forces began raiding widely-separated Jap- anese islands, with "the Japanese defenders caught off base each time.'
 The climax, it said, came when Ia fleet appeared in the enemy's own back yard, of the Island of Formosa, from which the aerial attack against the Philippines had been launched by the Japanese three years before"
 '"The effrontery of the attack on Formosa from the sea-" the navy said, provoked the Japanese into immediate counter-action."
 Bomber and torpedo planes be- gan moving down from the Jap. anese homeland to attack the Amer ican force, it said, and while these units were dispersed by carrier borne fighters two Japanese planes broke through and found targets in a couple of United States medi- um-sized ships, which were damaged by torpedoeS but which successfully retired to the eastward
 Fantastic Chapter
 The next step, the communique said, constituted "one of the most fantastic chapters of the war" Jap anese aviators who reached home reported an amazing victory, and Tokyo was quick to claim-for the fifth or sixth time-that the naval strength of the United States had been rendered puny" The fantastic part, the navy said was that "this time the Japanese believed their own propaganda"
 A task force was seen leaving Japanese home waters to give the American fleet its coup de grace" ;" but, the navy said, when the forces flyers saw the size of the surviving U. s. fleet the enemy fleet fled.
 Admiral Halsey ironically ob- served that his ships sunk by Jap radio announcement had been sal- vaged," the Navy commented, "and were retiring at high speed toward the Japanese fleet"
 Of the three-day battle itself, which began on Oct. g, the Navy told how three separate Japanese forces were sighted moving in the general direction of Leyte Gulf one from the south, another from the west and the third from the north. Its story of the ensuing ae- tions was substantially that pre- vin11Slv related hy MacArthllr and