page_title: Battle of Leyte
section_title: Japanese counterattacks
hierarchical_section_title: Battle of Leyte / Battle / Japanese counterattacks
caption_attribution_description: Three Japanese snipers elected to shoot it out during the battle for Leyte Island. Yankee bullets drilled the Japanese Soldiers and dropped them in the muddy water of a bomb crater, where they sought shelter in a running rifle fight.
context_page_description: The Battle of Leyte in the Pacific campaign of World War II was the amphibious invasion of the island of Leyte in the Philippines by American forces and Filipino guerrillas under the command of General Douglas MacArthur, who fought against the Imperial Japanese Army in the Philippines led by General Tomoyuki Yamashita. The operation, codenamed King Two, launched the Philippines campaign of 1944–45 for the recapture and liberation of the entire Philippine Archipelago and to end almost three years of Japanese occupation.
context_section_description: With 432,000 Japanese soldiers in the Philippines, General Yamashita decided to make Leyte the main effort of the Japanese defense, and on 21 October, ordered the 35th Army to coordinate a decisive battle with the Imperial Japanese Navy.  The 16th Division was to be reinforced by the 30th Infantry Division from Mindanao, landing on Ormoc Bay.  The 102nd Infantry Division would occupy Jaro, where the 1st and 26th Infantry Divisions were concentrating.  Battalions from the 55th and 57th Independent Mixed Brigades were on Leyte by 25 Oct.
  As the Sixth Army pushed deeper into Leyte, the Japanese struck back in the air and at sea. On 24 October, some 200 enemy aircraft approached American beachheads and shipping from the north. Fifty American land-based aircraft rose to intercept them, and claimed to have shot down between 66 and 84 of the attackers. Day and night air raids continued over the next four days, damaging supply dumps ashore and threatening American shipping. But by 28 October, counterattacks by US aircraft on Japanese airfields and shipping on other islands so reduced enemy air strength that conventional air raids ceased to be a major threat. As their air strength diminished, the Japanese resorted to the deadly kamikazes, a corps of suicide pilots who crashed their bomb-laden planes directly into US ships. They chose the large American transport and escort fleet that had gathered in Leyte Gulf on A-day as their first target and sank one escort carrier and badly damaged many other vessels.
  A more serious danger to the US forces developed at sea. The Imperial Japanese Navy's high command decided to destroy US Navy forces supporting the Sixth Army by committing its entire remaining surface fleet to a decisive battle with the Americans. The Imperial Navy's plan was to attack in three major task groups. One, which included four aircraft carriers with few aircraft aboard, was to act as a decoy, luring the US 3rd Fleet north away from Leyte Gulf. If the decoy was successful, the other two groups, consisting primarily of heavy surface combatants, would enter the gulf from the west and attack the American transports.
  On 23 October, the approach of the enemy surface vessels was detected. US naval units moved out to intercept, and the air and naval Battle of Leyte Gulf—the largest naval battle in the Pacific and also one of the largest naval battles in history—was fought from 23–26 October—the Japanese suffered a decisive defeat. Nonetheless by 11 December, the Japanese had succeeded in moving more than 34,000 troops to Leyte and over 10,000 short tons (9,100 t) of materiél, most through the port of Ormoc on the west coast, despite heavy losses to reinforcement convoys, including engagements at Ormoc Bay, because of relentless air interdiction missions by US aircraft.
caption: Four Japanese snipers shot and killed in the muddy water of a bomb crater
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