Books: Bright Deeds Unquenchable

LEYTE (455 pp.)—Samuel Eliot Morison—Atlantic-Little, Brown ($6.50).

“Douglas, where do we go from here?” asked F.D.R.

“Leyte, Mr. President, and then Luzon!” promptly replied General Douglas MacArthur.

With that terse exchange in the flag cabin of the heavy cruiser Baltimore at Pearl Harbor in July 1944, the great and fateful campaign for the recapture of the Philippines was set in motion. By campaign’s end, whatever chance Japan had of winning the war in the Pacific was irrevocably lost. The battle for the Gulf of Leyte decisively shifted the fortunes of war, and it is this action that dominates the twelfth volume of Samuel Eliot Morison’s massively conceived and brilliantly executed account of U.S. naval operations in World War II (to run through 14 volumes).

Rear Admiral Morison gives the Leyte campaign an orchestral sweep and grandeur. The individual sections tune up with snatches of preliminary air strikes and landings. There is the expectant, esthetic hush as the carrier task forces rendezvous west of the Marianas. Finally, the downbeat of H-hour sends the landing craft streaking toward the beaches of Leyte and the full tympanic rumble and brassy glare of combat.

Blameworthy Bull. The bulk of the Japanese navy was divided into four groups. Two minor groups made up the southern force, which was supposed to steam through Surigao Strait between Leyte and Mindanao. The main striking group was the central force, under Vice Admiral Kurita. which was to steam through San Bernardino Strait north of Leyte between Samar and Luzon. Like two arms of a nutcracker, the two fleets were to converge on Leyte Gulf, wipe out. amphibious and supply craft there, and isolate MacArthur’s forces on the island. A third (northern) force under Vice Admiral Ozawa was supposed to act as a decoy to lure off the powerful U.S. task force.

In coping with this Japanese maneuver, the U.S. Third and Seventh Fleets. Admirals Halsey and Kinkaid commanding, left the five-day-old Leyte beachhead perilously unguarded. Rear Admiral Clifton “Ziggy” Sprague’s light task force of baby flattops with a destroyer screen was cruelly trapped by a surprise attack from San Bernardino Strait. On the question of who was to blame hinges the Leyte Gulf controversy that has sputtered ever since. Nearly all of Historian Morison’s evidence in this book supports the notion that “Bull”‘ Halsey was the most blameworthy; he fell for and chased the decoy force.

Guts & Gumption. There were three main actions in the Leyte Gulf battle, and each had its special tone, which Historian Morison perfectly captures. The battle of Surigao Strait might be called Operation By-the-Book. The first section of the Japanese southern force sailed into a night slaughter of destroyer torpedoes and heavy fire from cruisers and old battleships, with a single Jap destroyer surviving to join the second section, which simply turned tail and ran.

The battle off Samar could only be called Operation Gallant Underdog. Kurita’s central force had sailed undetected through the San Bernardino Strait, where Halsey had left nary a patrolling destroyer (“Lord Nelson would have left a frigate.” observes Morison caustically). As a result. Ziggy Sprague’s escort carriers and destroyers found themselves all but staring up the muzzles of Kurita’s big guns. “It was like a puppy being smacked by a truck.” recalled one officer. Save for its limited airpower. this puppy-dog fleet had virtually no bite, but its scrappy, incessant barking threw the lumbering Japanese off balance. Single destroyers attacked the Japanese ships. Says Morison: ”In no engagement of its entire history has the United States Navy shown more gallantry, guts and gumption.” Japan’s Kurita was so stunned by the resistance that he broke off the action, and when he heard Kinkaid “hallooing for help in plain English” (as Tokyo Rose later put it) in radio messages to Halsey. his central force hightailed it back through San Bernardino Strait.

Final Frustration. Had Halsey heeded this first call for help, he might still have destroyed Kurita. but he was preparing a bone-crunching feast on Ozawa’s forces, which he took to be the spine of the Japanese navy. To do Halsey justice, his own aviators had misled him about an air strike on Kurita’s fleet on Oct. 24 that he believed had reduced the central force to “an aggregation of cripples.” As it was, the third phase of the Leyte Gulf Battle, off Cape Engano. became Operation Frustration for Halsey. for the urgent calls from Kinkaid prevented him from polishing off even the decoy Ozawa (though his aviators did sink three of Ozawa’s carriers and a destroyer).

Of Japan’s four carriers, seven battleships, 13 heavy cruisers, six light cruisers and 36 destroyers in the Battle for Leyte Gulf, the bulk escaped, even though some were badly mauled. Yet the Japanese fleet never seriously challenged the U.S. Navy again, and the loss of Leyte meant the loss of the Philippines. But the acts of valor performed at Leyte or in any battle have a significance far beyond strategy in Morison’s view, for they become “an imperishable part of our national heritage.” He salutes the men of Leyte—and all brave fighting men—with some lines Pindar wrote 2,500 years ago:

Across the fruitful earth and o’er the

sea

Shoots a bright beam of noble deeds,

unquenchable . . .