- from Amazon:
Here is the first half of the thrilling account of the Battle of Leyte Gulf (October 23 - 26, 1944) as it appeared in two installments in Collier's Magazine in January, 1945.
Reported by four war correspondents, this is the second half of a Collier's article narrating the largest naval battle to have ever been fought in military history:
"Secretary of the Navy Forrestal summed up the results as 'One of the great naval victories of the war that will go down, along with Midway and Guadalcanal sea battles as one of the great, shattering blows struck against Japanese sea power. The Japanese fleet was indeed beaten, routed and broken.'" The Battle of Leyte Gulf (October 23 - 26, 1944) was the largest naval battle in World War II - as well as the most decisive. Given the naval weaponry that exists in the digital age, it is highly unlikely that opposing navies will ever again have need to come within visible range of one another again. This article tells the history of that battle, shedding light on a few of the important naval campaigns that came before. Written sixteen years after the events by a knowledgeable author, you will gain an understanding of the thoughts that were going through Admiral Halsey's cranium when he commanded the largest battle fleet ever assembled.
Read about the Battle of Midway...
After the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the U.S. Navy believed that the Japanese had lost over half their original strength:
"Naval observers in Washington are exhilarated by the evident extent of the Japanese defeat but, in true Navy tradition, they are being canny about it. It isn't what we have sunk or disabled [that matters], it's what is left that can still fight." Yank correspondent H.N. Oliphant interviewed Admiral Chester William Nimitz (1885 - 1966) for the August 4, 1944 issue regarding the progress in the Pacific Theater of Operations. At that time, the battle of the Marianas was being waged and it was a subject of much concern as to it's significance. "In the Central Pacific, we have in three swift leaps advanced our sea power thousands of miles to the west of Pearl Harbor. Now our western-most bastions face the Philippines and undoubtedly worry the man on the street in Tokyo concerning the immediate safety of his own skin."
Click here to read about Admiral Mischer...
Click here to read a unique story about the Battle of the Sula Straits... An brief article by a former Chief of Naval Operations (1930 - 33), Admiral William V. Pratt praising the Pacific naval strategy of Fleet Admiral Nimitz.
Click here to read about Admiral Raymond Spruance.
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