October 24, 1944: The Single Deadliest Day of WW II for American Forces
Why Leyte was so important to the United States
The island of Leyte is part of the Philippines. In February 1942, with Japan already occupying northern Luzon, holding the Philippines became problematic. General Douglas McArthur commanded all forces there and could not be reinforced quickly. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had ordered his evacuation in late February and McArthur evacuated on March 11. His parting words, to the people of the Philippines, were, “I shall return.” The embarrassment, and calamity, of the Bataan Death March unfolded roughly a month later. For McArthur to return, the possession of Leyte Gulf was critical. Its deep-water port would provide a staging area for the Navy and Marines, ahead of the invasion of the main Philippine islands. But Japan held Leyte with 20,000+ army and its airfield was strategically important for Japan. There was no doubt that Japan would fight to retain possession of the island.
The Battle of Leyte Gulf – the largest naval battle in history:
On October 24, 1944, American forces suffered their single highest daily loss of the entire Second World War—more than 2,600 service members would be killed. The date fell during the second day of the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the largest naval engagement in history, fought in the waters surrounding the Philippines, as U.S. forces pushed to liberate the islands and sever Japan’s remaining supply lines.
The central drama unfolded in the Sibuyan Sea. American carrier aircraft from Admiral William Halsey’s Third Fleet located Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita’s powerful Center Force, which included the massive battleships Yamato and Musashi. Wave after wave of dive bombers and torpedo planes, from Task Force 38, concentrated on the Musashi, the 72,000-ton sister of Yamato, and one of the two largest battleships ever built. Over the course of the day she absorbed an estimated 17 bomb hits and 19 torpedo hits. Flooding increased, her speed dropped, and she fell out of formation. After dark she capsized and sank, taking more than a thousand of her crew with her. The sinking demonstrated that even the most heavily armored capital battleships of the era could not survive sustained carrier air attack.
While the Japanese surface force was being roughly handled, American surface ships faced their own crisis. A single Japanese dive bomber scored a direct hit on the light carrier USS Princeton (CVL-23). Fires spread through her hangar deck, igniting stored ordnance and producing a series of violent explosions. One particularly large blast caught the heavy cruiser USS Birmingham alongside as she attempted to assist with firefighting. The powerful explosion killed or wounded hundreds of Birmingham’s crew. The Princeton was later abandoned and scuttled. The day’s fighting also marked the first recorded successful use of organized kamikaze attacks, striking freighters off Leyte.
In the air above the fleet, Commander David McCampbell, air group commander aboard the carrier USS Essex, and the U.S. Navy’s eventual top ace of the war, scrambled with only his wingman, Ensign Roy Rushing. They intercepted a formation of roughly sixty Japanese aircraft heading for Leyte Gulf. McCampbell alone shot down nine enemy planes—seven Zeros and two Oscars—setting a U.S. single-mission record that still stands. Together, the two pilots claimed fifteen victories and broke up the attack before the bombers could reach the fleet – which inevitably prevented a much more calamitous day. McCampbell, already an “ace in a day,” from the Battle of the Philippine Sea, four months earlier, became the only American fighter pilot to achieve that distinction twice. He safely landed his F6F Hellcat Minsi III, nearly out of fuel, and with only a handful of rounds remaining. The fuel-starved engine immediately died, as he taxied clear of the arresting wires. For this action, and his earlier performance, he received the Medal of Honor.
Farther north in the Luzon Strait, another grim chapter unfolded. The Japanese “hell ship,” Arisan Maru, packed with more than 1,700 Allied prisoners of war, held under brutal conditions, was torpedoed by a U.S. submarine. Only a handful of the American prisoners survived. The sinking accounted for a substantial portion of the day’s U.S. fatalities and remains one of the war’s least-known mass tragedies.
By nightfall, the Japanese Center Force had been bloodied and temporarily turned back, though it would reappear the next day off Samar, in one of the most remarkable surface actions of the war. Across the Pacific, Europe, and even the continental United States, American losses from combat, accidents, and captivity reached the grim total of roughly 2,600. The date did not produce a single iconic headline, the way Pearl Harbor or D-Day did, yet the cumulative cost made it the deadliest day American forces experienced in the entire conflict – a war which would number its butcher’s bill over 405,000 dead American troops. October 24, 1944 should never be forgotten by any patriotic American.
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