Talk:Battle of Leyte Gulf

Photos

I've just removed about a half dozen photos of US ships and aircraft which which took part in the battle but where the photo doesn't show them during the battle. As the purpose of including these photos was presumably only to show what the ships and aircraft looked like they're best placed in the articles on the ships and aircraft rather than the article on this battle, which is already well illustrated with photos and maps. Similarly, I've removed a section on the Fletcher class DDs as this material simply described the ships, and hence really belongs in the article on the class. I have also removed the forced sizing of thumbnail photos in line with WP:MOS which states that "Specifying the size of a thumbnail image is not necessary: without specifying a size, the width will be what readers have specified in their user preferences". --Nick Dowling (talk) 02:07, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

• Thank you! I stumbled across this article today and the first thing I noticed was the large images. I'm glad someone knows about the images in the MOS. I've never read up on those. And when i was resizing the pictures of the Fletcher's, I too wondered if the section was necessary. But thanks once again for your work. The page looks much better! Caster23 ^{talk contribs} 02:13, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Halsey overestimated threat of IJN air craft carriers ?

I am with Halsey, they are very very dangerous. They must be treated as if they were the only threat, they must be chased with the largest force.

The enemy battle ships annoy our slow auxillary fleet, they were liberating the Phillipines. That wasnt actually required to defeat Japan, in fact its an expensive distraction.. destroy the air craft carriers.

So what if battleships come through and run into my lesser fleet ? the battle ships will *always* retreat to being a 'fleet in being', or run aground to be a gun platform.

124.179.93.77 (talk) 16:50, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not about personal opinions it's about what is documented in relevant good sources, I've read most of the books used as primary sources and they all disagree with you. A carrier without planes or pilots is nothing but a nice big target but is worthless as an offensive weapon. That was the case for the Japanese at this point of the war. Their carriers had practically no planes or trained pilots. They wisely used them as the only thing they were good for, as bait to lure Halsey away from the defenseless troop transports. If not for the heroism of the destroyers and jeep carriers of Taffy3 it could have been a true disaster, those Japanese battleships and cruisers could have massacred the defenseless cargo ships and troop transports. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 16:29, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Bull Run Battle

Is it refering to the fist or second, or both? Please disambig. Randomblue (talk) 14:03, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it refers to one in particular, but I redirected it to the first battle for lack of a better option. Parsecboy (talk) 14:16, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

It's referring to neither-they calles the Battle of Bulls Run referring to Halsey (aka 'Bull') chasing after the Japanese fleet; with correct punctuation it would be 'Bull's run' (Nick31091 (talk) 02:03, 7 December 2008 (UTC))

Reference style?

This article uses parenthetical referencing, instead of the usual footnotes. Is there a reason?
—WWoods (talk) 16:28, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

New book on Surigao Strait

FYI, Anthony Tully, one of the coauthors of Shattered Sword about the Battle of Midway, states on his message board [1] that he has written a book on the Battle of Surigao Strait that should be out later this year. Cla68 (talk) 02:29, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

The book is out now. I have a copy and it looks to be an excellent source for both the US and Japanese side in the battle. Cla68 (talk) 00:55, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

List of sources

FYI, a list of sources on this subject can be found here: [2]. Cla68 (talk) 03:49, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Heavy Carriers at Leyte Gulf

I found verification of 9 heavy aircraft carriers ( CV ) at Leyte gulf (under battle of Sibuyan sea by Eugene Cammeron)

            Task force 38

11:47 AM 9/2/2008 TG 38.1 CV-18 Wasp, CV-12 Hornet. CV-19 Hancock, TG 38.2 CV-11 Intrepid, CV-17 Bunker Hill TG 38.3 CV-9 Essex. CV-16 Lexington TG 38.4 CV-13 Franklin, CV-6 Enterprise also I thought Saratoga (cv 3?) was in the battle? (B1wilson (talk) 19:34, 1 September 2008 (UTC))

CV-3 Status of Saratoga circa Oct 1944 Battle of Leyte Gulf

Saratoga was relegated to a training ship and then was almost sunk at Chichigima Feb of 1945 then later sunk at operation crossroads and is now part of a reef at Bekini atoll. It is interwsting to note Saratoga was originally laid down as a battlecruiser and entered the war with sister ship Lexington as fast carriers. Japanese carrier Kaga was also a battleship at the start and had one flight deck and two hanger decks which could also launch airplanes. (B1wilson (talk) 20:08, 1 September 2008 (UTC))

To be more specific, Saratoga was training night air groups along with USS Ranger at the time of the battle. She returned to combat duty flying a night air group alongside Enterprise and was performing this duty when she was knocked out of the war by Japanese bombers near Chi-chi Jima 24.116.241.223 (talk) 03:30, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Kurita's View of the Battle

I added some information regarding Kurita's perspective, derived from "Sea of Thunder" by Evans. His actions appear to be illogical given what we know of the battle, but they take on a different perspective given the fact that he believed he'd been engaging Third Fleet rather than Taffy 3. He genuinely believed that he had defeated a segment of Halsey's fleet and sunk at least three Essex-class carriers. He also thought that the rest of Third Fleet was close enough to finish him off by air attack at any moment, and that entering Leyte Gulf would only lead to the destruction of the only remaining battle force in the IJN. Kurita felt that he could gain nothing by sinking a few transports, nor could he inflict further damage on "Third Fleet", since it was sheer luck that the carriers had come under his guns in the first place. Given that, his retreat makes much more sense from his perspective. Had he known that Ozawa's plan had worked, he might have acted differently. 24.116.241.223 (talk) 03:30, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Can I add external link to Leyte Gulf animated map - was recommeded by US Naval Institute

My external to link to the animated map for Battle of Leyte Gulf was deleted a while ago see http://www.historyanimated.com/LeyteGulf.html

The animations on the site are thoroughly researched and take about 250 hours each to complete.

They were just recommended by the US Naval Institute - see http://blog.usni.org/?p=3121#more-3121 They are used by hundreds of military worldwide as well as schools and universities. I can document.

Would it be OK if I restore the link? Leyte Gulf is one of my best ones. The link directly to the animation does not promote the site nor myself. It follows Wiki guidelines for external liks Thank you for your considerationGeorge11Williams (talk) 14:11, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Paragraph 8 seems like a report of the Great Marianas Turkey shoot

The 8th paragraph on "Background" beginning "On 12 October 1944, the US 3rd Fleet under Admiral Halsey began..." quotes a loss of 600 Japanese aircraft. No reference is provided, nor can I find one. This number is the oft-cited number if aircraft lost in the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot in June. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.18.201.36 (talk) 17:19, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

The 600 aircraft were downed during the Battle of the Philippine Sea , which IS "The Great Marianas turkey shoot". OF course it was well west of Guam and really is the Phillipines Sea Turkey Shoot. (The people who reported it were in the Marianas... a common mistake.)

124.179.93.77 (talk) 16:44, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Additional thoughts.

In the debates over the years over "Bull's Run", an interesting thought gets left out: composition of 3 rd. fleet. Adm. Nimitz, CINCPAC, could have solved the issue before it even arrived by simply seperating the carriers in 3 rd fleet by type, in effect creating a permant 5 th. fleet, and assigning it to adm. Lee for the op. 3 rd fleet had 4 groups within it. by placing the CVL class ships in groups .3 and .4, suffient air strength would be available for the covering force, as 5 th. fleet, while groups .1 and .2, with the big cv class, remained available to Halsey, AS A SEPERATE ENTITY.

Also of interest are 2 battle cruisers available, with 12 inch guns which never get mentioned , Alaska and Guam, which would augument Halsey's firepower even with TF-34 staying behind ..

Alaska and Guam didn't get into the war until January of 45, long after the Battle of Leyte Gulf was over. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.64.209.102 (talk) 16:51, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Cliff58.1 (talk) 04:17, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Cliff58.1, see WP:OR and WP:SYNTHESIS. We can work these speculations into the article only if they've been published by a credible historian. --Yaush (talk) 15:20, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

I think there already is a consensus among historians as to why that didn't happen. Nimitz, was very much a hands off kind of commander. He trusted his subordinates like Halsey and Spruance and liked to leave those kinds of decisions about how to group and deploy their forces to them.--MadScientistX11 (talk) 16:15, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Number of Japanese Aircraft

So in the infobox it says that the Japanese had 300+ aircraft, but under the losses section it says they lost around 500... could the number of planes in the infobox be updated to 500+ because if they lost 500, they had to have atleast that many, or would that be considered WP:SYNTH? Thanks in advance! Jeancey (talk) 15:35, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, I noticed the same thing. Here are the edits where the two numbers were introduced - may be useful for determining accuracy: [3] [4] — RockMFR 02:36, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

As a casual reader, I noted that the discrepancy remains. I do not consider myself to be competent enough regarding this issue to make any call on what change is appropriate.--Rpclod (talk) 16:44, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Does anyone know about this reference The Encyclopedia of Modern War?? There are no copies in my local library and when I looked it up on Amazon it has Zero user reviews and no reviews by anyone really. I'm wondering if the use as a reference might be self promotion by whoever wrote the book. I found the following though in Sea of Thunder -- "the [Japanese] navy had cobbled together about 200 planes at airfields..." and then a bit later "Ozawa had managed to put together an odd lot collection of 108 fighters and bombers" (pp. 209-210) I.e. about 200 land based planes and 100 on the actual carriers. So a total of about 300 and therefor at most casualties of around 300. I'm going to revise the article accordingly for now but may make more changes as I read other books on the topic. Mdebellis (talk) 14:01, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

disputed - needs better referencing

" ... burning patches of fuel were most likely the source of the myth of Fuso blowing up. It is extremely unlikely that a vessel as strongly built as a battleship could be blown in half and the halves remain upright and afloat, so the classic version of Fuso's fate is also extremely improbable. Accordingly, it is likely that the Morison account is incorrect in this detail." This and the rest of the paragraph are not cited - if the earlier cite is where this supposition comes from, it should be added again to point that out - there are many other RS sources that dispute this, showing precedents of capital ships being split into two and remaining afloat, and that the Japanese military today agrees with the U.S. Naval War College report that is based on many different eyewitnesses, both Japanese and American, from PT boats to destroyers, that the Fuso did indeed break into two and remained afloat for some time. Before putting in the tag, I would like the existing portion of the article referenced, and we will go from there. HammerFilmFan (talk) 14:57, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

"It is extremely unlikely that a vessel as strongly built as a battleship could be blown in half and the halves remain upright and afloat, so the classic version of Fuso's fate is also extremely improbable." When a battleship's magazines explode, the result can be among the largest non-nuclear explosions.

• In the Battle of Jutland, British battlecruisers HMS Indefatigable, Queen Mary, and Invincible suffered magazine explosions and were described as "cut in two".
• HMS Hood blew up and sank in three pieces in the Battle of the Denmark Strait implying fore and aft magazines both exploded cutting the Hood in three.
• Italian battleship Roma was described as cut in two when a German guided missile struck the magazine of the B turret.

More to the point of whether it was likely or probable Fuso could have been blown in two:

Japanese battleship Mutsu-- While anchored near Hashirajima on 8 June 1943, the battleship was cut in two by an unexplained detonation of the magazine for #3 turret. The bow sank quickly, but the inverted stern remained afloat for 14 hours.

--Naaman Brown (talk) 19:34, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

I don't find most of your arguments that convincing. Your examples (except for the Mutsu which does support your argument) show that a battleship can be blown in two. As I read the text it says that what is unlikely isn't that a battleship can be blown in two but that a battleship can be blown in two and one half of it can still remain afloat for a long time. However, I also don't find the basic argument all that convincing. There is a lot of chaos involved in these kinds of events and unexpected things can happen. Also, the fact that battleships were designed to be the most unsinkable ships probably in history actually makes it more likely IMO that of all ships a battleship might be blown in half but the explosion could happen in such a way that enough watertight compartments remained in tact that one half remained afloat for a long time. I'm currently reading some of the source documents here and plan to clean up the article after I've done that but thought I would add some comments before hand in case people want to give more input. Mdebellis (talk) 21:13, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

I just read Sea of Thunder and all it says about the Fuso's destruction was that it was blown in half. Mdebellis (talk) 19:47, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

The situation as it is now is unsatisfactory. The paragraph beginning "The classical account summarized" says that Fuso did not break in half. Five paras later, beginning "The rear of the Southern Force" unequivocally says the two halves sank separately, but then the next paragraph appears to dispute that. Whatever is the "truth" it needs to be consistent. If there is doubt, then that doubt needs to be consistently applied throughout the section. You simply can't have "Fuso didn't actually break in two" in one place and "the two halves of Fuso ..." later on.Baska436 (talk) 10:51, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out. I started editing this when I was away from home and planned to finish up when I was home and could use the much larger local city library rather than the resources I had on the road. Then I got home and forgot about it. I want to get the Tulley book used as a reference to double check the story. I just put a reserve on it at the library and will check it and then address this at that time, should be within a week or less. BTW, I'm mdebellis, I've been using various nick names, from this point on I'm sticking with RedDog. RedDog (talk) 14:48, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps the best (or easiest) way of fixing it would be to go right through with the conventional story, then near the end (second last para of the section??) have a new para starting something like "An alternative account of the destruction of the Fuso is based on ...." and gather all those strands together in this one place. Note that I don't have any opinion on which explanation might be correct. Baska436 (talk) 23:53, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

That is one possibility. However, at this point I've read just about every major reference that is cited here (all the books except Tully and even some of the DOD documents) and so far I've seen nothing that supports the alternative account. Everything that I've seen just says the Fuso blew up and usually uses some variant of the phrase "blown in half". If Tully really does support the alternative view then I think the course you described makes sense, if he actually doesn't -- and that is my guess -- then I think the alternative theory should be classified as OR and just removed. I should get the Tully book in a few days. RedDog (talk) 15:03, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

I reviewed the Tully book. It absolutely supports the text and it is very convincing. I updated the text accordingly. Some of the statements supporting the alternative view were a bit too point of view so I toned them back. RedDog (talk) 00:36, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

removed tag requiring additional clarification

There was a note in the Background section that a point required clarification, the claim that the meeting with FDR, McCarther, and Nimitz wasn't conclusive. There was a valid reference just a little further down. Its a report on various military planning decisions and it goes into the decision to invade the Phillipines and it does state that the meeting was not conclusive. I made it clear where the reference belonged and excerpted a quote that I thought was relevant to make the case. Mdebellis (talk) 20:23, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

damaged japanese ships

The article currently only shows the images of a few allied ships burning and sinking. For a battle that the japanese lost and which ended the japanese navy as a formidable force in the war, shouldn't there be at least a few pictures of visibly destroyed sinking hulks of japanese navy vessels? 67.243.29.174 (talk) 15:40, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

The question is do such pictures exist? My guess is the Japanese weren't real keen on taking pictures of their sinking ships. If you know of such pictures that are in the wikipedia:commons or are in the public domain and could be added to the article please leave a link to the image(s) here and I'll add them. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 17:17, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

There are some public domain photographs at ibiblio.org: http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/OnlineLibrary/photos/sh-fornv/japan/japsh-a/akizuki.htm, http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/OnlineLibrary/photos/sh-fornv/japan/japsh-c/chikuma2.htm, http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/OnlineLibrary/photos/sh-fornv/japan/japsh-m/musashi.htm. Mostly from U.S. aircraft, reiforcing MadScientistX11's point. --Yaush (talk) 18:32, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Are those in the public domain in terms of copyright? My guess is they would be but I don't know how to tell for sure and the copyright stuff is so complicated to me that I usually just stick to stuff that is already in the commons. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 21:48, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

The original site has a statement that to the best of their knowledge all images at the site are in the public domain. A rather huge number of images from that site have been moved into Commons based on that statement. I think we're okay here. --Yaush (talk) 22:30, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

I agree with the original statement here. There are plenty of public domain pictures, and whoever has chosen to show only American ships burning seems to have an anti-American bias. I would have changed the pictures myself, but sadly, I am not very proficient with Wikimedia, and do not know how. Please change at least the title picture to something more appropriate, such as the Musashi getting bombed. (Plenty of pictures of that!) DeeJaye6 (talk) 03:07, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

But the article doesn't "show only American ships burning"... There seem to be about an equal mix of photos of damaged US and Japanese ships. It also includes a photo of Musashi's sister ship "getting bombed" - why have two similar images? Nick-D (talk) 03:16, 15 March 2015 (UTC)