Invasion of Philippines – Report from Leyte – November 1, 1944 – Gordon Skene Sound Collection –
November 1, 1944 – news for this day came direct from the invasion force, some two weeks into fighting in the Philippines. According to reporter Royal Arch Gunnison, the landing on Leyte was going better than expected, but that didn’t mean the fighting was going any easier. Still, progress was being made on land. On sea it was an intense Naval battle between the Imperial Japanese Navy and the U.S. Navy under Admirals Halsey and Kincaid.
On October 20, 1944, the U.S. Sixth Army, supported by naval and air bombardment, landed on the favorable eastern shore of Leyte, one of the islands of the Visayas island group, northeast of Mindanao. The Japanese miscalculated the relative strength of the naval and air forces, and they attempted to destroy the landing. This brought about the massive sequence of battles called the Battle of Leyte Gulf, fought on October 23 through October 26. This decisive victory by the U.S. Navy, its Fast Carrier Task Force, its surface fleet, and its submarines effectively destroyed the remainder of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN), which had already lost all of its effective aircraft carrier forces. The IJN had four of its carriers sunk (ships with depleted air squadrons – which were used only as decoys), numerous battleships and heavy cruisers, and a large number of light cruisers and destroyers. The IJN was never able to fight a major battle after this.
Gunnison breaks down the fighting and the numbers, and two weeks into this campaign, and despite typhoons, everything was going ahead according to plan and the Invasion of the Philippines was forging ahead.
And that’s how it was going in the Pacific, this November 1, 1944 as presented by Mutual’s Royal Arch Gunnison.
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