Philippines Naval Campaign 1944–45: The Battles After Leyte Gulf (Campaign, 399)

Wow, Mark Stille wrote very well-detailed attacks on the Japanese kamikaze airplanes and ships against the American-Australian naval cruisers, destroyed, minesweepers, and carriers in the seas outside of the Philippines in nine months. There were excellent illustrations of map of Japanese airfields on page 21 for their missions to attack the Allied navy and of clear map of the ordeal of the Lingayen invasion force on pages 82 and 83. In closing, I was impressed by Mark Stille's honest and blunt analysis that the Japanese kamikaze attacks did not materialize to succeed their mission to destroy the powerful Allied navy.

Many accounts of the Second World War tend to skip ahead from the U.S. naval victory at Leyte Gulf to Okinawa, the next step in the road to Tokyo. In fact, major fighting continued in the Philippines for months. The fight around the Philippine archipelago was made especially costly by the Japanese adoption of kamikaze tactics. Author Mark Stille has the story in this new Osprey Campaign series book.General MacArthur's invasion force made innovative use of its naval mobility in securing the Philippine archipelago by a series of amphibious landings. The Japanese Navy responded with kamikazes, which took a shocking toll of U.S. ships and personnel, without however staving off defeat. The text features a fascinating selection of period photographs and modern illustrations and battle diagrams. Well recommended to students of the Second World War in the Pacific.

thank you

Leyte Gulf, the greatest naval battle of modern times, appeared to have destroyed the Imperial Japanese Navy. This was not so as a number of destroyers and cruisers (including some new ones which had been left out of the Leyte catastrophe usually due to lack of fuel) These ships escorted Japanese reinforcements with assistance from their air forces including kamikaze attacks in attempts to impede the American forces of General MacArthur. They also impacted Halsey's 7th Fleet Carriers from changing to 3rd Fleet units to continue Admiral Nimitz's plans to bring the Pacific Campaign to the Japanese Home Islands. This is a fascinating but little known aspect of the Pacific War which gave the new British Pacific Fleet the opportunity to support the Americans elsewhere whilst the latter dealt with the Phillipines and move on to Okinawa and Iwo Jima.