Leyte Gulf - USS Natoma Bay CVE-62

a quagmire, so that engineers could not extend or complement
the Tacloban airstrip to enable Army aircraft to take over
the support of Lieutenant General Walter Krueger's Sixth
Army.
With Admiral McCain replacing Admiral Mitscher but with
Halsey still in overall command, TF 38 intermittently
supported the Philippine invasions until mid-January 1945.
During the Leyte campaign, the chief targets of the carrier
planes were the all-weather airfields of Luzon and a new
"Tokyo Express" that was landing a steady stream of
reinforcements on the west coast of Leyte. The carriers'
greatest success was on November 11, when their aircraft
sent to the bottom a complete convoy, including six
destroyers and five transports, thereby drowning 10,000
Japanese troops.
For both TF 38 and elements of the Seventh Fleet in Leyte
Gulf, this was a grim period, for the organization of the
Kamikaze Corps had enormously increased the effectiveness of
Japanese air power. In Halsey's fleet during November 1944,
Kamikazes crashed onto seven carriers, killing nearly 300
Americans and wounding hundreds more. In Kinkaid's fleet
during the same period they hit two battleships, two
cruisers, two attack transports, and seven destroyers, one
of which sank. Following three suicide crashes on his ships
on November 25, Halsey withdrew TF 38 temporarily to Ulithi
to make repairs and to give his exhausted aviators a chance
to rest.
In order to intercept the Tokyo Express, Admiral
Kinkaid now sent destroyers around for night sweeps
off Ormoc on the Leyte west coast. The sweeps achieved
only moderate success and cost the Navy a destroyer.
By early December there were 183,000 American troops
on Leyte. Still slogging through mud, these were
converging on Ormoc from north and south against
heavy resistance. To wind up the campaign, General
Krueger got the Seventh Fleet to convoy two regiments
around for an amphibious landing on Ormoc Bay, an
operation in which kamikazes sank the destroyers
Ward and Mahan. This landing behind the backs of the
Japanese defending forces proved decisive. On
Christmas Day General MacArthur declared Leyte secured.
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