Piercing the Fog - Air Force Historical Studies Office

Piercing the Fog
and Halsey directed every available AAF and Navy fighter toward the intense
air battle. ULTRA had made clear by November that the Japanese were taking
aircraft from every source remaining to them for Philippine defense. Moreover,
the Allies could track three separate fleet striking forces with one heavy and
three light carriers plus three hybrid or transport carriers the Japanese had
converted from battleships and cruisers. Only repeated air attacks on these fleets
kept them at a distance.82
One consistent characteristic noted by Allied intercept analysts was the
Japanese proclivity to strongly overstate Allied losses, understate their own, and
to act on these mistaken beliefs. This tendency and the continued ability of
Kenney to read enemy reactions allowed him a clear picture of the battle’s
progress. It also allowed Halsey, Kenney, and their subordinates to hit hard at
the Japanese and continue to drain aircraft and pilots from Japan’s defense
resources. By November 11, the improving landing fields led the FEAF
commander to assume a more favorable outlook. Once the Allies could base a
substantial air capability on Leyte, they brought the main Japanese threat under
control.83
The bloody struggle for Leyte became an Allied victory largely because
ULTRA’S insights allowed the better armed, largely American, land-sea-air force
to be massed against the depleted Japanese capability to react. The T Attack
Force, heavily damaged in the air war and with diminishing fervor for battle,
began to withhold units on Formosa and Japan. On November 11, the
Americans intercepted and decrypted a MAGIC diplomatic message from
Japanese Foreign Minister Shigemitsu Namoru to his ambassador in Moscow,
Sat0 Naotake. In that message, Shigemitsu acknowledged most pessimistically
Japan’s declining power in the face of growing Allied strength. In fact, Japanese
air capability in the Visayas had peaked in early November, about the time that
Kenney noted the improved airfield situation on Leyte. Although Kenney did
not see the MAGIC decrypt for some days, it must have given him considerable
satisfaction that his perception of the tactical situation matched the beliefs of the
Japanese Foreign Minister.84
The TAttack Force, that instrument of Japanese air power that had seemed
such a threat, apparently retreated from the Philippines after its commitment and
subsequent heavy losses in the battle for Leyte. A paucity of references to it in
Japanese message traffic coincided with a lessening of enemy aircraft seen aloft
by Allied pilots. By December 15, Japanese radio traffic to the unit had almost
ceased, to be replaced by messages directed to the H-3 Attack Force, and to the
KAttuck Force. The H-3 Attack Force had not been committed to battle, but the
Allies took it to be another air task force of undetermined size and composition,
probably made up of navy and army squadrons with kamikaze units. From
operational assessments and intelligence analysis of downed enemy aircraft,
Allied airmen noted the arrival of new types of Japanese fighters. These aircraft
were too few and their pilots too inexperienced to affect the trend of the war.
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