Why the biggest battle in naval history was also the last hurrah for the battleship

• In the final days of October 1944, the US and Japanese navies met in a decisive clash around the Philippines.
• The Battle of Leyte Gulf was a crushing defeat for the Japanese navy, but it was also the last head-to-head encounter for an icon of naval warfare: the battleship.

By autumn 1944, Allied commanders were planning for the final stage of the war in the Pacific.

Central to that was cutting Japan off from the rest of its empire — especially the Dutch East Indies, where it got much of its oil. That would effectively end Japan's ability to operate a wartime economy, weakening it for an invasion and bringing an end to the war.

The Allies decided to liberate the Philippines, giving them a base from which to isolate Japan.

On October 20, 1944, the first of almost 200,000 troops landed on the island of Leyte. The Japanese sent three massive naval forces to stop them, setting the stage for the largest naval battle in history.

A risky plan

The Japanese knew that losing the Philippines meant losing the war. They also knew any attempt to stop such an invasion would be risky. Japan's carrier force was virtually destroyed at the battles of Midway and the Philippine Sea, while American shipyards were building capital ships at unprecedented rates.

But Japan still had a large fleet of battleships, cruisers, and destroyers. It was believed that these ships, in a well-timed and coordinated attack, could punch through or avoid the Allied warships and destroy the Allied landing force as it disembarked on the beaches.

The plan, known as Shō-Gō 1, or Victory Operation 1, was ambitious. Three naval forces — Northern, Center, and Southern — would approach Leyte from three directions.

Northern Force, with Japan's remaining carriers, would draw the US Navy's carriers away as a diversion. Center and Southern forces would sail around the Philippines, simultaneously converge on the Allied landing beaches, and shell the American soldiers into submission.

Northern Force, led by Vice Adm. Jisaburō Ozawa, had six carriers with 116 aircraft, three cruisers, and eight destroyers. Southern Force, led by Vice Adms. Shōji Nishimura and Kiyohide Shima, had two battleships, four cruisers, and 11 destroyers.

Center force, the largest and most important, was led by Vice Adm. Takeo Kurita. It was made up of five battleships, 12 cruisers, and 15 destroyers. Two of the battleships, Yamato and Musashi, were the largest and most powerful battleships in history.

They faced the full might of the US 3rd and 7th fleets, as well as ships from the Royal Australian Navy. Commanded by Adms. William F. Halsey and Thomas C. Kinkaid, respectively, the fleets had 34 carriers with more than 1,000 aircraft, 12 battleships, 24 cruisers, and more than 150 destroyers and torpedo boats.

Battle of the Sibuyan Sea

Things immediately went wrong for the Japanese. Early on October 23, while passing through the Palawan Passage to the Sibuyan Sea, Kurita's Center Force was attacked by two US submarines.

Two cruisers, including Kurita's flagship, were sunk. Kurita himself had to swim until he was rescued. Another cruiser was heavily damaged and had to be escorted back to Brunei by two destroyers.

In the following hours, Halsey's carriers launched 259 sorties on Kurita's Center Force. The battleship Musashi was sunk and another cruiser was heavily damaged and forced to withdraw.

Japanese aircraft flying from the Philippines were able to sink the light carrier Princeton and damage the cruiser Birmingham.

Kurita reversed his damaged force's course in a feint, but Halsey, having discovered Ozawa's northern force, was more focused on taking out Japan's carriers and ordered all his ships to intercept them.

Battle of Surigao Strait

As night fell and Halsey's ships went North, Kinkaid prepared defensive lines with his ships at the Surigao Strait — a chokepoint through which the Japanese could approach to strike US transports off Leyte.

Six battleships, eight cruisers, 28 destroyers, and 30 motor torpedo boats lined the strait. Five of the battleships there had been sunk or damaged at Pearl Harbor in December 1941.

Nishimura and Shima's warships, arriving in two groups, would attempt to sail the gauntlet, running into one of the best prepared naval ambushes in history.

As Nishimura's seven ships charged the American line, they were attacked by torpedoes launched from destroyers and torpedo boats. They then suffered the full wrath of the battleships and cruisers.

Just one of Nishimura's ships survived. Nishimura himself went down with his flagship. Shima, arriving later and not knowing the status of the battle because of orders to keep radio silence, decided to withdraw after seeing the devastation.

Battle off Samar

Kurita, meanwhile, had reversed course again and managed to slip through the San Bernardino Strait undetected because of Halsey's pursuit of Ozawa's Northern Force. Halsey didn't leave behind any capital ships, and Kinkaid, believing Halsey had done so, did not send any himself.

This meant the only thing between Kurita and the landings at Leyte was a small US task force of six escort carriers and nine destroyers. Known as Taffy 3, the force was meant to support the landings and anti-submarine operations.

The US destroyers were vastly outgunned — Yamato alone weighed as much as all of Taffy 3's ships combined — and none of Taffy 3's aircraft were equipped with anti-ship weaponry.

Taffy 3 fought a desperate and courageous fight. Its destroyers and aircraft charged the Japanese ships in an attempt to protect the carriers. One destroyer, USS Johnston, with no orders to do so, charged the Japanese cruisers, firing all its torpedoes and 200 shells in 10 minutes. It damaged two cruisers, ripping the bow off one.

Soon, as many as 450 under-equipped planes from neighboring task forces made attack runs on Kurita's ships. The fighting was so intense that Kurita, having lost three more cruisers, gave the order to withdraw.

Three destroyers and two escort carriers from Taffy 3 were sunk. Its commander later attributed the victory in part to "the definite partiality of Almighty God."

Battle off Cape Engaño

The final engagement was between Halsey and Ozawa's Northern Force. Ozawa had no illusions about winning. His sole purpose was to distract the bulk of the US fleet so Kurita could make it to Leyte.

"I expected complete destruction of my fleet," he said later. "But if Kurita's mission was carried out, that was all I wished."

His air wing was small and flown mostly by inexperienced pilots. Two of his carriers were battleships hastily converted into carrier-battleship hybrids that didn't even have aircraft aboard.

Halsey's force obliterated Northern Force; four carriers were sunk, as well as one cruiser and a destroyer.

A disastrous defeat

The battle was disastrous for Japan. It lost four carriers, three battleships, 10 cruisers, and nine destroyers. Japan also saw 300 planes shot down and more than 10,500 of its sailors and airmen killed.

American casualties were three carriers and three destroyers sunk, 200 planes shot down, and slightly more than 1,000 killed.

Leyte Gulf was the last naval battle between battleships in history. It was now overwhelmingly clear that the aircraft carrier, with its air wing, was the most important weapon on the seas.

Carrier aircraft were the deciding factor in the most important naval battles of the war. They could swarm and strike the weakest parts of any ship.

Even massive battleships like Yamato or Musashi, designed to take on an entire enemy fleet, could not defend themselves from hundreds of bomb- and torpedo-carrying planes committed to their destruction.

The Japanese navy's surface force ceased to exist as an offensive force after the battle. Japan was unable to repel the invasion of the Philippines, losing access to the rest of its empire.

Adm. Mitsumasa Yonai, the head of the Japanese Navy, later told American interrogators "I felt that that was the end."