LEYTE 1944 SINKING THE RISING SUN

One of the more difficult island campaigns in WWII's Pacific Theatre saw a brutal months-long fight that exhausted Japan’s military strength

- MIGUEL MIRANDA

After the last American holdouts on the rocky island of Corregidor surrendered in April 1942 the Philippines had to endure a pitiless Japanese occupation that stretched 40 months. Ending it was a matter of honour and principle for General Douglas MacArthur and his staff, all of them exiled after defeat in the Philippines, and they were raring to go after achieving victory in the South Pacific and the crucial New Guinea archipelago. For three days in late July 1944, a high-level conference in the Hawaiian islands attended by President Franklin D Roosevelt settled the endless deliberations of whether to retake Formosa (now called Taiwan) from the Japanese or rush headlong to the Philippines.

MacArthur's faction prevailed with the reluctant endorsement of Admiral Chester Nimitz, whose staff were strong advocates for taking Formosa given the US Navy's reconstituted fleets and battle-hardened Marines. It was decided the Philippines was far more important - not just because of its emotional significance for MacArthur, who lived much of his adulthood in Manila - but also from a strategic perspective. It was clear that aircraft stationed in the Philippines could range as far as the Singapore Strait and the southern edge of Japan, effectively neutralising the enemy's maritime links. This would starve Japan's industrial base of fuel and raw material, causing shortages that would reduce its capacity to prolong the war.