Leyte Gulf: Armada in the Pacific

The epic true story of the largest sea battle in history.

An ideal book for readers of Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway by Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully or Neptune's Inferno: The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal by James D. Hornfischer.

Between 23rd and 25th October 1944, nearly three hundred vessels, two thousand aircraft, and almost two hundred thousand men were involved in four separate engagements that have become known as the Battle for Leyte Gulf.

Although the odds of victory were slim for Imperial Japan, it risked the remnants of its fleet in an all-out effort to retain its conquests and safeguard its supply routes against the increasingly mighty American Pacific forces.

Donald Macintyre, veteran of the Atlantic U-boat campaign and renowned military historian, uncovers the story of this monumental engagement. He reveals who the prominent commanders were on both sides, what transpired during the four engagements of the Sibuyan Sea, Surigao Strait, Cape Engaño, and Samar, how the fleet carriers, battleships, cruisers, smaller ships, and air forces were utilized, and why the Japanese felt it necessary to resort to kamikaze attacks when all seemed lost.

This book is essential reading for anyone interested in the final efforts of the Imperial Japanese Navy to halt the oncoming Allied military forces.

‘an analytical account, vividly set out, of one of the most important yet tangled actions in the history of that war — the Battle of Leyte Gulf.’ Captain B. H. Liddell Hart