Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Maps
- Preface to the New Edition
- Preface to the First Edition
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 From one War to Another
- 2 From the German and Soviet Invasions of Poland to the German Attack in the West, September I, 1939 to May 10, 1940
- 3 The world Turned Upside Down
- 4 The Expanding Conflict, 1940-1941
- 5 The Eastern Front and a Changing War, June to December, 1941
- 6 Halting the Japanese Advance, Halting the German Advance; Keeping Them Apart and Shifting the Balance: December 1941 to November 1942
- 7 The War At Sea, 1942-1944, and the Blockade
- 8 The War in Europe and North Africa 1942-1943: to and from Stalingrad; to and from Tunis
- 9 The Home Front
- 10 Means of Warfare: Old and New
- 11 From the Spring of 1943 to Summer 1944
- 12 The Assault on Germany from All Sides
- 13 Tensions in Both Alliances
- 14 The Halt on the European Fronts
- 15 The Final Assault on Germany
- 16 The War in the Pacific: From Leyte to the Missouri
- Conclusions: the Cost and Impact of War
- Bibliographic Essay
- Notes
- Maps
- Index
16 - The War in the Pacific: From Leyte to the Missouri
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2014
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Maps
- Preface to the New Edition
- Preface to the First Edition
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 From one War to Another
- 2 From the German and Soviet Invasions of Poland to the German Attack in the West, September I, 1939 to May 10, 1940
- 3 The world Turned Upside Down
- 4 The Expanding Conflict, 1940-1941
- 5 The Eastern Front and a Changing War, June to December, 1941
- 6 Halting the Japanese Advance, Halting the German Advance; Keeping Them Apart and Shifting the Balance: December 1941 to November 1942
- 7 The War At Sea, 1942-1944, and the Blockade
- 8 The War in Europe and North Africa 1942-1943: to and from Stalingrad; to and from Tunis
- 9 The Home Front
- 10 Means of Warfare: Old and New
- 11 From the Spring of 1943 to Summer 1944
- 12 The Assault on Germany from All Sides
- 13 Tensions in Both Alliances
- 14 The Halt on the European Fronts
- 15 The Final Assault on Germany
- 16 The War in the Pacific: From Leyte to the Missouri
- Conclusions: the Cost and Impact of War
- Bibliographic Essay
- Notes
- Maps
- Index
Summary
LEYTE
Allied plans for the defeat of Japan were developed in the summer and fall of 1944. The success in the Marianas and northern New Guinea opened the possibility for new strikes at the Japanese empire. It was not yet settled among the American planners whether an attack on Luzon, the largest and most important island in the northern Philippines, was preferable to a landing on Formosa (Taiwan) as the basis for the direct attack on Japan itself, but agreement had been reached on an invasion of Leyte in the central Philippines as an essential prerequisite for either of the two alternatives. From Leyte, with its great anchorage facilities and its assumed potential for air bases, subsequent assaults could be mounted over the intervening space to either Luzon or Formosa.
The Formosa project, especially dear to Admiral King, however, fell victim to three developments in the fall of 1944. The collapse of the Chinese Nationalists made the idea of a base off the China coast for the coordination of operations from there in the great assault on Japan an unrealistic project. The continuation of the war in Europe into 1945 precluded the early transfer to East Asia of the troops and shipping needed for the Formosa operation. The logistic needs of a Formosa landing, especially past a Japanese-controlled Luzon, were beyond the anticipated resources of the Central Pacific theater, so that Admiral Nimitz increasingly favored a Luzon over a Formosa operation as a follow-up to Leyte. Even while the Leyte plans were being developed, therefore, the central Philippines landing increasingly took on the character of a prelude to a landing on Luzon as a step to an assault further north—toward Japan itself—and with less and less direct connection to the war on the Chinese mainland.
There were three further repercussions to this change. In the first place, there came to be increasing concern in Allied headquarters about the possibility of a continuing campaign against the large Japanese forces in China even after a defeat of Japan in its home islands. The huge area held by the Japanese armed forces in China, together with their control of some industry there, seemed to open up the possibility of an extended further war to reduce those units.
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- A World at ArmsA Global History of World War II, pp. 842 - 893Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2005