Dan Russell
10/07
History 299, Al-Tikriti
History 299 Literature Review
The near unanimous consensus among World War II historians studying Halsey’s decision that led to the battle off Samar is that it was purely a blunder. Halsey chased after a Japanese decoy force, risking the Leyte beachhead and the Seventh Fleet (led by Admiral Clifton Sprague) to Japanese counterattack. As such, historians tend to refer to the decision as a slight hiccup in the near overwhelming victory that was the Battle of Leyte Gulf. There are, however, a select few historians who focus in on the decisions Halsey made involving Samar, and while there aren’t any who place value with the decisions, there is a clear distinction between those who place importance on the battle off Samar and those who brush it aside as a minor incident. There’s a surprisingly small amount of secondary source material on the battle off Samar, even though it was such a perfect example of the American spirit winning against all odds. Through this literature review I seek to perform two tasks. The first is to partition my secondary sources between the historians who view the battle off Samar as historically important, and those who do not. The second task is to use my sources to identify why there is so little material on Halsey’s decision and the battle off Samar.
The first author I found who placed value in the Battle off Samar is E. B. Potter, who authored Bull Halsey.[1] Gerald E. Wheeler of San Jose State University wrote a review on this biography for The Journal of American History.[2] In it he stated “Halsey’s famous run North (‘The Battle of Bull’s Run’) to engage a Japanese decoy carrier force is examined and explained carefully. Potter passes no judgment, but lets the facts of Halsey’s blunders speak for themselves.” Even though Potter mentions the Battle off Samar as historically important, there was only a small amount of information on the battle itself.
In a review of Admiral J. J. Clark’s Carrier Admiral,[3] Military Affairs Journal,[4] Lt. Colonel John H. Scrivner Jr. of the Air Force Academy agrees with the author in saying that the Battle off Samar is important, and often understated or ignored. He states that Clark “finds Admiral ‘Bull’ Halsey guilty of having his ships in the wrong place at the wrong time seeking the wrong target”, but once again there was little documentation of Halsey’s decision.
The next secondary source on this category shed some light onto why historians had little information regarding Halsey’s chase by clearly denoting what the other authors and reviewers had only implied. In Devotion of Duty: A Biography of Clifton A. Sprague,[5] author John A. Wukovits clearly states the “desire of the navy leadership, admirals Ernest King and Chester Nimitz, not to air dirty laundry in public: ‘Bull’ Halsey was the navy’s best known war hero, and they had no desire to highlight his woeful performance during the October 1944 battle.” Until 1994, Nimitz and King effectively censored most data that showed any fault in Halsey’s actions. Because of this censorship, heroic accounts such as Sprague’s stand off of Samar have been left relatively undocumented.
James D. Hornfischer wrote the most informative recount to date of the decisions that led up to the Battle off Samar, as well as the battle itself, in 2004. The book is titled The Last Stand of the Tin Can Soldiers,[6] and in it Hornfischer places great emphasis on the heroics of the sailors who were left to defend the island, but states clearly that they would never have been placed in that position if Halsey had been doing his job correctly. Although The Last Stand of the Tin Can Soldiers is very informative when it comes to describing the Battle off Samar, Hornfischer does not go into detail describing King and Nimitz’s censorship of Halsey’s decision.
The first of the sources that treat the Battle off Samar as insignificant is C. Vann Woodward’s The Battle for Leyte Gulf[7]. In it, Woodward meticulously pours over the entire battle, except for the Battle off Samar. He lightly mentions that Halsey chased after a decoy, and then continues on to describe in detail the types of ships that Halsey was armed with. Following his description he does not return to the topic of Samar. In 1947, Henry M. Dater wrote a book review of The Battle for Leyte Gulf,[8] stating clearly that Woodward “avoided criticism and interpretation” by skirting the topic of Samar. As the book was written only three years after the Battle of Leyte Gulf, Woodward had precious little information on the battle off Samar due to Nimitz and King’s censorship.
Some historians have studied the battle off Samar and have decided that it is not worth much emphasis, regardless of the censorship. One year before the material involving Halsey’s decisions was declassified in 1995, Thomas Cutler of the Naval War College in Annapolis, Maryland wrote The Battle of Leyte Gulf: 23-26 October 1944.[9] The book offers a full description of the entire battle, but with little mention of Samar. The Battle off Samar had little to do with the outcome of Leyte Gulf from a purely naval perspective and, because of this, is not as attractive to naval historians. In The Battle of Leyte Gulf: The Last Fleet Action,[10] H. P. Willmott argues that after studying both the Japanese and American tactics, the battle off Samar was purely an unimportant blunder by both sides. Willmott examined the individual role of Halsey and decided that whether or not he made the decision to leave Samar, the outcome of the Battle of Leyte Gulf would have been the same, making it historically unimportant.
The key difference in the secondary source material that refers in any way to the battle off Samar is whether or not the source was written during the time period King and Nimitz’s censorship. The data that was censored created a gap in a significant piece of the Battle of Leyte Gulf so that historians tended to overlook it as historically unimportant. When the data was uncensored, the historical value of the battle off Samar was immediately reevaluated and deemed significant.
Works Cited
Cutler, Thomas J. The Battle of Leyte Gulf: 23-26 October 1944. New York: Harper
Collins, 1994.
Falk, Stanley L. Decision at Leyte. W.W. Norton, 1966.
Halsey, William F., and J. Bryan III. Admiral Halsey’s Story. McGraw-Hill, 1947.
Hornfischer, James D., The Last Stand of the Tin Can Soldiers, New York: Bantam
Dell, 2004.
Mason, Theodore C. Battleship Sailor. Naval Institute Press, 1982.
Miller, Nathan. War at Sea: A Naval History of World War II. Schribner, 1995.
O’Connor, Raymond. The Japanese Navy in World War II. Naval Institute Press, 1969.
Potter, E. B., Nimitz, Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1976.
Potter, E. B., Bull Halsey, Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1985.
Pratt, Fletcher. Fleet Against Japan. New York: Harper & Bros. 1946.
Spector, Ronald H. Eagle Against the Sun: The American War with Japan. New York:
Vintage, 1985.
Stewart, Adrian. The Battle of Leyte Gulf. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1980.
Van Der Vat, Dan. The Pacific Campaign: The US-Japanese Naval War, 1941-1945.
Simon & Schuster, 1991.
Yoshida, Mitsura. Requiem for Battleship Yamato. University of Washington Press,
1985.
DeSpain, Bob [S1, USS Hoel]. Personal Narrative.
“Taffy 3 Remembered” Traditions Military Video.
“Showdown at Leyte Gulf” [documentary]. A&E Home Video, 1993.
USS Samuel B. Roberts Survivors Association website: www.de413.org.
J. J. Clark, Carrier Admiral, New York: David Mckay, 1967.
Scriyner Jr, John, “Carrier Admiral.” Military Affairs, Volume 32: Issue 2,
October 1968: p. 79.
Wukovits, John, Devotion of Duty: A Biography of Clifton A. Sprague, Annapolis: Naval
Institute Press, 1995. p. 213.
Wheeler, Gerald, “Bull Halsey: A Biography.” The Journal of American History,
Volume 73: Issue 2, September 1986: p. 515.
Willmott, H. P., The Battle of Leyte Gulf: The Last Fleet Action, Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 2005.
[1] E.B. Potter, Bull Halsey, Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1985.
[2] Gerald Wheeler, Bull Halsey: A Biography, The Journal of American History, Volume 73: Issue 2, September 1986: p. 515.
[3] J. J. Clark, Carrier Admiral, New York: David Mckay, 1967.
[4] John Scriyner Jr. “Carrier Admiral.” Military Affairs, Volume 32: Issue 2, October 1968: p. 79.
[5] John Wukovits, Devotion of Duty: A Biography of Clifton A. Sprague, Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1995. p. 213.
[6] James Hornfischer, The Last Stand of the Tin Can Soldiers, New York: Bantam Dell, 2004.
[7] C. Vann Woodward, The Battle for Leyte Gulf, New York: Macmillan Company, 1947. pp. 117-121.
[8] Henry Dater, “Book Review: The Battle for Leyte Gulf, Volume 34: Issue 1, June 1947. pp: 145-146.
[9] Thomas Cutler, The Battle of Leyte Gulf: 23-26 October 1944, Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1994.
[10] H. P. Willmott, The Battle of Leyte Gulf: The Last Fleet Action, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005.