Leyte Quotes

Our guns couldn’t even reach them when they opened fire. So what do we do? Knowing we didn’t stand a chance? We engaged. The Battle of Leyte Gulf, they call it now. Went straight for them. We were the first ship to start firing, the first to launch smoke and torpedoes, and we took on both a cruiser and a battleship. Did a lot of damage, too. But because we were out front, we were the first to go dead in the water. A pair of enemy cruisers closed in and began firing, and then we went down.

The victory at Leyte Gulf was the product of Allied planning, savvy, and panache, to be sure. But only Samar showed the world something else: how Americans handle having their backs pushed to the wall.

Midway was merely a convenient target chosen by Yamamoto to draw the Americans out, and both sides’ objectives were attritional attempts to degrade their opponents’ carrier units. Nevertheless, the result created space for the Americans to begin their cautious advance back across the Pacific. This started with Guadalcanal and proceeded along two axes. Nimitz would command the larger and predominantly naval effort across the central Pacific, and island fortresses such as Saipan and Iwo Jima would soon go down in military legend. To the south, General Douglas MacArthur led a campaign across New Guinea and the Philippines, with a more land-based focus. Notwithstanding that, it was off Leyte Gulf in the Philippines in October 1944 that the Imperial Japanese Navy suffered a fatal blow in the largest naval battle in history, during which four carriers and three battleships were lost.

2. In one of our visits, I met a fourth-year high school student, who was three months shy from graduation. Before Yolanda hit, he was studying for his exams with his girlfriend. It was supposed to be the last Christmas they would be dependent on their allowances. They dreamed of traveling together after college. It was going to be their first time. They never had money to spare before. But in three months, they thought, everything would be all right. They only had to wait a few more months. After all, they had already waited for four years. What he didn’t expect was the fact that the storm [Typhoon Haiyan] would be so strong he would have to choose between saving his girlfriend and her one-year-old niece. For months, he would stare longingly at the sea, at the exact same spot he found his girlfriend, with a piece of galvanized iron that was used for roofing pierced through her stomach. It was a relief that one of the first projects we started under DPWH Secretary Mark Villar was the Leyte Tide Embankment, a storm surge protection structure that would serve as the first line of defense for residents of Tacloban, Palo, and Tanauan in Leyte should another typhoon hit the region.” - Anna Mae Yu Lamentillo , Night Owl: A Nationbuilder’s Manual 2nd Edition (p. 226, Build, Build, Build Projects Eastern Visayas)

In one of our visits, I met a fourth-year high school student, who was three months shy from graduation. Before Yolanda hit, he was studying for his exams with his girlfriend. It was supposed to be the last Christmas they would be dependent on their allowances. They dreamed of traveling together after college. It was going to be their first time. They never had money to spare before. But in three months, they thought, everything would be all right. They only had to wait a few more months. After all, they had already waited for four years. What he didn’t expect was the fact that the storm [Typhoon Haiyan] would be so strong he would have to choose between saving his girlfriend and her one-year-old niece. For months, he would stare longingly at the sea, at the exact same spot he found his girlfriend, with a piece of galvanized iron that was used for roofing pierced through her stomach. It was a relief that one of the first projects we started under DPWH Secretary Mark Villar was the Leyte Tide Embankment, a storm surge protection structure that would serve as the first line of defense for residents of Tacloban, Palo, and Tanauan in Leyte should another typhoon hit the region.” - Anna Mae Yu Lamentillo , Night Owl: A Nationbuilder’s Manual 2nd Edition (p. 226, Build, Build, Build Projects Eastern Visayas)

Nakilala ko ang isang 4th year high school na estudyante. Tatlong buwan na lang ay magtatapos na siya. Bago ang paghagupit ng Yolanda, nag-aaral siya para sa kaniyang mga pagsusulit kasama ang kaniyang kasintahan. Pangarap nilang maglakbay nang magkasama pagkatapos ng kolehiyo. Ito ang magiging kanilang unang pagkakataon. Kailangan lang nilang maghintay ng ilang buwan. Ang hindi niya inaasahan, sa tindi ng paghagupit ng bagyo ay kinailangan niyang pumili sa pagitan ng pagliligtas sa kaniyang kasintahan at sa kaniyang isang taong gulang na pamangkin. Sa loob ng maraming buwan, pinagmamasdan niya ang mismong lugar kung saan natagpuan niya ang kaniyang kasintahang may isang pirasong yero na nakatusok sa tiyan nito. Para akong nakahinga ng maluwag nang ang isa sa mga unang proyektong sinimulan namin sa ilalim ng pamumuno ni DPWH Secretary Mark Villar ay ang Leyte Tide Embankment, ang magsisilbing unang linya ng depensa para sa mga residente ng Tacloban, Palo, at Tanauan sa Leyte kung sakaling tumamang muli ang bagyo sa rehiyon.” - Night Owl: Edisyong Filipino (p. 226, Proyektong Build, Build, Build Silangang Visayas)

At Leyte Gulf we used eight carriers, eight light carriers, and sixteen escort carriers — thirty-two in all.

The Battle of Leyte Gulf was the greatest naval battle of the Second World War and the largest engagement ever fought on the high seas.

While it would not be accurate to say that we were influenced by public opinion,” testified Admiral Toyoda,

In our two fleets participating in the Philippines battle we had twelve battleships to the enemy’s nine.

approximately 2,014,890 tons at Leyte.

The Musashi was the third Japanese battleship definitely known to have been sunk by our Navy, the first in nearly two years, and the only one up to that time sunk entirely by air attack.

The battle of Leyte Gulf was short, lasting only from October 23–26, 1944. But don’t let the duration fool you. The Philippine Sea, around the chain of islands where the battle was fought, was a roiling cauldron for those four days. On the morning of the 23rd, that sea held the largest assemblage of ships, in terms of tonnage, the world had ever seen. By the evening of the 26th, Leyte Gulf had taken more tonnage to its murky depths than in any other naval battle in history. The Japanese lost four aircraft carriers, three battleships, six heavy cruisers, four light cruisers, 12 destroyers, one destroyer escort, over 600 planes, and 10,500 sailors and pilots. The Allied forces, on the other hand, lost one light carrier, two escort carriers, two destroyers, one destroyer escort, around 200 planes, and a little more than a thousand men. As a result of this devastating blow, Japan never again launched a major naval offensive.

In one of our visits, I met a fourth-year high school student, who was three months shy from graduation. Before Yolanda hit, he was studying for his exams with his girlfriend. It was supposed to be the last Christmas they would be dependent on their allowances. They dreamed of traveling together after college. It was going to be their first time. They never had money to spare before. But in three months, they thought, everything would be all right. They only had to wait a few more months. After all, they had already waited for four years. What he didn’t expect was the fact that the storm would be so strong he would have to choose between saving his girlfriend and her one-year-old niece. For months, he would stare longingly at the sea, at the exact same spot he found his girlfriend, with a piece of galvanized iron that was used for roofing pierced through her stomach. It was a relief that one of the first projects we started under DPWH Secretary Mark Villar was the Leyte Tide Embankment, a storm surge protection structure that would serve as the first line of defense for residents of Tacloban, Palo, and Tanauan in Leyte should another typhoon hit the region.

FIRST ATTACK OF KAMIKAZE SQUADRON USED ON LEYTE ISLAND.” Showa 19 October 28, NHK Radio Saturday morning report

a campaign of mendacity unprecedented since Napoleon proclaimed the destruction of Nelson’s fleet at Trafalgar.

Naval and occasionally land-based air power turned the great sea battles—the fighting near Singapore, the chase of the Bismarck, the Coral Sea, Midway, the fight over the Marianas, Leyte Gulf, and Okinawa—mostly into contests of carrier-based aircraft attacking with impunity any enemy ships except like kind.

One shall be a light-love book, a girl training to be a veterinarian, fighting against the restrictions of her sex in that field. Her goal will be to overcome those man-made restrictions, assert the efficiency of her sex, and attain the happiness she desires. And the other will be a story of Leyte, and the title is already in my mind, the plot in sketchy form, and the title shall be Her Name Was Leyte. Where do you get your ideas? The next time a would-be author asks that question of me I shall not answer.