THE greatest battle in the history of naval warfare, which destroyed the Japanese fleet and swept clear the sea roads to the Philippines and Tokyo, raged across 500,000 square miles of churned and bloodied Western Pacific Ocean 15 years ago this week. This was the Battle for Leyte Gulf, which pitted the U.S. fleets supporting General Douglas MacArthur's landings on the island of Leyte against all the naval might that the crumbling Japanese Empire could salvage for a desperate last stand.
It was the grand climax to the most massive naval campaign ever, a...
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