![]() ![]() Kinkaid’s Seventh Fleet invasion force. The Northern Group would be largely destroyed by Halsey’s carrier air wings in the Battle of Cape Engaño on 24 October. Halsey’s Third Fleet (including TF 34, its powerful fast battleships) away from the Leyte Gulf area, exposing the northern flank of Vice Admiral Thomas C. The First Mobile Fleet’s Main Body (“Northern Force”), which included the carrier force based in Kure, Japan, approached the Philippines from the northeast. The stage was set for the multiple, widely separated engagements that made up the Battle of Leyte Gulf. ![]() The limited strike capabilities of severely depleted Japanese carrier air groups were to be augmented by land-based naval and army aviation units based in Formosa (Taiwan) and the Philippines. Shō pulled together the majority of Japan’s remaining battleship, cruiser, and carrier forces in a desperate, multi-pronged attempt to interdict and destroy Allied landing forces off of Leyte in the central Philippines and inflict crippling damage on U.S. On 15 October 1944, following indications of impending Allied landings in the Philippines, the Japanese Imperial Navy’s First Mobile Fleet launched Operation Shō. ![]()
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