Note 4 — Chapter VI · The Japanese Reaction

The Leyte area was subjected to a heavy air assault on the same day, 24 October, when an estimated 150 to 200 enemy planes (mostly twin-engined bombers) approached northern Leyte. Sixty-six were definitely shot down and eighteen others were probably shot down.4 On the American side, forty combat air patrol and ten direct supporting planes participated in this engagement. Three American aircraft crash-landed—two on the Tacloban airstrip and one in the water.5 Only a small percentage of the American air activity was directed toward the neutralization of the enemy air force, as most of the available aircraft were attacking the Japanese fleet. The Japanese were determined to “make Leyte the decisive air battlefield as well as the decisive ground and naval battlefield of the Philippines.”6 For the first time since the Allied counteroffensive in the Pacific had started rolling, the Japanese, for an extended period, risked aircraft in great numbers in daylight raids as well as at night. The shipping off Tacloban and Dulag and the Tacloban airfield were the principal targets, though other air installations on the island were hit. An example of the enemy’s dogged determination occurred during the evening and night of 27 October. At twilight, twelve enemy fighters and dive bombers dropped 100-pound bombs in the vicinity of Tacloban and tried repeatedly but unsuccessfully to strafe the Tacloban airstrip. After a lull, the Japanese aircraft renewed the aerial assault just before midnight and continued almost uninterruptedly until dawn. Between 2332 and 0125, there were nine raids of two to four planes each; between 0340 and 0450, three raids of two to four planes each; and between 0454 and 0555 five additional planes made an attack on the area.7 The Tacloban airstrip frequently was “well illuminated” by burning aircraft.8