WI: Halsey was not foolish?

[Ming777]

What if Halsey did not pursue Admiral Ozawa's decoy force at Leyte Gulf?

 

[basileus]

US victory would be even more total locally, and with a little luck Japan would retain Ozawa's air carriers for several months. And the world would miss the painful, clumsy scene of a giant battleship trying to sink escort carriers.

 

[CalBear]

The Yamato dies a few months earlier.

Halsey wasn't foolish, he was over aggressive. There is a huge difference. Foolish means that you had no reason to act the way you did, over aggressive means you act too quickly. Grant was over aggressive, McClellan was foolish.

Over aggressive can be costly, it is also a trait that helps your side win, especially if you have the advantage in numbers.

What did Halsey's actions at Leyte actually cost the USN? ONE CVE, two DD and one DDE. The Japanese lost THREE heavy cruisers attacking the Taffys (Chokai, Suzuya, and Chikuma) and had four more shot all to pieces (Kumano, Haguro, Myoko, & Tone) The battleships Kongo and Nagano, were badly damaged, and they lost a destroyer. Halsey left the Taffy exposed, no doubt. He also left the Taffys with 450 planes, or around 70 more than the Kido Butai used to destroy the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor.

Was it a perfect fight? No. A fair fight? No. The Japanese were doomed.

 

[xchen08]

Hey, if Halsey didn't go chasing Ozawa's empty carriers, or even better does so only with his own carriers, then we might see the holy grail of AH: 6 modern American battleships including 2 Iowas taking on the Yamato and a bunch of older modernized battleships. Pretty sure the Japanese would get smashed, but the Yamato taking on 2 Iowas at the same time would be quite a sight.

 

[burmafrd]

Halsey should have sent the 2 Iowa's north to provide gunfire support and sink cripples. Send the other 4 BBs with most of his CAs with one carrier group to wait for Kurita. With DD's to launch torpedo attacks (As Oldendorf did at Surigao) itw ould have been devastating.

One big problem the Taffy's had was that their pilots had had very little training in hitting ships- they were primarily a ground support force.

 

[Markus]

What did Halsey's actions at Leyte actually cost the USN? ONE CVE, two DD and one DDE.

Sheers luck! If the Japanese had maintained formation instead of every ship hunting on it´s own, the US looses would have been worse. Not to mention what could have happened if Kurita had decided to go the whole nine yards and pay a vistit to the transport fleet.

Again, Halsey´s lack of caution could have had disasterous consequences if he had not been lucky.

 

[CDurham]

Halsey should have sent the 2 Iowa's north to provide gunfire support and sink cripples. Send the other 4 BBs with most of his CAs with one carrier group to wait for Kurita. With DD's to launch torpedo attacks (As Oldendorf did at Surigao) itw ould have been devastating.

One big problem the Taffy's had was that their pilots had had very little training in hitting ships- they were primarily a ground support force.

And depthcharges and GP bombs are generally ineffective against battleships...

 

[Andrew Hudson]

He should have thrown a sickie like he did before Midway and the Phillipine Sea! Seriously though he acted on limited information it wasn't known that the Japanese aircraft had no fuel to attack. His incompetence was hisapparent loosing the plot hence the signal "Where is task force 34?" and his procrastination in turning South once the threat was removed. Also his handling of a Typhoon in December 1944 was less than competent. Halsey was rather on the rash side but his initial decision to go for the carriers was based on what appeared to be a serious threat

 

[cra0422]

Halsey was indeed rash, but his nature was that of a fighter instead of a tactician. At Leyte, he was somewhat out of his element. He was great at commanding a small task force, like the series of raids he launched in early 1942, but that doesn't necessarily mean he could command a fleet like the one he had at Leyte.

Also his decision to attack the carriers was based on what information he had and all experience of the Japanese using carriers. Remember that Admiral Kurita originally turned back before changing his mind again and heading towards the American landing beaches. When Halsey decided to attack the carriers, he believed that Kurita had retreated.

I believe that American Naval Intelligence did not truly realize just how bad the Japanese losses in aircraft were at the Philippine Sea. Could anyone have known at the time that the Japanese carriers were practically empty?

 

[burmafrd]

Mitscher and the air brass knew the Japanese Carriers could not be much of a threat. Just three months earlier the air groups of those carriers had been pretty much massacared at the Phillipines Seas battle - our own pilots called it the Turkey Shoot. With their air groups wiped out their replacements could only be partially trained= and the groups they had replaced had been pretty pathetic but had had longer to train.
We not only had them outnumbered more then 3-1, our pilots and planes were much better. ANYONE with a brain would have realized that those carriers were nothing but lures; the japanese did this in almost every battle=put out units to try and lure us into doing what they wanted us to.

we knew the japanese were running out of oil and the ability to even move what they had around. so the carriers had not been doing much training. So anyone with any common sense knew those carriers were NOT a current threat. Could they be a future threat=yes. BUT how much of a threat? What was more important was to protect the invasion fleet.

Halsey had the strength to do both. BUT he lacked the willingness to take a chance and divide his forces to do both. And in the end he did not destroy either. Which in many respects is the most damning of all the charges that could be made at him. If he had taken everything north and destroyed Ozawa that would have been OK as things turned out. If he had stayed south and destroyed Kurita that would hae been good as well. BUT he did not do either one and THAT should be what he is blamed for.