Why is there a US ship named ‘Leyte Gulf’? Published May 30, 2022, 3:02 PM by Dom Galeon

*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Leyte_Gulf

If you were among those who went to the theaters this weekend to catch the sequel to “Top Gun,” the film that launched Tom Cruise to stardom, then you might’ve caught a bit of dialogue toward the end of the movie where an American warship was mentioned. This ship, like the USS Enterprise in the first “Top Gun” film and the USS Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt in the second film, is real. And its name is Leyte Gulf. 

Curious why there is a US navy ship (a guided missile cruiser, to be more specific) named after a body of water in the Philippines? Then read on.

If you recall your World War II history, Leyte stands as a monumental point in the Pacific theater of the war—quite literally, because the famous MacArthur Landing monument stands on the shores of the island. It was in the province, on Oct. 20, 1944, where Gen. Douglas MacArthur first stepped foot on his return to the Philippines, which eventually led to the liberation of the country from the invading Japanese forces. After MacArthur’s landing, the rest of the Allied forces had to fight against a relieving Japanese naval force dispatched from Brunei to Leyte Gulf and this battle has come to be known as the largest naval battle in the history of the Second World War (or, as some would say, in the history of any naval battle ever).

Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s (middle) historic landing on Leyte, with Carlos P. Romulo (later UN secretary-general) third from left (Photo by Gaetano Faillace)

The Battle of Leyte Gulf, which lasted for three days and took place on various points in the waters surrounding the islands of Leyte and Samar, was in many ways the culmination of three long years of naval skirmishes between the Allied forces and the Japanese Imperial Navy in the Pacific. It involved over 200,000 naval personnel from more than 300 US and Australian ships against a little over 67 ships of the Japanese Imperial Navy, locked in combat over a series of four main battles. Both forces, through some weird coincidence, lacked an overall naval commander, which resulted in decisions carried out in those three days that were not quite strategic for both sides. Nevertheless, with Japanese air superiority heavily decimated from the previous battles at the Philippine Sea and Formosa. At the Battle of Leyte Gulf, Japan fielded inexperienced recruits who were no match against the pilot aces of the Americans who had been slugging it out with the Japs in various air battles in the Pacific.

What is, perhaps, not-so-known to many is how the largest naval battle in history started with just two submarines from the Allies. Anticipating the Japanese fleet from Brunei, two US submarines—the USS Darter and the USS Dace—waited pass Palawan. These two, which the Japs did not expect, were able to cripple three of the largest ships in the attacking fleet, limiting the latter’s chances of winning the eventual battle on the gulf of Leyte. Because of the air superiority of the Allies, it was at the Battle of Leyte Gulf that the first so-called kamikaze attacks in the Pacific war happened

To cut the long story short, the Battle of Leyte Gulf was a victory for the combined US and Australian naval forces. Despite having no clear overall commander, history credits Adm. William Halsey as the Allies’ main man. Adm. Takeo Kurita made most of the strategic decisions for the Japanese fleet. But as the cliché goes, no one really wins in a war. With a moniker like “the greatest naval battle in history”—and, indeed, it guaranteed the liberation of the Philippines and overall Allied victory in the Pacific—the casualties from Leyte Gulf were also, sadly, great: some 12,500 Japanese and over 3,000 Americans and Australians.

USS Leyte Gulf (US Navy/US Naval Institute)

In any case, the Battle of Leyte Gulf sealed itself in history as a naval battle to remember, and the US Navy even did so by naming a cruiser after it. Still in active service today, the USS Leyte Gulf was commissioned on Sept. 26, 1987. When it is not busy firing guided Tomahawk missiles at “enemy” airfields (as is seen in “Top Gun: Maverick”), it is based at the naval port in Norfolk, Virginia.

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