6 January in military history: kamikaze attacks at Lingayen Gulf, 1945

6 January 1945 · 81 years ago

The plan for Luzon

After the Battle of Leyte Gulf and the fighting on Leyte, General Douglas MacArthur's next objective was Luzon, the main island of the Philippines. The U.S. Sixth Army under Lieutenant General Walter Krueger was to land on the southern shore of Lingayen Gulf on 9 January 1945.¹

To prepare the way, Vice Admiral Jesse B. Oldendorf's bombardment and fire support ships, old battleships, cruisers and destroyers, sailed from Leyte Gulf on 2 January together with minesweepers and escort carriers. On the way they were attacked from the air almost every day, and on 5 January several ships were hit.²

6 January: the gulf under attack

At dawn on 6 January Oldendorf's groups took up their positions off the gulf, and minesweeping began at about 7:00 a.m.. The kamikaze attacks in force began at about 11:30.³

At noon a burning Japanese plane crashed into the bridge of the battleship USS New Mexico while she was shelling the shore. Her captain, Robert W. Fleming, was among 30 killed, and 87 men were wounded. Also killed was the British Lieutenant General Herbert Lumsden, Winston Churchill's personal liaison officer at MacArthur's headquarters.⁴

At about the same time the destroyer USS Walke was attacked by four planes in quick succession. Her gunners shot down two; the third crashed into her bridge and set her commanding officer, Commander George F. Davis, on fire. Badly burned, he went on conning the ship until the fourth plane was shot down and the ship was safe. He died a few hours later and was awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously.⁵

Shortly after noon a kamikaze hit the destroyer minesweeper USS Long; a second plane struck her in the late afternoon, and she sank the next day. In the afternoon the destroyer transport Brooks was hit as well. Late in the day a kamikaze crashed into the battleship USS California: the Navy's ship history gives 44 killed and 155 wounded, Morison, who also counts the damage from friendly antiaircraft fire, 45 killed and 151 wounded. The light cruiser Columbia lost 13 killed and 44 wounded, and the heavy cruiser Louisville was hit for the second time in two days.⁶

Counting the cost

The Army's official historian, Robert Ross Smith, writes that the day's attacks killed nearly 170 men and wounded 500, and that misdirected friendly antiaircraft fire caused a few more casualties. Morison counts one ship sunk and eleven damaged, and calls the day the worst blow to the U.S. Navy since the Battle of Tassafaronga in November 1942.⁷

Oldendorf did not pull his ships out. In the afternoon he sent his battleships, cruisers and destroyers deeper into the gulf, partly so that the Japanese would think their suicide attacks were not working. That evening he reported an urgent need for more air support, asking for heavier attacks on the Luzon airfields and for the Third Fleet to come closer. Carrier planes of the Third Fleet had struck the airfields that morning, but weather and Japanese dispersal limited them to some 32 aircraft destroyed.⁸

The landing on 9 January

On 9 January the assault waves went ashore on the southern beaches of the gulf, with XIV Corps around Lingayen and I Corps near San Fabian, and met no opposition at the water's edge. The Japanese commander on Luzon, General Tomoyuki Yamashita, had decided to leave those shores undefended and to concentrate his forces in the mountains, where the hard fighting for Luzon came later. For more on the commanders involved, see the commanders of the Pacific War.⁹