"The Naval Institute Press, via the editorship and authorship of naval officer and historian Thomas Cutler, has brought another fine anthology not just to students and consumers of naval history, but other audiences as well. This effort, about the Battle of Leyte Gulf, is much in the same vein as Thomas C. Hone's earlier anthology of The Battle of Midway, released in 2013.[1] Leyte Gulf, fought in the waters around the Northern Philippine Islands in late October 1944, was the last great fleet action, pitting the still-powerful Japanese surface fleet against the U.S. Navy's Seventh and Third Fleets.[2] The battle included at least four separate engagements and many pre- and post-script actions as well. Those four actions—in the Sibuyan Sea, the Surigao Strait, off the Island of Samar, and off Cape Engano—contained enough nail-biting drama, tales of desperate heroism, and controversy to keep naval and military historians writing for, well, 75 years.
As always, there is something new to be said, and perhaps something older that still is worth revisiting. The controversy surrounding Admiral Bill Halsey's turn to the north to chase a deception fleet while leaving the Leyte Gulf landing forces and their light protection at risk against Vice Admiral Kurita Takeo's Main Force battleships, cruisers, and destroyers certainly bears revisiting. Disaster was averted, but barely. It is a story that really never grows old.
There are some differences in this effort versus Hone's earlier work on Midway. While the earlier book looked at the battle topically, this anthology is structurally divided into two parts—original essays and the archives.It also includes a fine retrospective and introduction by Cutler, as well as a short closing epitaph that consists of three short epigrams on the battle from other books published about it…"
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