Quote Originally Posted by wacojoe View Post
The Battle Of Leyte Gulf, 10/24/1944 was the last major sea battle in which aircraft carriers were not present —

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the...o-strait-20713
Not to correct such a learned mind as yours, counselor, but aircraft carriers indeed did play a large role in the Leyte Gulf actions, not only by their presence, but their absence as well...Adm. William Halsey was forced to make a difficult decision as the JIN made a feinting move with an array of ships commanded by Vice Adm. Ozawa who took several nearly empty JIN aircraft carriers into the seas north of the Allied 3rd Fleet in an attempt to lure Halsey's main battle force to them while the real attack came from the JIN Southern and Central forces...

Halsey took the bait, but intended for a contingency force to be available to defend the Army units already on Leyte Gulf beaches...Through miscommunication and garbled transmissions, the defending forces for Leyte Gulf were stripped to a handful of destroyers, destroyer escorts and small, slow escort carriers...This small defensive force (callsign Taffy 3) was then called on to battle against the formidable force of Adm. Kurita's battleships, heavy cruisers and destroyers...In tactical command of Taffy 3, Lt. Cmdr. Evans, also commanding the closest destroyer, USS Johnston, immediately attacked Kurita's fleet with his ship, and ordered all other small ships and any available aircraft from the escort carriers to attack as well...

Adm. Kurita was so stunned by the unexpected assault, and confused that the small destroyers may have been larger heavy cruisers by their attack tactics, he ordered his fleet to withdraw to safety, but not without sinking the Johnston, and doing severe damage to the remainder of Taffy 3, which continued the assault...This was the last time the JIN presented any viable threat in the Pacific...Taffy three sank two JIN heavy cruisers in the melee which became known as "The Last Stand of the Tincan Navy"...

The photo pictured in Joe's link is one of my favorites from the Pacific War...It shows the USS Pennsylvania leading the battleship Colorado, and cruisers, Louisville, Portland and Columbia into the Lingayen Gulf in January 1945......Ben