What Nimitz Said When MacArthur Demanded His Carriers for the Philippines – King Refused 

Admiral Chester Nimttz sat in his office reading the most extraordinary message he’d received in three years of war. General Douglas MacArthur was demanding control of the Pacific Fleet carrier task forces. All of them. Every carrier, every escort ship, every aircraft. MacArthur wanted them redirected from their planned operations to support his invasion of the Philippines.

 The message wasn’t a request. It was written as an order, as if MacArthur commanded the Navy. Nimttz read it twice, set it down, read it a third time to make sure he wasn’t misunderstanding. He wasn’t. MacArthur was actually ordering the commander-in-chief of the Pacific Fleet to hand over operational control of the most powerful naval strike force ever assembled.

 16 fleet carriers, eight light carriers, over 1,000 aircraft. The ships that had destroyed Japanese naval power from Midway to the Maranas. MacArthur wanted them parked off laty, providing close air support like floating artillery batteries. Nimmits picked up the secure phone to Washington. Admiral Ernest King answered.

 Commanderin-chief of the US Navy. The most difficult, stubborn, and uncompromising man in the American military. Also the one man who absolutely would not tolerate an army general trying to command naval forces. Nimmits asked one question. Does MacArthur actually believe I’m going to give him operational control of the carrier fleet? King’s response was immediate. No.

 And if he asks again, tell him to go to hell. There was a pause. Then King added, “Actually, don’t tell him. I’ll tell him myself.” This is the story of the greatest command dispute in the Pacific War when the most famous general in America demanded resources from the most effective naval force ever assembled. And when two admirals told him no, not politely, not diplomatically, just no.

 The relationship between MacArthur and the Navy had been poisonous since 1942. When MacArthur evacuated the Philippines in March 1942, he blamed the Navy for not providing enough support. Never mind that the Asiatic fleet had been destroyed trying to defend the islands. When he arrived in Australia and delivered his famous, “I shall return speech,” he didn’t mention the Navy sailors and PT boat crews who’d gotten him there.

 When he began his island hopping campaign through New Guinea, he complained constantly that the Navy wasn’t giving him enough resources. Admiral King had a simple response. MacArthur commanded the Southwest Pacific theater. Nimttz commanded the Central Pacific. Each had their own forces, their own objectives, their own supply lines.

 MacArthur didn’t get to commandeer Nimitz’s ships just because he wanted them. But MacArthur had never accepted that arrangement. He believed there should be one supreme commander in the Pacific himself. With all forces, army, and navy under his control, King would rather resign than serve under MacArthur. He’d said so repeatedly.

Roosevelt knew this. He deliberately kept the Pacific command split to prevent either MacArthur or King from dominating the other. It was politically expedient, strategically questionable, but it had worked so far until October 1944 when MacArthur decided to force the issue. To understand why MacArthur wanted the carriers, you need to understand his situation in October 1944.

 He just returned to the Philippines, kept his promise. I shall return. The landing at Ley on October 20th had gone well. The beaches were secured, initial objectives taken, but now he was stuck. The Japanese weren’t retreating. They were reinforcing. General Tamuki Yamashita was rushing troops deated. Convoys from Formosa were arriving daily, and MacArthur’s air support was limited.

 The Army Air Forces in the Southwest Pacific had fighters and bombers, P38 Lightnings, B-24 Liberators, good aircraft, experienced crews, but they were land-based, operating from fields in New Guinea and Morati and newly captured bases in the Philippines. Their range was limited. Their sorty rates were constrained by runway capacity, by fuel supplies, by the simple fact that land bases can only launch so many aircraft.

 Meanwhile, Admiral William Holsey’s third fleet was operating off the coast. Task Force 38, 16 fleet carriers, eight light carriers, over 1,000 aircraft. The most powerful naval strike force in history. They’d been hitting targets across the Philippines for weeks, destroying Japanese aircraft on the ground, sinking cargo ships.

 But from MacArthur’s perspective, they were doing it inefficiently. A carrier strike would hit an airfield, destroy everything. Then the task force would move on. Two days later, the Japanese would have aircraft back on that same airfield. MacArthur wanted the carriers to stay. Provide continuous air cover over Laty. Destroy every Japanese aircraft that tried to land, every convoy that tried to reinforce. Not hitand-run strikes.

persistent air superiority, the way land-based air forces would provide it. Except carriers don’t work that way. MacArthur’s message to Nimitz was blunt. The carriers should be placed under his operational control. They should provide close air support for ground operations in the Philippines. They should remain stationed off laty until the island was secured.

 That could take months, maybe longer. The carriers would become MacArthur’s floating air force, available on demand, providing the persistent air superiority his ground forces needed. Nimitz’s response was equally blunt. No, the carriers had a different mission. They were hunting the Japanese fleet, destroying enemy air bases, supporting the island hopping campaign.

 They were not MacArthur’s personal air force. MacArthur went over Nimitz’s head directly to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He argued that the Pacific War should be reorganized. One supreme commander, obviously him, with control over all forces. Admiral King read MacArthur’s proposal in Washington. His response was immediate and profane.

No Army general would ever command the US Navy. MacArthur sent another message, this time directly to President Roosevelt. The carriers were sitting offshore doing nothing of strategic value while American soldiers were fighting for their lives on Laty. Roosevelt passed the message to the joint chiefs. They both said no.

 But MacArthur had one more card to play. On October 24th, 1944, the Japanese fleet sorted for the Battle of Lake Gulf. The largest naval battle in history. Four separate engagements spread across three days. The Japanese plan was desperate but clever. They’d split their fleet into three groups.

 The northern force built around four carriers with almost no aircraft would lure Holse’s carriers north. While Holsey was chasing the decoy, the center force would come through San Bernardino straight and hit the Lee beach head. The southern force would come up from the south through Surigal Straight. The American landing beaches would be caught in a vice.

 It nearly worked. Holy took the bait. His carriers went north chasing the Japanese carriers. The center force came through San Bernardino Straight unopposed. Four battleships, including the super battleship Yamato. Six heavy cruisers, two light cruisers, 11 destroyers heading straight for the landing beaches.

 The only thing between them and MacArthur’s forces was Taffy 3. Task unit 77.43. Six escort carriers, seven destroyers and destroyer escorts commanded by Rear Admiral Clifton Sprag. These weren’t fleet carriers. These were escort carriers. Converted merchant holes, slow, lightly armored, designed for air support and anti-ubmarine coverage, not to fight battleships. At 6:45 a.m.

 on October 25th, Sprag’s lookout spotted Pagoda masts on the horizon. Japanese battleships coming fast. Sprag ordered his carriers to launch everything. every fighter, every bomber, even aircraft that weren’t armed. Then he ordered his destroyers to attack. It was suicide. Destroyers against battleships, but it was the only option.

 USS Johnston charged the Japanese fleet, fired all her torpedoes, then stayed in close engaging with her 5-in guns. USS Hull did the same, took over 40 hits before she sank. USS Samuel B. Roberts, a destroyer escort, charged Yamato, a 1,700 ton destroyer escort against a 72,000 ton battleship. She fired 600 rounds from her 5-in guns before Japanese shells ripped her apart.

 The carriers were running at maximum speed, making smoke, launching aircraft, praying. Yamato’s 18-in guns could destroy an escort carrier with a single hit. But the smoke screens confused Japanese ranging. The desperate aircraft attacks disrupted their formations. And critically, the Japanese commander misidentified the escort carriers as fleet carriers.

 He thought he was fighting Ho’s third fleet. He got cautious, started maneuvering defensively. Then, inexplicably, he ordered a retreat. The center force turned around and went back through San Bernardino Straight. They’d been minutes away from destroying Taffy 3 and shelling the landing beaches, but they retreated.

 MacArthur’s beach head was saved, barely, and Holy’s carriers were 300 m north, engaging the decoy fleet. MacArthur seized on this as proof of his argument. The carriers were off doing naval things while his ground forces were nearly overrun. Admiral King’s response was withering. He sent a message directly to MacArthur through official channels.

 The battle of Lee Gulf had destroyed Japanese naval power in the Pacific. Permanently, four carriers sunk. Three battleships sunk, 10 cruisers sunk, 11 destroyers sunk. The Imperial Japanese Navy as an offensive force ceased to exist after Lee Gulf. Japan still had ships, but they couldn’t operate as a fleet anymore. They didn’t have the fuel.

 They didn’t have the aircraft. They didn’t have the trained crews. The naval threat to American operations was over. That victory was achieved by carrier operations under naval command, pursuing strategic objectives, destroying the enemy fleet. Holly had made a tactical mistake chasing the decoy carriers. King didn’t deny that.

 But that tactical mistake occurred in the context of a strategic victory. The Japanese had sorted everything they had. Their last operational battleships, their last heavy cruisers, and they’d been destroyed. If the carriers had been stationed off lately, providing close air support as MacArthur wanted, they wouldn’t have been hunting the Japanese fleet.

 The Japanese center force would have approached from a different direction or waited. The opportunity to destroy the Japanese fleet in open battle would have been lost. The war would have continued with a Japanese navy still capable of threatening American operations. Every subsequent landing would have faced the risk of Japanese battleships appearing offshore.

MacArthur’s proposal wasn’t strategy. It was tactical myopia dressed up as operational necessity. King’s message didn’t use those exact words, but the meaning was clear. Nimmits backed King completely. The carrier fleet had a strategic mission. That mission took priority over tactical ground support. MacArthur would receive naval air support when the carrier commanders deemed it appropriate, but he would never have operational control.

MacArthur’s response was to stop requesting carrier support. For months, even when it would have been useful, he refused to ask. Pride wouldn’t allow it. But MacArthur didn’t realize something critical. While he was demanding floating airfields, the Japanese were building flying bombs. On October 25th, 1944, the same day Taffy 3 was fighting for its life, the first organized kamicazi attacks hit the escort carriers off Lee. USS St.

 Low was sunk by a zero that crashed through her flight deck. The bomb and fuel ignited planes and ammunition below. She sank in 30 minutes. USS Santi Suani and white planes were damaged. Dozens of sailors died. These were opportunistic attacks. The kamicazis found targets that happened to be there. But if Nimitz had said yes to MacArthur, if the fleet carriers had been parked off lately for months, the kamicazis wouldn’t have been searching.

 They would have known exactly where to find the most valuable targets in the Pacific. 16 fleet carriers sitting in the same position. Day after day, the Japanese would have thrown everything at them. Hundreds of suicide aircraft, all aimed at ships that couldn’t maneuver away because they were tied to supporting ground operations.

 A carrier can defend itself by moving, by being somewhere else when the enemy arrives. MacArthur’s plan would have stripped them of their only real defense. Static carriers aren’t carriers anymore. They’re targets. The irony is that MacArthur got extensive carrier support during the Philippines campaign. Carrier aircraft flew thousands of sorties in support of ground operations.

 In the weeks after Lady Gulf, Task Force 38 hit Japanese airfields across the Philippines. Luzon, Mindanao, Sibu, Negros. They destroyed over 300 Japanese aircraft in the first week of November 1944. Shot down pilots who couldn’t be replaced. Bombed runways that couldn’t be repaired fast enough. They sank cargo ships carrying reinforcements.

 oil tankers trying to supply Japanese forces. Troop transports attempting to evacuate personnel from doomed garrisons. When MacArthur’s forces landed on Muro in December, carrier aircraft provided air cover. They flew combat air patrols. They struck Japanese positions inland. When the invasion of Luzon began in January 1945, carriers struck Japanese positions for days before the landing.

 The Lingayan Gulf landings were supported by coordinated carrier strikes that destroyed Japanese coastal defenses. The support was extensive, effective, coordinated with MacArthur’s operations, but it was done on the Navy’s schedule as part of a broader strategic campaign. The carriers would arrive, strike their targets, then move to the next operation.

 They didn’t sit in one location providing persistent air coverage. That drove MacArthur crazy. He wanted control. Wanted the ability to direct carrier strikes when and where he needed them. He wanted to wake up knowing carrier aircraft would be overhead all day, every day until the Philippines were completely secured. He never got it because Nimmits and King understood something MacArthur refused to accept. Carriers are sharks.

 They survive by moving. Sitting in one location for weeks meant the Japanese could find them, track them, wait for them. The mobility of the carrier task forces was their primary defense. If you tie a carrier to a beach for 3 weeks, you don’t have a fleet anymore. You have a graveyard. King knew this. Nimmits knew this.

 Every naval aviator knew this. MacArthur didn’t know this or didn’t care. His focus was on ground operations, which was fine. That was his job. But it’s why he didn’t get to command the carriers. The historical verdict has sided with Nimitz and King. The carrier task forces operating under naval command destroyed the Japanese fleet, cut off Japanese garrisons, enabled the island hopping campaign.

They were decisive weapons because they were mobile, because they could concentrate force where needed, because they weren’t tied to supporting ground operations in a single location. If MacArthur had gotten control in October 1944, they would have been stationed off lately for months. The Japanese fleet instead of being destroyed at later Gulf would have retreated, preserved its strength, continued to threaten Allied operations.

 The Central Pacific advance under Nimitz would have stalled. Without carrier support, the invasions of Eoima and Okinawa would have been impossible or delayed by a year. The war would have lasted longer. Casualties would have mounted. MacArthur’s tactical needs in the Philippines would have been met. But the strategic cost would have been enormous. That’s why King said no.

That’s why Nimmits backed him. The carriers stayed under naval command. MacArthur never accepted that he was wrong. In his memoirs published in 1964, he criticized the Navy’s carrier strategy, argued that his ground forces were left exposed. He never mentioned that he demanded operational control of those same carriers.

 Never acknowledged that parking them off late would have gotten them sunk. Never admitted that the admirals might have understood carrier warfare better than he did. King died in 1956. Nimttz died in 1966. Neither lived to read MacArthur’s memoirs. Maybe that was for the best. The lesson isn’t that MacArthur was incompetent. He wasn’t.

 He was brilliant at ground warfare, but he didn’t understand carrier warfare and refusing to admit that almost cost the navy its most powerful weapon. King and Nimttz understood carrier operations. The mobility, the striking power, the vulnerability when static. They said no to MacArthur because saying yes would have turned the most powerful naval weapon in history into a parking lot.

MacArthur demanded the carriers. King refused. Nimitz backed him. Roosevelt let the Navy keep its fleet, and the carriers won the Pacific War by doing exactly what they were designed to do, not sitting offshore waiting to be sunk. Here’s the irony. The man who said, “I shall return,” almost prevented the Navy from making sure he could stay there.

 If MacArthur had gotten his way, if the carriers had parked off Laty, the kamicazis would have found them. The fleet would have been crippled. The advance toward Japan stalled and MacArthur might have been forced to evacuate the Philippines again. King Animitz saved MacArthur’s invasion by refusing to help him the way he wanted.

MacArthur never understood that the carriers won the Pacific War anyway.