The Americans anticipated increased aerial activity over Leyte, and therefore the number of fighters was increased on 24 October to 36, on call from 0545 till dark, with an additional 16 fighters ready for immediate action upon request. Twenty-eight of the 36 were assigned to the attack force commanders and 8, retained by General Krueger, patrolled the beachhead area and provided additional fighters when and where they were needed.
The Leyte area was subjected to a heavy air assault on the same day, 24 October, when an estimated 150 to 200 enemy planes (mostly twin-engined bombers) approached northern Leyte. Sixty-six were definitely shot down and eighteen others were probably shot down.[4] On the American side, forty combat air patrol and ten direct supporting planes participated in this engagement. Three American aircraft crash-landed—two on the Tacloban airstrip and one in the water.[5] Only a small percentage of the American air activity was directed toward the neutralization of the enemy air force, as most of the available aircraft were attacking the Japanese fleet. The Japanese were determined to “make Leyte the decisive air battlefield as well as the decisive ground and naval battlefield of the Philippines.”[6] For the first time since the Allied counteroffensive in the Pacific had started rolling, the Japanese, for an extended period, risked aircraft in great numbers in daylight raids as well as at night. The shipping off Tacloban and Dulag and the Tacloban airfield were the principal targets, though other air installations on the island were hit. An example of the enemy’s dogged determination occurred during the evening and night of 27 October. At twilight, twelve enemy fighters and dive bombers dropped 100-pound bombs in the vicinity of Tacloban and tried repeatedly but unsuccessfully to strafe the Tacloban airstrip. After a lull, the Japanese aircraft renewed the aerial assault just before midnight and continued almost uninterruptedly until dawn. Between 2332 and 0125, there were nine raids of two to four planes each; between 0340 and 0450, three raids of two to four planes each; and between 0454 and 0555 five additional planes made an attack on the area.[7] The Tacloban airstrip frequently was “well illuminated” by burning aircraft.[8]
JAPANESE AIR ATTACKS on shipping (above) and supply dumps (below) were a constant threat during the early days of the invasion.
The 2d Air Division assaulted American shipping from 24 through 28 October, but because of the increasing necessity for giving air cover to the convoys the main strength of fighters of the 4th Air Army was used to protect the transportation of reinforcements of the 14th Area Army of Leyte. From 25 October on, the Bacolod airfield and the air forces protecting the Japanese convoys going to Leyte were attacked by American bombers and suffered serious losses. Since it had to participate in every phase of the action, the losses of the 4th Air Army were heavy.[9]
After 1 November the Japanese increasingly felt the American air power through attacks upon their air bases and shipping. Their fighter units, which had suffered considerable losses in protecting the convoys, were ordered to counterattack. They were not successful. At the same time the 4th Air Army received orders to protect the reinforcement convoys in the Manila area. By this time the Japanese air forces’ wings had been clipped and “what had once been a formidable weapon was transformed into a sacrificial army of guided missiles.”[10] The suicidal kamikaze pilot became the sole hope of the Japanese air forces.