On 6 January 1945 an American and Australian bombardment force under Vice Admiral Jesse B. Oldendorf entered Lingayen Gulf, on the west coast of Luzon in the Philippines, to sweep mines and shell the beaches where the U.S. Sixth Army was to land three days later. The Japanese answered with kamikaze attacks that lasted most of the day. Several battleships and cruisers were hit, a minesweeper was sunk, and among the dead was a British general. The landing itself went ahead on 9 January and met almost no resistance on the beaches.
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, and its capital, Manila. The landing at the southern end of Lingayen Gulf was set for 9 January 1945. The U.S. Navy's history of the operation gives a first wave of about 68,000 troops of the Sixth Army under Lieutenant General Walter Krueger.1
To prepare the way, Oldendorf's bombardment and fire support group of old battleships, cruisers and destroyers, with escort carriers and minesweepers in support, had to enter the gulf three days early. Getting there meant a long voyage up the west side of the Philippines, within reach of Japanese airfields. The force had already been attacked by kamikazes on the way, and on 5 January several of its ships were hit.2
6 January: the gulf under attack
Oldendorf's ships arrived off the gulf before dawn. Minesweeping began at about 07:00, and the bombardment of shore targets began during the morning. Smith records that the sweeps that morning found only two floating mines. Kamikaze attacks began in earnest at around 11:30.3
At about noon a kamikaze struck the bridge of the battleship USS New Mexico. The ship's captain, Robert W. Fleming, was among 30 killed, with 87 wounded. Also killed was the British Lieutenant General Herbert Lumsden, who, the Navy's history notes, was Winston Churchill's personal representative at MacArthur's headquarters. Around the same time the destroyer USS Walke was attacked by four aircraft in quick succession. Her gunners shot down two, the third hit the bridge, and the fourth was shot down by his gunners. Her commanding officer, Commander George F. Davis, was badly burned but kept conning the ship until she was safe. He died a few hours later and was awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously.4
At 12:15 the destroyer minesweeper USS Long was hit below the bridge; she sank the next day. The destroyer transport USS Brooks was hit at 12:52. In the late afternoon a kamikaze crashed into the battleship USS California, and a misdirected American 5-inch shell hit one of her guns. The Naval History and Heritage Command gives 45 killed and 151 wounded aboard. The cruisers USS Columbia, USS Louisville and HMAS Australia were also hit. On Louisville, struck for the second time in two days, Rear Admiral Theodore E. Chandler was severely burned while helping to fight the fires, and he died the next day.5
Counting the cost
The totals for the day differ between sources. Smith's Army history says the Japanese attacks killed nearly 170 men and wounded 500, with a few more casualties from friendly antiaircraft fire. The Navy's account by Samuel J. Cox says the attacks were made by only 28 kamikazes and 15 escorting fighters, and that they sank one ship and damaged 11.6
Oldendorf did not pull his ships out. In the afternoon he sent his battleships and cruisers deeper into the gulf, partly to support the minesweepers and partly, Smith writes, to show the Japanese that the suicide attacks were not working. That evening he asked MacArthur's and Halsey's commands for the strongest possible air effort against the Japanese airfields on Luzon. Carrier planes of Admiral William Halsey's Third Fleet had already been attacking those fields that day.7
The landing on 9 January
Kamikaze attacks continued until 13 January, but on a smaller scale. On 9 January the assault waves went ashore on the southern beaches of the gulf, with XIV Corps in the west around Lingayen and I Corps in the east near San Fabian. They met no opposition at the water's edge. The Japanese commander on Luzon, General Tomoyuki Yamashita, did not contest the beaches; as the Navy's account puts it, the hard fighting for Luzon came later and inland.8
Smith counts 24 Allied vessels sunk and 67 damaged by Japanese air attacks between 13 December 1944 and 13 January 1945, a period that includes the Mindoro operation as well as Lingayen. For more on the commanders involved, see the commanders of the Pacific War.9
Also on this day
- 1919: Battle of Ławica. Polish insurgents of the Greater Poland Uprising fought German troops for the military airfield at Ławica, then a village outside Poznań.
