General Douglas MacArthur, supreme Allied commander in the Pacific, was eager to begin the campaign to retake the Philippines, which he had been forced to abandon at the beginning of the war. His forces had captured Morotai, between New Guinea and Mindanao, even as the III Marine Corps had conquered Peleliu and Angaur in the central Pacific. This put U.S. land forces in a position to begin the reconquest of the Philippines. However, after Admiral William "Bull" Halsey, in command of the Third U.S. Fleet, encountered little Japanese opposition at the Battle of Mindanao during September 9-10, 1944, MacArthur resolved to bypass the southern Philippines and make a direct assault on Leyte, in the center of the Philippine island group. Supporting the invasion was the spectacular naval Battle of Leyte Gulf.

The invasion was to be carried out by the Sixth U.S. Army under Walter Krueger with XXIV Corps (John Hodge) and X Corps (Franklin Sibert). Opposing Krueger was the Thirty-fifth Japanese Army (Suzuki Sosaku). The U.S. landings were carried out by the U.S. Seventh Fleet (Thomas Kinkaid) with air defense supplied by naval aviators as well as the Southwest Pacific Air Forces (George Kenney).

On October 17-18, army Rangers took the small islands guarding the eastern entrance to Leyte Gulf. The navy launched a two-hour bombardment on October 20, after which four infantry divisions landed on the east coast of Leyte between Tacloban and Dulag, 17 miles to the south. Two divisions of X Corps on the right and two divisions of XXIV Corps on the left fought inland from the beachheads in a four-day battle that secured operational airfields. It was November 2 before Sixth Army gained control of the Leyte Valley, from Carigara on the north coast to Abuyog in the southeast. After this, on the left, the 7th Infantry crossed the island to Baybay on the west coast.

Progress had been slow but substantial. However, torrential rains and increased resistance from consolidated Japanese forces in the mountainous interior brought the American advance to a crawl. Determined to prevent the Americans from taking the Philippines, Yamashita Tomoyuki, the Japanese commander in charge of the islands, funneled reinforcements to Leyte from surrounding islands. Between October 23 and December 11, about 45,000 Japanese troops landed at Ormoc on the island's west coast--even though the U.S. Navy had decimated Japanese sea forces. . .

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