THE LEYTE INVASION WAS NOT QUITE AS LARGE AS THE NORMANDY invasion four months earlier, but the fleet was obliged to cross a lot more ocean. Thirteen hundred miles lay between Hollandia, MacArthur’s major port of embarkation on northern New Guinea, and the landing beaches at Leyte Gulf. But the invasion fleet amounted to more than seven hundred ships, too many to squeeze into Hollandia—so a major portion of the force sailed from Manus, in the Admiralties, which lay another 500 miles to the east. The various elements of the great armada would rendezvous at sea along the way.
