1944 – World War II: The first kamikaze attack damages HMAS Australia as the Battle of Leyte Gulf begins. The Battle of Leyte Gulf (23–26 October 1944) was the largest naval battle of World War II and by some criteria the largest naval battle in history, with over 200,000 naval personnel involved. By late 1944, the Japanese fleet had become much weaker than that of the Allied forces; it contained fewer capital ships (aircraft carriers and battleships) than the Allies had aircraft carriers in the Pacific. After the catastrophic Battle of the Philippine Sea in June 1944, senior Japanese military leaders understood that their remaining naval forces were incapable of achieving a strategic victory against the Allies. However, the Japanese general staff believed that continuing to contest Allied offensives at sea was necessary to deter an invasion of mainland Japan and to give the Japanese navy an opportunity to use its remaining strength. As a result, the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) mobilized nearly all of its remaining major naval vessels in an attempt to repel the Allied invasion of the Philippines, but it was defeated by the U.S. Navy's Third and Seventh Fleets. The Imperial Japanese Navy had suffered the greatest loss of ships and crew in its entire history. Its failure to dislodge the Allied invaders from Leyte meant the inevitable loss of the Philippines, which in turn meant Japan would be all but cut off from its occupied territories in Southeast Asia.
