Halsey was promoted to full admiral that month, in acknowledgment of the South Pacific’s growing importance. The Japanese evacuated their remaining troops from Guadalcanal in February 1943, permitting the Allies to consolidate their hold in the Solomons. Subsequently Halsey became the first practitioner of the bypass strategy. After the bloody campaign on New Georgia, he executed the first “leapfrog” when he bypassed Kolombangara for Vella Lavella. It was a major contribution to American strategy, and Gen. Douglas MacArthur took note. Although the concept had been discussed previously, Halsey was the one to do it. It was perhaps the best example that he could be more than an instinctual fighter.

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Halsey remained at the helm of the South Pacific theater until early 1944, occasionally coordinating with MacArthur’s adjoining Southwest Pacific theater. The two commanders would work together again, and not entirely for the best.

Allied grand strategy in the Pacific required a two-pronged advance toward Tokyo: Nimitz’s largely naval command advancing through the Central Pacific and MacArthur’s mainly army command through the New Guinea–Philippines approach. Toward that end, in mid-1944, Nimitz established two huge and “separate but equal” fleets: the Third under Halsey and the Fifth under Spruance. The genius of the arrangement was that Third and Fifth Fleet staffs alternated in planning and conducting operations with essentially the same units, notably the Fast Carrier Task Force. Meanwhile, Vice Adm. Thomas C. Kinkaid’s Seventh Fleet supported MacArthur’s amphibious operations.

In June 1944 the Fifth Fleet seized the Marianas, putting B-29s within range of Tokyo. At the end of the operation, Halsey stepped up with Third Fleet, placing his cross hairs on Japanese bases in a series of powerful strikes before the two Pacific paths intersected in the Philippines.

The 1944 operations dwarfed anything Halsey had commanded two years previously. As South Pacific commander he had disposed of perhaps three carriers and two battleships at a time: now he had four task groups, each with that many ships or more. There was nothing on earth to match Task Force 38, let alone the entire Third Fleet. He commanded his huge fleet from the new battleship New Jersey.

Halsey craved a shot at the main Japanese fleet, which had not been seen since late 1942. But Third Fleet’s primary responsibility was protecting the amphibious forces. Nevertheless, in planning the Philippines attack for October 1944, Nimitz threw the old seadog a bone by adding, “In case opportunity for destruction of a major portion of the enemy fleet is offered or can be created, such destruction becomes the primary task.”

Nimitz knew he was trying to have it both ways: keeping Halsey on a short leash yet trusting that he would break the panic snap when provoked to attack. But he hadn’t anticipated just how far afield the Bull would go when he did break loose.

A widely unappreciated factor in the chaotic Battle of Leyte Gulf was the responsibility the theater commander bore for the mess that ensued. MacArthur had required that messages between Halsey and Kinkaid go through his headquarters in the Admiralty Islands. It was an absurd arrangement and unnecessarily complex—MacArthur’s staff could have merely monitored naval traffic without the onerous task of receiving it, sorting it, and deciding which messages among hundreds should be forwarded immediately. The end result was a delay of hours, when minutes counted. Both Halsey and Kinkaid can be faulted for accepting the arrangement, however. Kinkaid was more of a company man than the Bull, but apparently neither appealed the communication plan to MacArthur or to Nimitz.

Running up to Leyte, the army and navy both botched intelligence estimates. MacArthur’s staff expected no substantial opposition to the landings while Halsey predicted small operations similar to the Solomons’ “Tokyo Express.”

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