Four days over Formosa end: Japan's land-based air power is gutted

For four days, Admiral William Halsey's Third Fleet had sat within range of Formosa, daring Japan's remaining air strength to come fight. On October 16, 1944, the battle burned out: over 500 Japanese aircraft shot down or destroyed against fewer than 100 American planes lost, with cruisers Canberra and Houston damaged but towed clear. Vice Admiral Fukudome's pilots, many of them green replacements, had flown against a force they were not equipped to survive. The Combined Fleet entered the Philippines campaign two weeks later with almost nothing left to fly…