[skeeter]

Ship for ship the Australians matched any similar ship in the US navy, no doubt. The Australian navy distinguished itself in the Pacific war.

But the US had nearly 300 warships at Leyte gulf.

[naturalman1975]

I agree the US force at the Battle of Leyte Gulf was larger than Australia's by a very significant margin. But I still think it's an error to describe the Australian force as a token force. Australian ships were integrated into the US Seventh Fleet - in fact, most of the Royal Australian Navy was part of the US Seventh Fleet at the time. And the force was regarded at the time as a combined task force. That was actually fairly rare.