[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.

[skeeter]

On second thought I can understand those Australians having served in that battle being offended at being referred to as a ‘token’ force. A poor choice of words.