Shortages of aircraft and serviceability problems greatly retarded pilot training and the ships only had a total of 17 D4Ys and 18 E16As on hand on 1 October ; of these , only 6 and 16 were operational , respectively . The Japanese plan for the defence of the Philippines envisioned that the surviving carriers would be used to lure the American carrier forces away from the invasion area to a position where the carriers could be attacked by land @-@ based aircraft and the transports by the rest of the IJN . The other carrier air groups were not in much better shape and the Japanese decided to retain the aircraft ashore for use against the American carriers . The Fourth Carrier Division was assigned to the Northern Force under the command of Vice Admiral Jisaburō Ozawa and the sisters sailed from Yashima on 20 October . On the morning of 24 October , the bulk of the few aircraft aboard were launched to attack the American carriers as a distraction . They inflicted no damage and caused the Americans to search in the direction from which they had attacked . The Americans finally spotted the Japanese carriers at 16 : 40 , some 200 miles ( 320 km ) east of Cape Engaño , the northeastern tip of Luzon . The American carriers were spread out and it was very late in the day to launch an airstrike , so Admiral William Halsey , commander of the Third Fleet decided to mass his carriers in a position to attack the following morning . Ozawa reversed course during the night , correctly believing that the Americans would follow him north .