On October 25, 1944, a Japanese column of four battleships, nine heavy cruisers, one light cruiser, and ten destroyers attempted to pass through a strait off Samar Island in the Philippines to attack a U.S. beachhead and its supporting supply and troop ships. They were initially opposed only by Taffy 3, a small force consisting of three destroyers, four destroyer escorts, and six little Jeep carriers whose planes were armed for ground support rather than naval targets. (Admiral Halsey had been lured away from the area by a Japanese decoy force.) The ensuing Battle off Samar Island is remembered as one of the most heroic U.S. naval engagements in history. . Taffy 3s few destroyers and slower destroyer escorts possessed neither the firepower nor armor to effectively oppose the Japanese force, but nevertheless desperately attacked with 5 inch guns and torpedoes to cover the retreat of their slow jeep carriers. Aircraft from the small jeep carriers strafed, bombed, torpedoed, rocketed, depth-charged, fired at least one .38 caliber handgun and made numerous dry runs at the attacking force when they ran out of ammunition. (Those dry runs were intended to keep the Japanese fleet off balance and unable to maneuver.) . Out of the U.S. forces, three of the small carriers, two destroyers and one of the destroyer escorts were sunk. In exchange for these heavy losses, they sank or disabled three Japanese cruisers and caused enough confusion to persuade the Japanese commander to regroup and ultimately withdraw, rather than advancing to sink troop and supply ships at Leyte Gulf. The U.S. destroyers and destroyer escorts made multiple gun and torpedo runs against the Japanese forces. Upon hearing his Captains order to turn toward the Japanese forces for its second run, the executive officer of one of the destroyers later commented, I knew I would be swimming before the day was over. The Captain of one of the destroyers that was lost was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. The small destroyer escort Samuel B. Roberts closed to such a close range with one of the Japanese cruisers that the cruiser could not depress its guns to bring the Roberts under fire and raked the decks of the cruiser with withering fire effectively taking her out of the action since her ability to aim her guns was impeded (although nearby Japanese cruisers and a Japanese battleship fired on and ultimately sank the Roberts). . During the aftermath of the battle, the first Japanese Kamakazi attacks were launched from ground based Japanese planes. . Herman Wouk in novel War and Remembrance, commented that The vision of Spragues three destroyers-the Johnston, Hoel and Heerman-charging out of the smoke and rain straight toward the main batteries of Kuritas battleships and cruisers, can endure as a picture of how Americans fight when they dont have superiority. Our schoolchildren should know about that incident, and our enemies should ponder it. . The youtube vide link is worth watching. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_off_Samar youtube/watch?v=Cb9Y8uNL1Hw Two excellent books about the Battle Off Samar Island are: - Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors by James D. Hornfischer - For Crew and Country: The Inspirational True Story of Bravery and Sacrifice Aboard the USS Samuel B. Roberts by John Wukovits
Posted on: Fri, 25 Oct 2013 00:21:23 +0000
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