On October 25th, 1944, the Battle off Samar occurred. The Battle off Samar is a pivotal moment in the larger Battle of Leyte Gulf, one of if not the largest naval battle in history, and also considered the United States Navy's finest hour.
After the invasion of Leyte by the forces of General Douglas MacAuthur ("I Shall Return"), the liberation of the Philippines risked cutting the supply lines between Japan & the rest of Southeast Asia. The Japanese devised a counteroffensive that would become the Battle of Leyte Gulf. The remaining naval forces of the Imperial Japanese Navy would attempt to reach the beaches at Leyte & repel Allied forces.
As part of their plan, the Japanese were able to bait Admiral William "Bull" Halsey into making a mistake that allowed a perfect opportunity for the Japanese Navy to reach Leyte & attack the Allies. However, a valiant & courageous defense by a bunch of "little" ships, that were outgunned & outmatched fighting an enemy that included the largest battleship ever created, is the only thing that stood in the way of disaster.
In response to the amphibious landings at Leyte, the Japanese devised something akin to a pincer movement in & around the Philippine Sea. The bulk of their naval forces would be split into three groups.
- A Center Force under the command of Japanese Vice Admiral Kurita would pass through the San Bernardino Strait and approach Leyte from the north.
- A Southern Force would attempt to pass through the Surigao Strait and attack Leyte from the south.
- A Northern Force, with the remaining Japanese naval carriers, would be used as a decoy in an attempt to lure U.S. naval forces away from Leyte.
On October 24, 1944, the Northern Force was spotted, and Admiral Halsey took the bait. Halsey took the bulk of the
U.S. 3rd Fleet and pursued the Northern Force (
in the 'The Hunt for Red October,' when Captain Ramius stops in the middle of the battle to tell Jack Ryan that all of his conclusions about Halsey were wrong; "Halsey acted stupidly," this is what he was talking about).
This left the beaches at Leyte to be defended by a handful of ships consisting of:
Three groups of light ships of the U.S. Seventh Fleet commanded by Admiral Thomas Kinkaid. Each had six small Casablanca-class escort carriers, and seven or eight lightly armed and unarmored destroyers and/or smaller destroyer escorts.
- Admiral Thomas Sprague's Task Unit 77.4.1 ("Taffy 1") consisted of the escort carriers Sangamon, Suwannee, Santee, and Petrof Bay. (The remaining two escort carriers from Taffy 1, Chenango and Saginaw Bay, had departed for Morotai, Indonesia on October 24, carrying "dud" aircraft from other carriers for transfer ashore. They returned with replacement aircraft after the battle.)
- Admiral Felix Stump's Task Unit 77.4.2 ("Taffy 2") consisted of Natoma Bay, Manila Bay, Marcus Island, Kadashan Bay, Savo Island, and Ommaney Bay.
- Admiral Clifton Sprague's Task Unit 77.4.3 ("Taffy 3") consisted of Fanshaw Bay, St Lo, White Plains, Kalinin Bay, Kitkun Bay, and Gambier Bay.
Though each escort carrier was relatively small, carrying only 25 planes each, they added up to making available more than 500 planes in all. However, as they were intended to attack against ground forces and submarines, most were armed with machine guns, depth charges and high explosive and anti-personnel bombs, effective against troops, submarines or destroyers, but not against armoured battleships or cruisers.
The approaching
Center Force, under Admiral Kurita's command, had among its fleet the heavy cruisers
Maya, Chokai, Myoko, Haguro, Kumano, Suzuya, Chikuma, Tone; the light cruisers
Yahagi, and Noshiro; and the battleships
Nagato, Kongo, Musashi and Haruna, as well as the
Yamato, the largest battleship ever created.
At around six in the morning on October 25, 1944, Admiral Kurita's Center Force was spotted by Taffy 3. The Yamato by itself had a ship displacement as much as most of Taffy 3's ships. Rear Admiral Clifton Sprague ordered his carriers to launch their aircraft and withdraw towards a squall to the east, hoping bad visibility would reduce the accuracy of Japanese weapons fire. The fighters, while not outfitted with weapons capable of significantly damaging the Japanese fleet, could buzz the ships & keep them off balance. Sprague also ordered his destroyers to create a smoke screen to mask the retreating carriers.
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One of the American destroyers of Taffy 3, the USS Johnston (DD-557) decided to take the initiative. It's commanding officer, Lieutenant Commander Ernest E. Evans, turned the Johnston towards the Japanese line and by itself charged at the Japanese fleet. The Fletcher-Class Destroyer had relatively light armor & its 5-inch guns were not capable of penetrating the Japanese battleships & cruisers armor. Only the Johnston's 10 Mark 15 torpedoes were capable of inflicting serious damage. Steering the ship towards splashes of enemy gun fire (hoping the enemy gunner won't fire in the same place twice), the Johnston approached the heavy cruiser Kumano for a torpedo run.
From History Channel's "Dogfights":
At a range of 10 miles, Johnston engaged Kumano with gunfire, aiming for bridge and deck since the 5-inch shells would have bounced off the enemy ship's belt armour. At the same time, Johnston proceeded to close within torpedo range and fired off a salvo, which blew the bow off Kumano, also taking the cruiser Suzuya out of the fight as she stopped to assist.
But the
Johnston would pay a price for its attack run.
At a range of seven miles, the battleship Kongo sent a 14-inch shell through the Johnston’s deck and engine room, reducing Johnston’s speed by half to 14 knots and interrupting electric power to the aft gun turrets. Then three 6-inch shells, possibly from Yamato, struck Johnston’s bridge, causing numerous casualties and wounding Captain Evans in his left hand. The bridge was abandoned and Evans proceeded to steer the ship back towards the fleet from the aft steering column, when he noticed the other destroyers starting to engage the enemy.
Emboldened by Johnston’s attack, Sprague gave the order "small boys attack", sending the rest of Taffy 3's destroyers on the assault. Despite the heavy damage, Evans turned the Johnston around and reentered the fight while damage control teams restored power to two of the three aft turrets.
The other destroyers attacked the Japanese line, drawing fire and scattering the Japanese formations as ships turned to avoid torpedoes. The Yamato found herself between two torpedoes fired from the destroyer Heermann which were on parallel courses, and for ten minutes, she headed away from the action, unable to turn back for fear of being hit. Heermann, meanwhile, engaged the other Japanese battleships at such a close range that they could not return fire for either inability to sufficiently depress their guns or for fear of hitting their own units.
The destroyer escort
USS Samuel B. Roberts (DE-413), a ship even smaller & more lightly armored than the
Johnston, entered the fray. On the way into the battle, the
Roberts passed by and saw Commander Evans standing on the deck of the damaged
USS Johnston. Evans, with his left hand wrapped in a bandage, stopped & saluted the captain of the
Roberts.
The USS Samuel B. Roberts was a John C. Butler-class destroyer escort, equipped with only two 5-inch guns, one fore and aft, and just 3 Mark-15 torpedoes. With only this, she charged at the Japanese heavy cruiser Chokai.
With smoke as cover, the Roberts steamed to within two and a half miles of Chokai, coming under fire of her two forward 8-inch turrets. But Roberts was so close that the shells passed overhead. Once in torpedo range, Roberts' 3 torpedo salvo struck the cruiser. Following this Roberts dueled with the Japanese ships for an hour, firing over 600 5-inch shells, and raking the upper works with 40 mm Bofors and 20 mm anti-aircraft guns while maneuvering at close range. At 08:51, the Japanese finally landed two hits, the second which destroyed the aft gun turret. With her remaining 5-inch gun, she set the bridge of the cruiser Chikuma afire and destroyed the number 3 gun turret, before being pierced again by three 14 inch shells from the Kongo. With a 40-foot hole in her side, the Roberts took on water, and at 09:35, the order was given to abandon ship, sinking 30 minutes later with 89 of her crew.
One of the stories to come out of the Battle off Samar is that of Paul Carr.
Carr was a U.S. Navy Gunner's Mate Third Class. He was the gun-mount captain of the Roberts' aft 5-inch gun. During the battle, Carr led his gun-mount team to fire 324 rounds in 35 minutes. He did this until losing power & the compressed air that cooled the gun. After that, Carr began firing the 5-inch gun manually, risking it overheating & "cooking off" a round & exploding. Carr continued to do this with his gun crew until the worst happened.
From the United States Navy:
When a rescue team member made his way into the shattered mount, he found Paul Carr, literally torn open from neck to thigh, attempting vainly to load a shell into the demolished gun breech. The rescue team member took the round from Carr and laid him aside as he began to remove the bodies of the gun crew. When he returned to the mount, he again found Paul Carr, projectile in hand, trying to load his gun. Carr begged the sailor to help him get off one last round. The sailor pulled him from the mount and laid him on the deck. Paul Carr died a few moments later, beneath the gun he served so well.
Paul Henry Carr posthumously received a
Silver Star for his service.
But even with this full throated defense, the superior firepower of Kurita's Center force was slowly turning the battle against the ships of Taffy 3.
The carriers of Taffy 3 turned south and fled through shellfire. The armor-piercing (AP) shells intended for Halsey's battleships flew right through the thin-skinned escort carriers without triggering their fuses. A switch to High Explosive (HE) shells holed, slowed, and sunk the Gambier Bay at the rear, while most of the others were also damaged. Their single stern-mounted five-inch (127 mm) anti-aircraft guns returned fire, though they were ineffective against surface ships. Yet, the St. Lo scored a hit on the magazine of a cruiser, the only known hit inflicted directly by a gun on an aircraft carrier against an opposing surface vessel.
The tide soon turned against Taffy 3's destroyers. Two hours into the attack, Commander Evans aboard the Johnston spotted a line of four destroyers led by the light cruiser Yahagi making a torpedo attack on the fleeing carriers and moved to intercept. Johnston poured fire on the attacking group, forcing them to prematurely fire their torpedoes, missing the carriers. Their gunfire then turned to the weaving Johnston. At 09:10 the Japanese scored a direct hit on one of the forward turrets, knocking it out and setting off many 5-inch shells that were stored in the turret, and her damaged engines stopped, leaving her dead in the water. The Japanese destroyers closed in on the sitting target, and the Johnston was hit so many times that one survivor recalled "they couldn't patch holes fast enough to keep her afloat." At 09:45 (2 hours and 45 minutes into the battle), Commander Evans finally gave the order to abandon ship. The Johnston sank 25 minutes later with 186 of her crew. Commander Evans abandoned ship with his crew, but was never seen again. He was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.
But just as things seemed to be going downhill for the American fleet, Admiral Kurita ordered the Japanese Center Force to
retreat.
At 09:20 Kurita suddenly broke off the fight and, giving the order "all ships, my course north, speed 20", retreated north. Though many of his ships were not even damaged, the air and destroyer attacks had broken up his formations, and he had lost tactical control. The heavy cruisers (Chōkai, Chikuma) had been sunk, and the ferocity of the determined concentrated sea and air attack had led him to calculate that continuing was not worth further losses.
It has long been debated as to why Admiral Kurita retreated, and what would have happened if he hadn't? Did Kurita believe he was engaging the 3rd Fleet? Could he have made it to Leyte if he had continued his advance? Many believe the level of resistance put up by the
Johnston, Samuel B. Roberts, and other ships of Taffy 3 fooled him into believing he was attacking the 3rd Fleet. Or maybe he believed the longer it took to get past lowly Destroyers & Destroyer Escorts, it meant that much worse damage when Halsey would eventually steam back with the 3rd Fleet?
This battle is also notable for a message sent by Admiral Chester Nimitz to Admiral Halsey. The message, and in particular the message padding at the end ("The World Wonders"), supposedly led to ill feelings between Nimitz & Halsey for the rest of their lives.
TURKEY TROTS TO WATER GG FROM CINCPAC ACTION COM THIRD FLEET INFO COMINCH CTF SEVENTY-SEVEN X WHERE IS RPT WHERE IS TASK FORCE THIRTY FOUR RR THE WORLD WONDERS
Rumor has it the communication officer didn't delete "
the world wonders" padding, and Halsey believed Nimitz put it into the message as a critique of him. The phrase is from Alfred, Lord Tennyson's "
The Charge of the Light Brigade." It was chosen because the Battle off Samar & the communication between Nimitz & Halsey occurred on the 90th anniversary of the
Battle of Balaclava.
The Battle of Leyte Gulf was the last major naval engagement of World War II. The Japanese Navy was never able to mass such a large force again, after being deprived of resources & supplies.