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See my sig line.  It was one of the last major ship to ship engagements of the USN, fought by an outnumbered band of Reservists and Draftees, who were completely outclassed by their enemy in any objective measure.  The battle is the Iwo Jima of the Navy, except, unlike the Marines, up until the Japanese retired, there was no doubt the Americans would eventually lose.

Likely about 30 miles off Samar in about 1000 fathoms.  He likely commanded the abandonment of the Johnson, but was wounded and likely died in the water.

The successor to the Sammy B. was another Sammy B. that was nearly sunk by an Iranian mine.

From wiki...



The second Sammy B., FFG-58 had a plaque amidships that commemorated its namesake, DE-413.  It was the focal point for ship activities like reenlistments and promotions.  When the Sammy B was hit, as the damage control parties raced past the plaque, the Captain noticed that the crew was touching the plaque for luck.

The successful damage control of the second Sammy B. was made possible by the work of an Sailor untrained in the generators he was keeping on line.  The Sailor, by the name of Carr, was a frequent flyer at Captain's Mast.  When asked by the Captain when the ship was safe, how he could keep the generators online, he replied, "I can't swim a lick."

This is interesting of itself, but even more notable by the fact that among all the heroes of the first Sammy B, GM3 Paul Henry Carr was awared the Silver Star for his actions as the gun captain for the Sammy B
s 5" gun.  GM3 Carr and his crew fired 352 rounds in 35 minutes, and were all killed or wounded as their second to last shell cooked off in the tube as their fume extractor was destroyed.  GM3 Carr was found, in his last minutes, gripping the final 5" round of the ship, asking for help to load it.

They could've called it raven 3.  Gay enough for you?

The Japanese can talk up their fighting spirit all they want.  They can't hold a candle to the fighting spirit of those men.

One of the best episodes of the History channels show "Dogfights".

Dogfights- The Battle of Leyte Gulf Part 1

Dogfights- The Battle of Leyte Gulf Part 2

Dogfights- The Battle of Leyte Gulf Part 3

Dogfights- The Battle of Leyte Gulf Part 4

Dogfights- The Battle of Leyte Gulf Part 5

I wouldn't be here if it weren't for those guys. My grandfather was on one of the troop ships.



Dusty in here all of a sudden...

Sometimes nothin is a cool hand.

Captain Evans is memorialized at the Tablets of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=8108825

Really??!!  All this discussion about an amazing example of bravery and the fighting spirit of the US navy, and all you can comment on is that you think the name is gay??  

Shame.

The way I read it was that he lost his nerve at the sight of the few aircraft attacking him with minimal effect which was a result of his flagship being sunk by aircraft during the Battle of the Sibuyan Sea a few days earlier.  This caused him to halt the attack.  He then regained his nerve but realized he had withdrawn from the battle for too long to reengage (this is how he saw it, anyways) and to avoid the fleet carriers and get home decided to just withdraw.  If he had not lost his nerve the Japanese likely would have won that battle.  Kurita probably would have been able to defeat the battle line of the 7th Fleet as he had fast battleships and that battleline was composed of the obsolete older battleships that had just fought in the Surigao Strait.  The plan was to try to beat Kurita to the entrance to Leyte Gulf and cap his T.  

Another mistake Kurita made was to order a general attack rather than to form a battle line and send his destroyers in advance for torpedo attacks.  He also did not try to close quickly and went out of his way to avoid rain squalls.  Had he not made these mistakes he likely would have made short work of the American force.  It is amazing how close to defeat we came in this engagement.  Ozawa after his decoy carriers were destroyed actually came close to engaging in a surface action with Halsey's force.  He sent two battleship-carriers (hybrids) with some other ships on a sweep south  and turned back shortly before running into Halsey's cruiser line.  Had Ozawa defeat the cruiser line he would have shortly afterwards run into the fleet carriers.  It could have gotten ugly.  Halsey also was indecisive about sending his fast battle line to help the 7th Fleet and in the end only sent part of it down.  They barely missed Kurita's retreating force and engaged the tail end of it as it withdrew.  They would have been quite outnumbered if they had gotten there first.

Well, since you asked such an important question...Taffy Three is shortened from Task Force Three.

At the Pawnee County Courthouse, in Pawnee, Oklahoma, there is a war memorial. Various displays reflect the names of the county residents who served in the wars. Near one such display in a small area with a stone in the ground marked "Medal of Honor", below that is a small brick with Cdr. Evans name inscribed. Another brick reflects the name of a Pawnee warrior who was awarded the medal during the civil war.

A pitiful honor for such a courageous man. There should be a much larger memorial, and there may be, just not at the Courthouse war memorial. If there is another memorial to Cdr. Evans, I'm not aware of it.

As noted earlier, Cdr. Evans went down with his ship.  There may be a marker at Arlington.

Best quote from that show was made when comparing the Yamato to a destroyer escort like the Samuel B. = "It had no business being in the same ocean as the Yamato". THAT is how lopsided a battle it was!!! Comparable to a couple of A10 warthogs flying up against a Nimitz class task force by themselves.

BigStick, are you talking about Task Group 77.2 commanded by RDML Oldendorf?  If so, even if Kurita's fast battleships, which with the exception of Yamato were old,  would have engaged Oldendorf's battleships, the outcome probably would have been decided by whichever side got the first good hits in.  The Americans had three old battleships, West Virginia, Tennesee and California, that had been completely rebuilt following Pearl Harbor.  Their upgrades included brand new fire control systems to include radar.  The Japanese force did not have equivalent radar and thereby would have been at a severe disadvantage.  As the battle historically developed, the Americans detected the Japanese ships at over 40,000 yards and had firing solutions at 30,000.  This was within the range of the Japanese guns but they would have had a much more difficult time getting accurate firing data due to their inferior fire control equipment.  For the most part, they still relied on optical equipment to provide accurate ranges for firing solutions.  The Americans would have been able to fire accurately sooner than the Japanese.  

IIRC, the Americans were short on AP ammunition but they should have had enough to fight the Japanese main battle line.  If the Yamato could have closed the distance without taking too many high angle hits, she could have inflicted severe damage on the American ships.  The old American battleships were not armored to withstand 18 inch shellfire and any hits from Yamato would probably have been devastating.  Nagato with her 16 inch guns might have been resisted but the Americans would have still taken severe damage if she would have hit them.  However, I imagine the Americans would have been able to get the first hits in and would have been able to keep getting hits before the Japanese could get firing solutions.  

Maryland, Mississippi and Pennsylvania would have had the hardest time getting a firing solution.  They had older fire control systems since they hadn't been as heavily damaged at Pearl Harbor (Mississippi hadn't been there at all) and hadn't been through as extensive modernization as the others.  However, once the ranges closed, they still had the added advantage of radar fire control, even if it was older systems.  This doesn't take into account the heavy and light cruisers and destroyers who also had more modern fire control radar.  In the end, I believe the Americans still would have won the battle.

Excellent analysis RedLeg, thanks for contributing

(Saw your folks the other day, they sure do keep busy)

Stay safe over there.

Considering Oldendorf's mauling of the Japanese southern pincher, I have no doubt that had he been engaged a second time, even if surprised (which would have been unlikely, but possible) Oldendorf would have put a pasting on the Japanese, as the Japanese were eating into their bunkers considerably in the fight against Taffy 3 (and potentially, Taffy 2).

However, Oldendorf's mauling would have been cold comfort to Taffy 2 and 3, and their destruction would have counted as one of the greatest defeats of the Pacific.

Great thread thanks for reminding us.

They sure do.  They are busier now than when they were working!

Thanks, I appreciate it.

Yes, the could have called it raven three. That would be uberghey.

Oldendorf would have had a hard time with Kurita's force, since he used up most of his AP rounds the night before. Remember, his BBs were there for NGFS and were armed mostly with HE rounds. He was short on AP to begin with.

I'm not sure I'd go quite that far.   All of the escort carriers came under kamikaze attack....all but Fenshaw Bay were damaged.   St Lo was lost to a Zero punching through her deck and detonating her torpedo magazine.

The irony is that they didn't expect the American ships to be on a suicide mission.... but they were.    Kurita didn't think he could punch through and engage the heavies before losing his force ...... but there were no heavies.   He hadn't considered the possibility of an American suicide attack.

The Japanese were on a suicide mission, but they had company.   No shortage of guts displayed on either side.

Great Story.
And a nice reminder that we take our ownership of the seas for granted today.  It wasn't always that way.

A truly amazing story, the odds were enormously stacked against them. It has a "300 Spartans" on the high seas feel to it.

The Japanese were going through their fuel though, at a high rate.  I don't know how much it would have effected their manuver considerations, but I think that the Taffy air wings that were diverting to the land bases around Leyte would have denied Kurita's force surprise.  Unlike with Taffy 3, Kurita would have likely had to ingress into his engagement envelope under fairly constant air attack.  They would have either had to maintain their speed to minimize their exposure, turned to the east to get out of land based air range, or both.

Kurita would have also been on the horns of a dilemma regarding Taffy 1 and 2.  If he would have pursued and sunk them, as he potentially could have, he would have scored a victory that wouldn't have stopped the Leyte landings at all.  Had he gone for Leyte, he would have left a significant amount of air able to operate against him.

JMO.

I just remembered something interesting regarding this battle.  My wife's uncle was in the 96th Division, the Deadeyes, during the war, and he and I were talking one time.  He mentioned that after they landed on Leyte, they got up into the hills and then stopped.  They were told to turn around and dig in because the Japs were going to come in behind them, shoot up the transports and possibly land.  He said there was a big naval battle and that stopped them.  That's when I told him about the Hoel, Johnston, Gambier Bay, etc. and how they fought a delaying action and stopped the Japanese from coming in.  He was amazed that I knew about the battle and was very appreciative that someone wanted to talk to him about his experience.  His kids didn't care.  I was the only one he could really talk to about it and we did whenever I saw him.  I really enjoyed spending time with him.  He's gone now, unfortunately.  

He lost a leg at Okinawa when a Jap tank shot him with it's main gun.  He spent two days laying on the ground before anyone found him.  

He remembered his M1 serial number too.  Unfortunately, he died before I knew about the CMP and I don't remember what the number was now.  I wish I did so I could try to find it.  That would really be something if I did!

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I am a bit ashamed of my Navy though. Heros like Carr have ships named for them. Evans does not. He deserves it in my never to be humble opinion.

And then the survivors spent hours in shark-infested water before they were rescued.  Many of the survivors died, years later, still bitter about how long it took for them to be rescued and the fact that so many Sailors survived the battle only to be killed by sharks.

There was an USS Ernest Evans, a DE built in the 1950s.

Personnel recovery in the Navy was laughable in WWII.  Not from lack of trying, but from any real doctrine to do it, lousy communications and general malaise.

In the Merchant Marine, your pay stopped if your ship was torpedoed, or you were captured.  Many things about the good old days weren't.

One of the books I read about this battle...it might have been Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors said that the aircraft on our Escort Carriers were armed for ground support duty when the Japs attacked. Of course, there was no time to rearm for anti-shipping combat.  So, they took off to attack the Jap battlewagons, cruisers and destroyers with anti-personnel weapons.  When our pilots ran out of ammo, they resorted to making fake attack runs on the Jap ships.  The Japs didn't know our guys were out of ammo and would attempt to evade the "torpedos" and "bombs" we dropped.  Anything to disrupt the Jap attack on our ships.  One pilot resorted to pulling out his revolver and shooting at a ship as he flew over it and another took anything he could out of his cockpit and threw it at the Japs!

Some of them dropped depth charges on the Japs!  GP bombs wouldn't do enough damage to sink Japanese capital ships but they would tear up a destroyer and the superstructure of the larger ships.  They would be devastating to the exposed anti-aircraft gun crews.

I was always interested in the BDA of the 5 inch rockets they fired.  That had to be among the first times a 5 inch rocket was used in an ASuW environment.

Data from "Two Ocean War" by S.E. Morrison

Link to source page on Battleship performance at Surigao is here:  http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-079.htm



US Battleship Ammunition at Surigao Strait

Ship	Capacity	Total On-Board	AP	HC	Rounds Expended (all AP)
West Virginia	800	375	200	175	93
Maryland	800	685	240	445	48
California	1200	318	240	78	63
Tennessee	1200	664	396	268	69
Mississippi	1200	744	201	543	12
Pennsylvania	1200	453	360	93	Did not fire

I've wondered that too.  I would think they could do some pretty good damage if they hit in unarmored areas.  They wouldn't do much to the armor belt of a cruiser or battleship, but against the superstructure it seems they could do substantial damage if enough of them hit in a concentrated area.  Again, against anti-aircraft gun crews, they would be devastating.

That's interesting information.  The US ships would have had to be careful with the ammunition expenditure and hope they got some good hits in before they ran out of ammunition.  Since the 3 modernized ships got early firing solutions, they most likely would have gotten good hits in early, especially since the West Virginia hit Fuso, I think, with the first salvo.  That's some mighty fine shooting, what we in the artillery call first round fire for effect.

The bad thing I would think would be the penetration into the interior of the ship, and IJN ships were generally not built to the same D/C standards of American ships.

Their damage control was not nearly as good as ours either.  Example would be the Japanese carriers at Midway, the Shinano and the Taiho.  Their crews were not as well trained in damage control as ours were, and are.

Thanks for posting that.

I've heard the story of GM3 Carr but hadn't heard the story of the FFG-58 Carr.

His memorial marker is in Manila.

http://www.homeofheroes.com/gravesites/abmc/abmc_wwi2_pacific.html

http://www.abmc.gov/cemeteries/cemeteries/ml.php

I have often read/heard of Kurita's "timidity" in not pressing home his attack on the landing fleet and I have always been puzzled by that, especially since the stated mission for the Yamato & the rest of Kurita's force is so often referred to as a "kamikaze" mission since they were low on fuel.

'Sea of Thunder' is an excellent book and a great overview of the strategic action.

A 'Sound General Quarters!"  bump for these heros!

About half way through it right now.

I wouldn't call it a "suicide attack".......They knew the risks of failure and fought hard to prevent  Kurita  from breaking through to the Leyte landings. They died fighting....but suicide it was not.