Submarines, Part 13: The Little E̶n̶g̶i̶n̶e̶ Task Force that Could

(Picture: USS Samuel B. Roberts DE-413, "the destroyer that fought like a battleship")

For a heartwarming tale instead of a hypothetical war between the US and Russia or US and China, we have the story of Taffy 3; in 1944, the US had brought the fight to the Japanese and was picking up momentum in the island hopping campaign. US forces were going to land in Leyte in the Philippines to establish a beachhead from which they could stage further operations to liberate the island nation.

Part of the action on and around Leyte comes our title character: Task Unit 77.4.3, also known as Taffy 3. Consisting of 6 escort carriers, 3 destroyers, and 4 destroyer escorts, it was far from a powerful battle fleet.

"Chief, the Iowa is flashing signal lights! What's it saying!?"
"Well, sir, I'm a little rusty on morse code, but I believe it is saying 'boom, boom, boom.'"

Before you can understand how amazing this battle was, you have to know how warships are classified: so what exactly are all these ship types, and what are they supposed to do?

Battleships (BB) have fallen out of favor with the rise of carriers and submarines, but they were vital in WWII. They are big, they are slow, they are heavy, they are bristling with very big guns, and they are crazy heavily armored. Naval artillery is named by its caliber and barrel length (relative to the caliber). For example, an Iowa class battleship (pictured) has nine 16in/50cal guns: meaning the shell is 16 inches in diameter and the barrel is 16*50 inches (800), or just shy of 67 feet. Battleships usually have 3-4 main batteries (housed in turrets, usually 2-3 guns per turret), with 2-3 being mounted forward and 1-2 mounted aft. They also have secondary batteries, which are smaller and more numerous, intended for engaging smaller targets at closer ranges: an Iowa has twenty 5in/38cal guns. Battleships generally have anti-aircraft armaments, as well, but they are really only for self defense: other ships generally provide AA screens for fleets. An Iowa has eighty 40mm Bofors cannons and forty-nine 20mm AA guns.

Aircraft carriers came into their own in WWII and have been dominating the seas ever since, and they came in a few different flavors in WWII.

Fleet carriers (CV) are dedicated warships that are designed to keep up with and operate with a battle fleet. They normally are very limited in their conventional armaments, usually just some AA guns and small caliber artillery to defend themselves (though they won't survive direct combat with another warship, usually). Their main armament is their air wing, which handles virtually all of the carrier's offensive operations. Most carriers in existence today are fleet carriers (or supercarriers, which are also fleet carriers), with the rest being helicopter carriers (LHD, or Landing Helicopter Dock, in US Navy parlance). Interestingly enough, the hull symbol for carriers (CV) originates from that of cruisers, as the first carriers were modified cruisers (aviation cruisers).

Escort carriers (CVE) are the FP-45 Liberators of the naval world. They are hastily built and generally just modified merchant ships, often much smaller and lighter than a fleet carrier; they carry far fewer aircraft and are far slower (merchants are slower than warships). They were intended to be able to be easy to produce in large numbers and to generally escort merchant convoys (where its speed isn't a big issue) across the ocean, but they began seeing combat, providing air power to smaller fleets and groups. They also saw action covering ground forces in the Pacific, where airbases were uneconomical to build and having a mobile airbase made island hopping easier.

Cruisers are the general purpose warships of the world, with smaller guns than battleships, good maneuverability and speed, and good anti-aircraft capabilities. They, too, are divided up into categories

Heavy cruisers (CA) are the most common, and they are the jack of all trades warships in WWII; although cruisers (in the US) are falling out of favor, with destroyers that are the size of cruisers filling cruiser, destroyer, and frigate roles. They are essentially battleships that are smaller, lighter, and less armored; they generally provide anti-aircraft screens for other ships and prevent other warships from getting close enough to engage softer targets like carriers.

Light cruisers (CL) are smaller, cheaper, more lightly armored and armed variants of heavy cruisers. Their focus is almost entirely on anti-aircraft armaments. They have fallen out of favor since WWII.

Large cruisers (CB), or battlecruisers, are bigger and heavier than heavy cruisers. Ships like the USS Alaska (CB-1) were designed to fill the role of a battleship in smaller fleets at lower cost. Battlecruisers were far more in common in the European Theater, with both the UK and Germany have a fair few battlecruisers. With the end of WWII came the end of the battlecruiser, as they were considered old technology (most were from the interwar period) and didn't really have a place in modern navies.

Destroyers, despite the awesome sounding name, are some of the smallest warships in any navy. They are generally the antisubmarine warfare specialists of the fleet, with smaller artillery, fewer AA guns, and more weapons like depth charges and torpedoes. Today, the line between cruisers and destroyers is quite blurry, with the US's Arleigh Burke class destroyers being about the same size as the older Ticonderoga class cruisers.

Destroyers (DD) are smaller warships that are more maneuverable than most. They usually have more advanced sonar systems than other surface ships due to their role in antisubmarine warfare; depth charges were the weapon of choice against subs in WWII, with torpedoes filling the role for the most part today. In WWII, they carried torpedoes mostly to amplify their firepower (due to small artillery) in combat with other surface ships.

Destroyer escorts (DE) were smaller, easier to build, and cheaper than regular destroyers. They, much like escort carriers, only designed to be able to keep up with and escort merchant convoys and were never really intended to be part of actual battle fleets or surface action groups. But at the late stages of the war, they found places in fleets with escort carriers supporting landing operations in the Pacific.

Smaller ships, like the PT boat above (not actually PT-109, as you can probably tell by the timestamp on the bottom) played key roles in naval warfare, as well.

Corvettes (K) and frigates (FF) were very small and maneuverable warships with varied purposes. Corvettes generally provided coastal and harbor defense, and also escorted larger ships and engaged other small ships before they could penetrate fleet defenses. Frigates were/are essentially smaller destroyers, with a focus almost entirety on antisubmarine warfare.

Patrol Torpedo (PT) boats like the one above (a replica of PT-109, the one commanded by future president John Fitzgerald Kennedy where he earned the Navy and Marine Corps Medal for gallantry) were very small, fast, and agile: they were key in MacArthur's escape from the Philippines and the war as a whole. They could use their torpedoes to very quickly fuck up even the largest of warships, and use their maneuverability to evade fire on the way in and out on attack runs.

Look familiar? Meet the USS Samuel B. Roberts (DE-413), also known as "the destroyer [escort] that fought like a battleship."

During the largest naval battle in history, the Battle of Leyte Gulf, positioning of groups of warships was vital: escort carriers that were important to the success of the landing operations had to be put as far away from enemy warships as possible. In a miscalculation, Admiral Halsey sent the 3rd Fleet (powerful fleet for taking on enemy warships; had ten fleet carriers and half a dozen battleships) after a decoy; this left Taffy 3, a force of half a dozen escort carriers, three destroyers, and four destroyer escorts up against a monster Japanese battle fleet. They were faced with 4 battleships (including the super-battleship Yamato), size heavy cruisers, eleven destroyers, and two light cruisers. One of, if not the, biggest naval mismatches in history. This fight wasn't even close to fair: the Yamato by itself was heavier than all of Taffy 3 combined.

The Japanese didn't stand a chance.

Picture of a Yamato class battleship, showing six of her nine 18.1in/46cal main guns. Downrange of these is not a good place to be. Unless you're the Samuel B. Roberts or the Johnston. Then you just don't give a fuck.

When Taffy 3 saw the Japanese fleet, they shit their pants: not only did they think the 3rd Fleet was engaging this fleet, they were starting at 23 enemy warships. The escort carriers began turning around and running while launching literally every aircraft they had (combined with other aircraft from other fleets, a total of more than 400) as the destroyers (and destroyer escorts, I'm just gonna group them together) began laying down a protective smokescreen so the Japanese could not see the carriers to engage them. The aircraft that spotted the fleet were only carrying depth charges to deal with submarines, but this did not stop them from engaging: several were dropped, bouncing off of a cruiser. In a decision that would cost them the battle, the Japanese made the call for every ship to carry out a "general" attack, in which they all did their own thing instead of the usual Japanese tactic of carefully planning every little move of the battle.

USS Samuel B. Roberts turned and charged the Japanese head on, steaming straight towards a heavy cruiser. The CO announced over the 1MC (shipwide PA system) that "we're making a torpedo run; the outcome is doubtful, but we will do our duty." The Roberts was designed to be able to do 24kts running balls to the wall; she hit 28.7kts while charging the Japanese forces.

Chokai, the cruiser the Samuel B. Roberts was charging.

Despite the cruiser's 8in guns opening up on the Roberts, she remained unscathed on the approach. She got to within 3 miles of the cruiser, too close for the cruiser's guns to be able to engage her, completely unharmed. Upon getting closer, the Roberts fired a spread of three torpedoes (literally every torpedo onboard), one of which hit the Chokai and completely blew its stern off, sinking it. Sailors on the Roberts were reportedly cheering like it was a goddamned baseball game when the torpedo hit. But the Roberts was not done fighting. Not even close. The CO of the Roberts, LCDR Robert Copeland, must have had some John Paul Jones in him: he had not yet begun to fight.

The Roberts continued to engage the Japanese in a knife fight (close combat), firing literally everything she had at the enemy. The 5in guns were unable to damage the armor of the Japanese ships, so they aimed for the superstructures (bridge and stuff). They fired their anti-aircraft guns at the enemy, too: she fired over 600 rounds from the five inchers of the course of an hour. After some of her guns being knocked out, leaving her with one 5in gun, the Roberts set the heavy cruiser Chikuma on fire. She then took 3 direct hits from the 14in guns of the Kongo (battleship), wounding GM3 Paul H. Carr, the sailor responsible for the remaining 5 in gun badly. Carr was found with his intestines acting more like outestines, holding the last round on the ship and literally begging for help loading and firing it. Carr was posthumously awarded the Silver Star for his actions.

Three Oliver Hazard Perry class frigates were named in honor of the Roberts and her crew: the USS Samuel B. Roberts (FFG-58), USS Carr (FFG-52), and USS Copeland (FFG-25).

And that is how the USS Samuel B. Roberts (DE-413) earned the title of "the destroyer [escort] that fought like a battleship." A title I think we can all agree was well-deserved.

The three destroyers pulled their weight too, however.

After laying down the smokescreen for the carriers, each of the 3 Fletcher-class destroyers (affectionately known as "tin cans" due to their complete lack of armor) began making torpedo runs while firing every gun they had at the Japanese. The tenacity of the destroyers and destroyer escorts made the Japanese think that they were instead facing cruisers and "proper" destroyers, instead. The maneuverability and damage control capabilities of the Fletchers allowed each of them to take dozens of direct hits before sinking; although the ships would be full of the dead and dying, they would inflict a terrible toll on the enemy before sinking.

The USS Johnston (DD-557) began engaging the Japanese as soon as it layed the protective smokescreen for the carriers; this made it the prime target of the Japanese fire, with damn near every gun in Japanese fleet targeting her. Without saying anything to his superiors or the rest of Taffy 3, CDR Earnest Evans (skipper of the Johnston) gave the order "ahead flank, left full rudder." Continuing to lay clouds of thick smoke while zigzagging towards the Japanese, the guns on the Johnston were not silent. Slightly beyond the maximum range of her guns, the Johnston scored several direct hits on the cruiser Kumano, setting it ablaze. The Johnston then closed withing torpedo range, sinking the Kumano and knocking the cruiser Suzuya out of the battle; this also forced the battleship Kongo to turn and evade, temporarily silencing its guns. Turning around and withdrawing to make another attack run, the Johnston took several big hits from the enemy battleships: the port engine was knocked out (bringing the top speed down to 17kts from the max of 34) and the bridge took several hits. Evans was badly wounded, missing many fingers. The Johnston resembled a tin can at a firing range more than a destroyer at this point with dead and dying sailors and their blood pretty much everywhere, but Evans channeled James Lawrence and his final orders over a century before: "don't give up the ship! Fight her 'till she sinks!" While inside a rainstorm, the Johnston was able to make some emergency repairs, bringing several of the gun turrets and the fire control radar back online. She fired several salvos from this concealed position before the order for a torpedo attack came: despite being heavily damaged and barely afloat, Johnston acknowledged and began turning towards the Japanese once more. During this, the Johnston came within spitting distance of the Kongo and hit the battleship with 15 good shots into the superstructure before retreating and evading the return fire.

But the Johnston was not done yet: seven destroyers began approaching her from behind, and Evans turned to engage. The Japanese destroyers turned to evade the fire, and the torpedoes they fired at Johnston and the carriers all missed or were intercepted by machine gun fire. At this point, Evans was sitting at the stern and yelling orders down to men who were literally manually operating the rudder (keep in mind he literally has no fingers on his left hand still); eventually, the Johnston had its starboard engine knocked out and was completely dead in the water. But she did not stop fighting: it wasn't until "they couldn't patch the holes fast enough to keep her afloat" that Evans gave the order to abandon ship. Even the Japanese recognized the bravery of the Johnston, with the captain of a destroyer saluting the sinking Johnston as it sailed past. Evans reportedly abandoned ship with the crew, but was never seen again; for his actions, he was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.

But the battle was not just ships, as there were over 400 American aircraft flying above the battle.

Very few of the aircraft had torpedoes or other anti-ship armaments, making them borderline useless for attacking warships. This did not stop the pilots, however: besides the flight that spotted the Japanese fleet dropping depth charges on cruisers, pilots fired every round they had at the Japanese, and then some. When they ran out of ammunition in their main armaments, pilots began to improvise: most did "dry" attack runs, continuing to swoop and dive on the ships to cause confusion and overwhelm the Japanese AA defenses. Some pilots, however, were a bit more creative than others. There are reports of everything from clipboards to coke bottles being thrown onto the Japanese ships from the aircraft, with some pilots even claiming that they used their sidearms to shoot at the warships.

The escort carriers had no chance of outrunning the Japanese, but by forcing them to give chase, they bought time and a tactical advantage: the one gun on those carriers was a single 5in piece mounted on the stern and facing backwards, meaning it could easy fire on ships giving chase. As the AA gunners on the carriers watched and waited, helpless to the situation, an officer on one of the carrier rallied them by yelling "just wait a little longer, boys; we're suckering them into 40mm range!"

Throughout the battle, Taffy 3 was broadcasting all sorts of distress calls and tried to get reinforcements: over the course of an hour, they went from stuff like "halp plz" to "dear Jesus there are 4 battleships here." Admiral Chester Nimitz, in Pearl Harbor, was monitoring the communications and eventually sent a message to Admiral Halsey, asking where the task force was. Communications protocols meant that each message had a nonsense phrase before and after it to make interception more difficult; the full message was "The turkey trots to water. Where is TF 34? The world wonders." The phrase at the end was not removed by Halsey's staff, and it ended up turning from a nonsense phrase into a snide comment. Halsey reportedly was quite unhappy at this, throwing his cover on the ground and yelling strings of curses for ten minutes or so. More incompetence from Halsey led to the survivors of the battle being left adrift for two days, many dying from thirst, exposure, and sharks, before they were finally rescued.

As the smoke cleared, the US was victorious, but it was at a steep cost: 2 escort carriers, 2 destroyers, and 1 destroyer escort (5 ships total) were sunk. A further 3 escort carriers, 1 destroyer, and 2 destroyer (6 ships total) escorts were damaged; only two ships (a destroyer escort and an escort carrier) remained unscathed. 23 aircraft were shot down, 913 men were wounded, and 1,583 were killed.

The Japanese, despite having an overwhelming advantage, ended up withdrawing due to the aggressive tactics of Taffy 3: despite the battle being one of the biggest mismatches in military history, the Japanese thought Taffy 3 had far more backup than they really did and withdrew. As you could probably guess, Taffy 3 punched way above its weight: 3 heavy cruisers were sunk, 3 more were badly damaged (along with a destroyer), and 52 aircraft were shot down (casualties unknown).

And that is the story of the 13 ship force, consisting of:
-6 escort carriers
-3 destroyers
-4 destroyer escorts

Managed to defeat a 23 ship battle fleet of:
-4 battleships (including Yamato)
-6 heavy cruisers
-2 light cruisers
-11 destroyers

When the odds are overwhelmingly against them, Americans tend to fight hard rather than give up; the old adage, "if you want an American to do something, tell them they can't," is very much a true statement. The Samuel B. Roberts and Johnston never stood a chance against the fleet, but they didn't care: they were gonna win, or they were gonna die trying.

As I said: the Japanese never stood a chance.