The dawn over the Philippine Sea on October 25, 1944, did not break with the promise of life, but with the towering, crystalline geysers of a colorful, choreographed death. Imagine, if you can, the sheer, paralyzing scale of the nightmare: a tiny “tin-can” destroyer, the USS Johnston, bobbing like a piece of driftwood in a hurricane of steel. This was not a standard naval engagement; it was a slaughter in the making, a collision between the insignificant and the invincible. At 6:46 AM, Commander Ernest Evans didn’t just see blips on a radar screen; he saw the physical manifestation of an empire’s desperation. Twenty-three Japanese warships, led by the Yamato—a leviathan so massive that its primary gun turrets alone weighed more than an entire American destroyer—were closing in at twenty knots.
The ocean began to erupt in a haunting, surreal kaleidoscope of colors: splashes of brilliant red, sulfurous yellow, vivid green, and deep purple. This was no celebration of light. The Japanese utilized colored dye in their massive shells to track their fall of shot. For the men on the Johnston, it was like watching a rainbow walk toward them across the waves, with every vibrant splash serving as a lethal correction in aim—a countdown to their absolute annihilation. There were no reinforcements. The powerful Third Fleet had been lured away by a decoy, leaving the “Small Boys” of Taffy 3 as the only thin line of defense between the Japanese Imperial Navy and the massacre of tens of thousands of American soldiers on the invasion beaches of Leyte.
The mathematical reality was chilling: the odds of survival were zero. The Japanese fleet outweighed Evans’s command by a factor of 150 to 1. Yet, in this moment of certain doom, Ernest Evans—a man born of Cherokee blood and Oklahoma grit—did not seek a way out. He did not wait for the bureaucracy of command or the safety of a fleet formation. He looked at the monstrous silhouette of the Yamato on the horizon and chose the impossible. He turned his ship, alone, and accelerated to flank speed. It was a suicide charge that defied logic, a David-and-Goliath confrontation where David didn’t just bring a sling—he brought a heart of fire. The air was thick with the smell of ozone, salt, and the impending scent of burning oil. The men on the bridge held their breath as the Johnston’s engines screamed, pushing the small vessel directly into the mouth of the largest naval force Japan had ever assembled. It was a moment that would change the course of history, born from the iron will of a man who refused to believe in the word “surrender.”
At 6:46 on the morning of October 25, 1944, Commander Ernest Evans stood on the bridge of the USS Johnston off the coast of Samar Island, watching his radar operator track twenty-three Japanese warships closing at twenty knots from the northwest. Evans was thirty-six years old and had spent eleven months commanding the Johnston. To date, he had engaged zero capital ships. The Japanese fleet bearing down on him included four battleships, six heavy cruisers, two light cruisers, and eleven destroyers. This armada was led by the Yamato, the largest battleship ever built, displacing 72,808 tons.
Evans was a man of Cherokee descent, born into poverty in Pawnee, Oklahoma. He had graduated from a nearly all-white high school in 1925 and joined the National Guard before transferring to Navy enlisted service. He earned an appointment to the Naval Academy without any political connections and graduated in 1931. The prejudice against Native Americans in that era made his achievement nearly impossible, but Evans didn’t talk about barriers. He talked about fighting.
On October 27, 1943, the day the Johnston was commissioned in Seattle, Evans told his crew exactly what kind of ship this would be.
“This is going to be a fighting ship,” he said. “I intend to go in harm’s way, and anyone who doesn’t want to go along had better get off right now.”
Nobody left.
The Johnston was a Fletcher-class destroyer: 376 feet long, 39 feet wide, and 2,100 tons. She carried five 5-inch guns, ten torpedoes, and a crew of 327 men. She was fast, maneuverable, and ultimately, expendable. By October 1944, the Johnston was assigned to Task Unit 77.4.3, known by its radio call sign, Taffy 3. The unit consisted of six escort carriers, three destroyers, and four destroyer escorts. Their job was simple: provide air support for the American invasion of Leyte, screen the carriers from submarines, and stay out of surface gun range. This was because escort carriers were never built to fight battleships; they were built to launch planes and run away.
That morning, Taffy 3 was steaming in a loose formation about fifty miles east of Samar. The escort carriers were launching their first combat air patrol when the radar operator on the Fanshaw Bay picked up surface contacts—big ones—closing fast. At 6:45, lookouts on the northern horizon spotted the distinctive pagoda masts of Japanese battleships. At 6:46, the first enemy shells began falling. Massive geysers of water erupted around the carriers as 14-inch and 18-inch shells started bracketing the formation.
Rear Admiral Clifton Sprague, commanding Taffy 3, realized immediately what had happened. Admiral Halsey’s Third Fleet, the powerful fast carriers and battleships that were supposed to be guarding the San Bernardino Strait, had been lured north by a Japanese decoy force. The strait was undefended. Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita’s Center Force, which American intelligence thought had been turned back the previous day, had steamed through the strait during the night and was now between Taffy 3 and the American invasion beaches at Leyte Gulf.
Sprague ordered the carriers to turn east and run at maximum speed—eighteen knots. The Japanese heavy cruisers, however, could make thirty-five knots. He ordered his destroyers and destroyer escorts to lay smoke. The wind was wrong; the smoke drifted north instead of east, offering minimal concealment. The range was closing. The Yamato’s 18.1-inch guns could reach out to twenty-five miles. The largest gun on any American ship in Taffy 3 was only 5 inches. A cruiser’s armor could shrug off 5-inch shells, while a destroyer’s thin hull couldn’t stop anything the Japanese were firing.
The math was absolutely clear: Taffy 3 had no chance in a gun duel. The carriers couldn’t outrun the Japanese, and the screen couldn’t stop them. Behind Taffy 3 in Leyte Gulf were hundreds of transport ships loaded with tens of thousands of American soldiers. If the Japanese broke through, the invasion would turn into a massacre.
At 6:54, Evans made his decision without orders and without waiting for Sprague’s command. The Johnston broke formation. She turned hard to port, directly toward the Yamato, alone. The Johnston’s engines went to flank speed—thirty-five knots. Evans ordered his gun crews to open fire at maximum range. The 5-inch guns began hammering at the Japanese heavy cruiser column. At this range, the shells couldn’t penetrate armor, but they could distract. They could force the Japanese gun directors to split their attention. They could buy seconds.
Evans was charging straight at a fleet that outweighed his destroyer by a factor of 150 to 1. The Japanese formation stretched across the horizon: the Yamato in the center, with battleships Nagato, Kongō, and Haruna in support. Heavy cruisers Kumano, Suzuya, Chikuma, Tone, Chōkai, and Haguro flanked the battleships, while destroyers screened the formation. Every ship was firing. The ocean erupted in geysers of colored water as the Japanese used dye in their shells for spotting. It was a rainbow of death walking toward the Johnston.
The destroyer’s 5-inch guns kept firing—over 200 rounds in five minutes. Evans wasn’t aiming at the Yamato; he was heading for the heavy cruiser Kumano, which was leading the right flank of the Japanese formation. The Kumano displaced 13,800 tons and carried eight 8-inch guns, four torpedo tubes, and had a speed of thirty-five knots. She had been built to hunt destroyers exactly like the Johnston. At 7:20, the Johnston closed to within 10,000 yards of the Kumano—torpedo range. Evans ordered the torpedo officer to launch all ten Mark 15 torpedoes.
The fish ran hot, straight, and normal. White wakes streaked across the dark water toward the Japanese column. The Kumano’s lookouts spotted the torpedo tracks, and the cruiser began an emergency turn. It was too late. At least one torpedo struck home. The explosion tore away the Kumano’s bow. The heavy cruiser’s speed dropped to fourteen knots, and she fell out of formation, trailing oil and debris. Her sister ship, the Suzuya, broke off to escort the crippled cruiser back toward the San Bernardino Strait. Two Japanese heavy cruisers were out of the fight.
But the Johnston had no time to celebrate. The battleships had found their range. At 7:30, three 14-inch shells from the Kongō slammed into the Johnston’s hull. The first hit destroyed the after fire room and the after engine room. The second severed all power to the steering engine. The third knocked out the three after 5-inch guns. Three 6-inch shells from other Japanese ships followed immediately. One crashed into the bridge, killing or wounding most of the command staff. Shrapnel shredded Evans’s shirt, and two fingers were torn from his left hand. The radar antenna snapped off the mast and crashed onto the bridge deck.
The Johnston’s speed dropped from thirty-five knots to seventeen. Power to the bridge was gone, and communications were severed. The gyrocompass was useless. Blood covered the decks, men were screaming, and the ship was listing. But the forward engine room still answered. One boiler still had steam. The forward gun director still functioned, and two 5-inch guns could still fire.
Evans climbed down from the wrecked bridge. He made his way aft through smoke and fire to the steering station at the fantail. The manual steering mechanism still worked. He took control of the ship from there, conning the Johnston by shouting orders through speaking tubes to the engine room and the gun crews. Blood ran down his arm from his mangled hand, but he didn’t stop.
A rain squall passed over the Johnston at 7:35, giving the crew ten minutes of concealment. Damage control teams worked frantically. They couldn’t restore full power, fix the rudder controls, or repair the guns, but they could keep the Johnston moving. They could keep two guns firing. That was enough for Evans.
At 7:45, the Johnston emerged from the rain squall. She should have been dead in the water, but Evans had her making seventeen knots, zigzagging on manual steering with two guns still hammering at the Japanese formation. The crew could see three more American destroyers charging toward the enemy: the Hoel, the Heermann, and the tiny destroyer escort Samuel B. Roberts. The three destroyers had watched the Johnston charge alone, and now they followed.
The USS Hoel, under Commander Leon Kintberger, turned toward the Japanese battleship column at 7:35. The USS Heermann, under Commander Amos Hathaway, followed thirty seconds later. Both were Fletcher-class destroyers identical to the Johnston. The destroyer escort Samuel B. Roberts turned at 7:40. She was smaller than the destroyers, a John C. Butler-class vessel of 1,745 tons, with only two 5-inch guns, three torpedoes, and a maximum speed of twenty-four knots. Lieutenant Commander Robert Copeland commanded her.
Copeland’s orders from the Navy had been simple: protect convoys from submarines and screen carriers from torpedo attacks. He was never, under any circumstances, to engage capital ships in a gun duel. Destroyer escorts weren’t built for that; their hulls were too thin and their guns too small. Copeland ignored his orders. He pointed the Samuel B. Roberts straight at the Japanese heavy cruiser Chōkai and opened the throttles beyond their designed maximum. The chief engineer diverted every available pound of steam to the twin turbines.
The Samuel B. Roberts accelerated past her rated speed: twenty-five knots, twenty-six, twenty-seven. The hull vibrated violently, and the engine room temperature climbed past safe limits. The crew didn’t care. They hit 28.7 knots—four knots faster than the ship was ever designed to go. By 08:00 hours, all four American destroyers and destroyer escorts were charging directly at twenty-three Japanese warships.
The carriers continued running east, launching every aircraft they could get airborne. Wildcat fighters and Avenger torpedo bombers took to the skies; some carried bombs, some carried torpedoes, and some carried nothing but their machine guns and a willingness to dive at Japanese warships just to force them to maneuver. The Japanese formation began to break apart. With the Kumano gone and the Suzuya escorting her, the remaining cruisers began independent maneuvers to avoid the American torpedo attacks.
The Chōkai, leading the cruiser column, came under fire from the Samuel B. Roberts at 8:10. The little destroyer escort closed to 4,000 yards—so close that the Chōkai’s 8-inch guns couldn’t depress low enough to hit her. The Japanese shells passed overhead and slammed into the escort carrier Gambier Bay instead. The Samuel B. Roberts launched her three torpedoes at the Chōkai. All three ran true, and at least one hit. The heavy cruiser began losing speed, with thick black smoke pouring from her engine room. She fell to the rear of the formation, where American aircraft spotted her and dove. A 500-pound bomb struck amidships, and the Chōkai went dead in the water at 8:51. Her crew would abandon ship two hours later, and the destroyer Fujinami would finish her with torpedoes to prevent capture.
The Johnston, still making seventeen knots on one working engine, engaged the heavy cruiser Chikuma at 8:15. The Japanese cruiser was firing at the escort carriers, her 8-inch shells hitting the Kalinin Bay and White Plains. The Johnston’s two remaining 5-inch guns opened fire at 14,000 yards. The shells were too small to sink a cruiser, but they hit the Chikuma’s superstructure, damaged fire control systems, and killed men on the bridge. The Chikuma turned to engage the Johnston, which gave the American carriers thirty seconds to open the range. Those thirty seconds were enough for three more Avenger torpedo bombers to get airborne.
The Hoel engaged the battleship Kongō at 8:20. The battleship’s 14-inch guns replied immediately. The Hoel took over forty hits in fifteen minutes. Her bridge was destroyed, and her engine rooms flooded. She went dead in the water at 8:30. Her captain ordered her abandoned at 8:40, and she rolled over and sank. At 8:55, 253 men went into the water; eighty-six survived.
The Heermann engaged the heavy cruisers Chikuma and Haguro simultaneously. She fired seven torpedoes at the Chikuma, and while all missed, the torpedo wakes forced both cruisers to turn away from the carriers. The Heermann took multiple hits but remained operational. Her captain maneuvered so aggressively that he nearly collided with the Johnston at 08:00 hours, the two destroyers passing within 200 yards of each other.
The Johnston turned south at 8:30. Evans had spotted seven Japanese destroyers attempting to flank the American carriers to launch their Type 93 Long Lance torpedoes. If those torpedoes reached the carriers, Taffy 3 would cease to exist, and the invasion fleet in Leyte Gulf would be defenseless. The Johnston was crippled: one engine, no radar, no bridge communications, manual steering from the fantail, and only two guns.
Evans didn’t hesitate. He turned the Johnston toward the seven destroyers and opened fire. One American destroyer against seven Japanese—the odds didn’t matter. The carriers had to be protected. The Johnston’s two forward guns began firing at 8:40. The Japanese destroyers scattered, and while they returned fire, their formation was disrupted. The torpedo attack was aborted as the destroyers turned to engage the Johnston instead. That decision saved the carriers, but it killed the Johnston.
While the Johnston fought the destroyer squadron, the Samuel B. Roberts continued her duel with the Chikuma. The little destroyer escort’s forward 5-inch gun was firing nonstop. The gun captain was Gunner’s Mate Third Class Paul Henry Carr, twenty-four years old from Checotah, Oklahoma. His gun crew had fired over 300 rounds, and the barrel was glowing red. The mount had lost electrical power, so the crew was cranking the gun into position manually and loading shells by hand. The breech was so hot that powder charges were beginning to cook off prematurely.
At 8:51, a 14-inch shell from the battleship Kongō struck the Samuel B. Roberts’ hull. The explosion destroyed one of her two boilers, and her speed dropped from twenty-eight knots to seventeen. Two minutes later, three 8-inch shells from the Chikuma hit in rapid succession. One shell penetrated the engine room, the second struck amidships, and the third hit near the stern. The Samuel B. Roberts went dead in the water at 09:00 hours.
Carr’s gun crew kept firing. The mount was operated entirely by hand now—no power, no hydraulics. Ten men were cranking the gun into position, loading shells manually, and firing as fast as the overheated breech would allow. At 9:05, a powder charge exploded prematurely inside the breech. The blast killed most of the gun crew instantly. Carr was torn open from neck to groin but remained conscious. He was found holding the final shell, begging someone to load it so the gun could fire one more time. He died holding that shell. His gun had fired 324 rounds in thirty-five minutes of continuous fire.
The Samuel B. Roberts began to sink. Lieutenant Commander Copeland ordered the ship abandoned at 9:10. The destroyer escort rolled over and went under at 9:35. Of her 224 crew, eighty-nine were killed in action. Twenty-five more would die in the water from wounds, exposure, or shark attacks over the next fifty hours before rescue arrived. One hundred and twenty survived.
The escort carrier Gambier Bay had been taking hits since 7:50. She was on the exposed port flank of the carrier formation, closest to the Japanese heavy cruisers. Shells from the Chikuma and Kongō had started fires on her flight deck at 8:10. At 8:20, a 14-inch shell from the Kongō penetrated her engine room. The Gambier Bay lost power and went dead in the water at 8:45. The Japanese cruisers closed in and poured 8-inch shells into her hull at point-blank range. The Gambier Bay capsized at 9:07. Eight hundred men went into the water; 147 died.
The Johnston was still fighting the Japanese destroyer squadron, but the cumulative damage was too much. Her remaining engine was failing, and her forward gun mounts were jammed. She was taking water through dozens of shell holes. At 9:30, Japanese destroyers closed to within 5,000 yards and opened concentrated fire. Shells smashed into the Johnston’s hull, and the bridge was destroyed again. The last engine failed, and the final gun went silent.
At 9:45, Evans gave the order to abandon ship. The crew began going over the side. The Johnston was listing heavily to port, her decks were awash, and fires burned amidships. The hull was splitting apart near the stern where an 18.1-inch shell from the Yamato had struck earlier in the battle. That shell had torn completely through the destroyer, leaving a hole big enough to drive a truck through.
Evans was last seen climbing into a life raft. He was badly wounded, blood covered his uniform, and his left hand was wrapped in bandages. Witnesses saw him in the water helping other men into rafts. Then, he vanished. Of the 327 men aboard the Johnston, 141 would survive, and 186 died. Evans was never found; his body was never recovered.
At 10:10, the Johnston rolled to port and sank. As she went under, something happened that had never occurred before in the Pacific War. The Japanese destroyer Yukikaze, which had been firing on the Johnston minutes earlier, sailed past the sinking American destroyer at point-blank range. Her crew lined the rails and came to attention. They saluted—a formal military salute to an enemy they had just destroyed. Japanese sailors were honoring American sailors for their courage in battle.
The men from the Johnston went into the water, as did the survivors from the Hoel, the Samuel B. Roberts, and the Gambier Bay. Over a thousand men were floating in the Philippine Sea with no rescue ships in sight. The battle continued around them. Japanese destroyers passed within yards, and the men played dead, floating motionless to avoid being shot. Sharks began circling within the first hour.
But something strange was happening to the Japanese fleet. At 9:11, Vice Admiral Kurita ordered his force to break off the attack and regroup. The American destroyers had been destroyed, and the carriers were running. Leyte Gulf was only forty miles to the south, filled with defenseless transport ships. Kurita’s battleships and cruisers could have reached the invasion fleet in two hours and massacred the transports. Instead, Kurita turned his fleet north.
He believed he was fighting major American fleet units. The ferocity of the destroyer attacks had convinced him that he was facing heavy or light cruisers, not mere destroyers. Continuous air attacks from Taffy 3’s carriers, joined by aircraft from Taffy 1 and Taffy 2 to the south, had damaged every battleship except the Yamato. The heavy cruiser Chikuma had been hit by torpedoes from aircraft at 8:54 and was dead in the water, sinking. The Suzuya had been bombed repeatedly, and her Long Lance torpedoes had exploded from the fires; she would sink at 13:22.
Kurita had lost three heavy cruisers: the Chōkai, Chikuma, and Suzuya. The Kumano was crippled, barely making ten knots back toward the San Bernardino Strait. Every other cruiser had sustained damage, and his destroyer screen was scattered. His flagship, the Yamato, had been forced to turn north to evade torpedo attacks, causing Kurita to lose contact with much of his task force. He had lost tactical control of the battle.
At 12:30, Kurita made his final decision. He ordered the entire Center Force to withdraw through the San Bernardino Strait. The most powerful surface fleet Japan had assembled since Midway turned around and retreated from six escort carriers and seven destroyer escorts—four of which were already sinking. The men in the water watched the Japanese ships disappear over the horizon.
Then they waited fifty hours—two days and two nights—floating in the Pacific. The oil-covered sailors clung to life rafts and debris. Men died from wounds, exposure, or from drinking seawater. Sharks took others. Survivors formed tight groups, holding onto each other and trying to stay awake. If you fell asleep, you might slip away and drown.
Rescue ships finally arrived on October 27. Patrol craft and landing craft from Leyte Gulf picked up survivors scattered across twenty miles of ocean. From the Johnston, 141 men were pulled from the water; from the Samuel B. Roberts, 120; from the Hoel, eighty-six; and from the Gambier Bay, 800. Commander Ernest Evans was not among them.
On November 27, 1944, the USS Johnston was struck from the Naval Register. The official designation was “sunk in action.” The report noted: “No survivors reported from the commanding officer.” Commander Ernest Evans was listed as missing, presumed dead. His wife received the telegram in early December; she would never know where her husband died or where his body rested.
On February 19, 1945, President Franklin Roosevelt signed the citation awarding Ernest Evans the Medal of Honor, posthumously, for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. The citation described the Johnston’s solo charge, the torpedo attack on the Kumano, Evans commanding from the fantail after the bridge was destroyed, and the fight against seven Japanese destroyers. It concluded that Evans had upheld the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service. He gave his life for his country.
Ernest Evans became the first Native American in United States Navy history to receive the Medal of Honor. He remains one of only two destroyer captains in World War II to receive the decoration. Task Unit 77.4.3 received the Presidential Unit Citation. The entire unit—all six escort carriers, three destroyers, and four destroyer escorts—was honored. The citation called Taffy 3’s defense one of the greatest last stands in naval history.
Rear Admiral Clifton Sprague later wrote that the outcome was the result of “special dispensation from the Lord Almighty.” Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz agreed, stating in his official report that no other action in American naval history involved such a disparity of force. The American ships won. They prevented the Japanese from reaching Leyte Gulf and saved the invasion.
The Battle off Samar was part of the larger Battle of Leyte Gulf, the largest naval battle in history, involving over 360 ships and 200,000 men. The Japanese Imperial Navy lost twenty-six ships; the Americans lost six, five of which were from Taffy 3. After Leyte Gulf, the Japanese Navy was finished as an effective fighting force.
The Yamato survived the Battle off Samar with minor damage but sailed one last time on April 7, 1945, on a suicide mission to Okinawa. American aircraft intercepted her, and she sank after taking at least eleven torpedoes and six bombs.
For seventy-five years, no one knew exactly where the Johnston rested. The battle had taken place over the Philippine Trench, one of the deepest parts of the world’s oceans. In October 2019, the research vessel Petrel located a Fletcher-class destroyer at a depth of over 20,000 feet. In March 2021, Victor Vescovo and his team at Caladan Oceanic confirmed the identity. Using the submersible Limiting Factor, Vescovo descended to 21,180 feet (6,460 meters).
The wreck was remarkably preserved. The hull number “557” was still visible on the bow. The 5-inch gun turrets were still in place, pointed to starboard, still aimed at the enemy. The bridge was destroyed, and the hull showed massive damage. At 21,180 feet, the Johnston was the deepest shipwreck ever discovered until Vescovo found the Samuel B. Roberts in June 2022 at a depth of 22,621 feet (6,895 meters).
The “Small Boy” that fought like a battleship now holds the world record for the deepest known shipwreck. Both ships rest in darkness, four miles below the surface, as steel monuments to the day seven tiny ships charged the Yamato and the entire Japanese fleet retreated. They are protected war graves, keeping the memory of Commander Evans and his sailors alive in the silence of the deep.
