World's Deepest Shipwreck Discovered
Four Miles Under The Pacific

Taffy 3 is immortal. https://www.history.navy.mil/browse-by-topic/wars-conflicts-and-operations/world-war-ii/1944/samar.html https://www.usni.org/press/books/last-stand-tin-can-sailors

The Roberts fought far above its weight at the Battle of Leyte Gulf when our landing forces were left vulnerable by when Admiral Halsey's task force went elsewhere. But it's part of military history, which I'm sure schools haven't taught in years. Sad to consider what's replaced it.

The article doesn’t even begin to do justice to the Roberts or other ships and crew that fought in the largest naval battle in history, the Battle of Leyte Gulf. The Japanese made an all out three pronged attack on Gen MacArthur’s invasion forces who were on the beach preparing to take back the Philippines. A decoy Japanese carrier fleet came down from Japan to lure Adm Halsey’s formidable fleet north, leaving the landing forces protected by a few escort carriers and a handful of destroyers and destroyer escorts, including the USS Samuel B. Roberts. The tiny ships of Task Force 3, “Taffy 3” were significantly outnumbered and out gunned. The Japanese battleship Yamato, the largest of WWII, with 18” guns, was their flagship. The Roberts and a few other destroyers, with their puny 5” naval guns and a handful of torpedos, attacked right into the teeth of the Japanese fleet. They got close enough to inflict serious damage; sinking or disabling several enemy heavy cruisers. The larger enemy warships couldn’t depress their guns enough to blast the smaller ships coming at them as if they were US front line battleships. Japanese Adm Kurita, in command of the Japanese center force mistook the small destroyers for heavy cruisers and was uncharacteristically caution, not recognizing how much of an upper hand he had. Their actions allowed the small carriers to buy some time and space, while launching every aircraft they had against the enemy fleet. My father’s carrier was sunk shortly after he took off. He had to refuel and rearm at an army airstrip that was still being cleared by the invasion forces. At first, the army didn’t cooperate in supplying navy aircraft, until they realized that failure to do so would cost them their lives. The Roberts and ships of Taffy 3 saved MacArthur’s invasion troops and the transport ships Still disgorging troops and weapons of war that resulted in defeating the Japanese at Leyte Gulf, on their way to Japan.

#3 - Thank you for the excellent history lesson, and thank your father for his gallant service. My Uncle Bill was a SeaBee for the entire Pacific War, having enlisted on December 8th, 1941. Whenever I asked him about his war experiences he would just laugh and say he never saw any war, but "saw the inside of every brig in the south Pacific." I never quite believed him.

I recommend the book "The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors", a real world tale of amazing heroism. Task Force Taffy 3, consisting of six slow, small escort aircraft carriers with most aircraft engaged in bombing shore targets and three destroyers, and four destroyer escorts, which are even smaller than destroyers, were engaged by one of the largest modern surface battle fleets ever assembled. Japan brought four battleships with guns up to the largest shells ever on a ship, 18 inch diameter, plus six heavy cruisers, two light cruisers and eleven destroyers to the fight, surprising Taffy 3. The US destroyer's largest guns fired five inch shells, and they also carried ten torpedoes. A destroyer had five 5-inch guns and the destroyer escorts had two 5-inch guns and three torpedoes. It was one of the most severely mismatched fights the USN ever fought. And the US destroyers attacked the Japanese fleet, protecting the small carriers who ran at their 18 knot top speeds. The story is epic, and the tiny US surface fleet managed to drive away the much larger Japanese fleet. Read the book, it is amazing. The person Samuel B. Roberts was a coxswain of a Higgins boat in the Guadalcanal landings who gave his life to save others. And after DD-413 was sunk in the Battle Off Samar, we built a second USS Samuel B. Roberts, just after WW2, retired in 1970, then replaced by a third ship of that name, (FFG-58) a frigate which was nearly blown in half by an Iranian mine in the Persian Gulf in 1988. The crew heroically saved the ship, and even with the main turbines blown out of their mounts, they used their small docking thrusters and an auxiliary diesel to move themselve out of the mine field, refusing assistance to avoid danger to another ship. A glorious name Samuel B. Roberts - three times heroic, the man, DD-413 and FFG-58. I have not studied the history of DD-823, the post WW2 ship with that name. God rest the souls of all those brave men.

Spoiler alert......Taffy 3 lost several ships, but managed to drive off Kurita's task force and prevented the US transport ships offloading troops and supplies at the Leyte landings from being wiped out. No one could have imagined such an outcome as the battle started. The Japanese reported that they had engaged 7 cruisers and six large aircraft carriers, based on the ferocity and effectiveness of these destroyers' gunnery and their intrepidity and the effective attacks by the few aircraft that the carriers had, mostly armed with land bombs, far less effective against ships. Many aircraft had no bombs, merely strafed with machine guns, or made mock attacks to confuse the Japanese gunners. Many brave men gave their all that day.

"This will be a fight against overwhelming odds from which survival cannot be expected. We will do what damage we can." LCdr Robert Copeland, USS Samuel B. Roberts, Oct 25, 1944.

The bravery of this crew was unmatched even though they knew the odds of survival were slim. They defended what was a great and free country and produced the baby boomers who benefited by their heroism. I'm sure the entitled kids in affinity groups who can't tolerate another persons opinion would do as well.

According to the article's headline, the ship was found four miles beneath the seabed. RIP.

#9 I caught that too.

The most tragic aspect of this story is, seventy-eight years on, the United States is becoming the type of tyranny against which these valiant sailors fought so ferociously.