Fifteen rounds. Five ships. Zero American losses.
On the night of December 11, 1944, the Japanese Imperial Navy sent a convoy into Ormoc Bay to reinforce their crumbling defensive line on Leyte. What they didn't know was that the 77th Infantry Division — a unit of middle-aged civilians from New York and New Jersey — had turned the waterfront into something no Japanese captain could have anticipated.
The 77th had no warships. No Navy support that night. What they had were M10 Tank Destroyers — vehicles designed to kill German tanks in Europe. Nobody had ever fired a tank destroyer at a ship. Nobody knew if it would work.
Eighteen minutes later, the answer was written across Ormoc Bay. And nothing like it ever happened again in the entire war.
The other divisions called them the Old Bastards. The Japanese had a different name for them — one that translated roughly to demons who take no prisoners. After that night, both names made sense.
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On the night of December 11, 1944, the Japanese Imperial Navy sent a convoy into Ormoc Bay to reinforce their crumbling defensive line on Leyte. What they didn't know was that the 77th Infantry Division — a unit of middle-aged civilians from New York and New Jersey — had turned the waterfront into something no Japanese captain could have anticipated.
The 77th had no warships. No Navy support that night. What they had were M10 Tank Destroyers — vehicles designed to kill German tanks in Europe. Nobody had ever fired a tank destroyer at a ship. Nobody knew if it would work.
Eighteen minutes later, the answer was written across Ormoc Bay. And nothing like it ever happened again in the entire war.
The other divisions called them the Old Bastards. The Japanese had a different name for them — one that translated roughly to demons who take no prisoners. After that night, both names made sense.
Subscribe for forgotten WW2 stories ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@ww2dispatchh
Like if you think this story deserves to be remembered.
Comment below — where are you watching from?
#worldwar2 #ww2 #militaryhistory #ww2stories #ww2dispatch
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LearningTranscript
00:00At 2300 hours on December 11, 1944,
00:04Corporal James McKenzie pressed himself against a crumbled concrete wall
00:08on the Ormok waterfront,
00:10watching three dark silhouettes glide across the black surface of the bay.
00:1532 years old, two months under fire,
00:19zero experience engaging warships.
00:21The Imperial Japanese Navy had dispatched at least five vessels
00:26into Ormok Bay that night,
00:28ferrying an estimated 750 troops
00:31to reinforce their crumbling defensive line.
00:34McKenzie was not supposed to be scanning for ships.
00:37Nobody in the 77th Infantry Division
00:39was supposed to be fighting the Japanese Navy.
00:42But the 77th had abandoned the rulebook
00:44the moment they hit the beaches on Guam six months earlier.
00:48They were the oldest infantry division in the United States Army,
00:52average age 32.
00:54The other divisions called them the Old Bastards,
00:58The Japanese called them something that translated roughly to
01:02demons who take no prisoners.
01:04The statistics backed up both names.
01:08Across the entire Pacific War,
01:10American forces killed approximately 2,200,000 enemy troops
01:15and captured 50,000 prisoners.
01:18A capture rate of 2.2%.
01:20The 77th Infantry Division had killed 43,385 Japanese soldiers
01:27and taken 358 prisoners.
01:31A capture rate of 0.8%.
01:56Major General Andrew D. Bruce led this division of accountants and taxi drivers and factory workers,
02:03who had turned the western coast of Leyte into a graveyard.
02:07Bruce was 49 years old.
02:09A career artillery officer who believed in mathematics and firepower.
02:14He had put his division ashore at Deposito on December 7th,
02:18three and a half miles south of Ormok.
02:21The Japanese had not anticipated an amphibious assault on the western coast.
02:25They had expected the Americans to push their way through the mountains.
02:30Bruce gave them 72 hours to grasp their mistake.
02:34By December 10th, the 77th had fought through 23 miles of enemy positions and seized Ormok.
02:40The town was rubble.
02:42Camp Downs was ash.
02:44The Antilao River ran red for three days.
02:48But the Japanese kept coming.
02:50Every night, barges and landing craft and small transports
02:54tried to slip past American naval patrols
02:56and deliver reinforcements to the remaining Japanese forces in the mountains.
03:01The Imperial Japanese Army needed those reinforcements.
03:05General Tomoyuki Yamashita had committed to making Leyte
03:08the decisive battle of the Philippines.
03:11He could not hold the island without fresh troops.
03:14The Americans needed to cut off those reinforcements.
03:18Cutting them off was the Navy's job.
03:20Destroyers patrolled the approaches to Ormok Bay.
03:24PT boats hunted in the shallow waters near the coast.
03:27Army infantry divisions were not built to engage naval vessels.
03:31The 77th Infantry Division had brought M-10 tank destroyers with them to Leyte.
03:36The 3-inch gun-motor carriage M-10 was designed to knock out German tanks in Europe.
03:43It carried a 3-inch gun mounted in an open-topped turret on a modified Sherman chassis.
03:49Maximum effective range against armor?
03:511,000 yards.
03:53Maximum effective range against a ship?
03:56Unknown.
03:59The M-10s were positioned along the Ormok waterfront with the 307th Infantry Regiment.
04:07Their primary mission was destroying Japanese fortified positions and machine gun nests.
04:12Their secondary mission was direct fire support for infantry assaults.
04:17Engaging enemy naval vessels was not in the manual.
04:21If you want to see how the 77th turned tank destroyers into coastal defense guns, please hit that like button.
04:28It helps us share more forgotten stories from World War II.
04:32Subscribe if you haven't already.
04:35Back to McKenzie.
04:37McKenzie watched the dark shapes grow closer.
04:40The lead vessel was roughly the size of an LST, possibly a No. 101-class landing ship.
04:46It was moving slowly toward the beach northwest of Ormok, where Japanese troops still held defensive positions in the hills.
04:55If that ship reached the shore and offloaded its troops, the Americans would face another week of fighting to root
05:01them out.
05:03The M-10 crews had gotten their orders 20 minutes earlier.
05:06Track the vessels.
05:08Wait for illumination.
05:09Fire on command.
05:12Nobody knew if tank destroyer rounds would punch through a ship's hull.
05:16Nobody knew if the Japanese vessels would shoot back.
05:20Nobody knew if this would work.
05:23McKenzie checked his watch.
05:2523.55.
05:27Five minutes to midnight.
05:29The dark shapes were less than 1,000 yards from shore.
05:33And the M-10 crews were waiting for someone to light up the night.
05:37The first flare went up at midnight exactly.
05:40A 60mm illumination round launched from an infantry mortar position 200 yards inland.
05:46The shell climbed 300 feet and burst into white phosphorus light that turned Ormok Bay into a stage lit for
05:54slaughter.
05:54The Japanese landing ship appeared in perfect silhouette.
05:59Designation, Transport No. 159.
06:03Length, approximately 200 feet.
06:06Displacement, 800 tons.
06:08The vessel had already beached itself northwest of Ormok and was discharging troops down ramps at bow and stern.
06:15Dark figures moved against the white sand.
06:18Heavy equipment rolled off the deck.
06:21The Japanese were bringing tanks.
06:23The American gun crews had 30 seconds of illumination before the flare died out.
06:2830 seconds to acquire target, calculate range, load, and fire.
06:33The M-10 crews had trained for this moment without realizing it.
06:37Every tank they had killed in practice.
06:41Every fortified position they had demolished during the push to Ormok.
06:45Every hour spent calculating deflection and elevation for moving targets.
06:50All of it applied to a ship the same way it applied to armor.
06:54The lead M-10 fired first.
06:573-inch, armor-piercing round.
07:00Muzzle velocity, 2,600 feet per second.
07:04Range to target, 970 yards.
07:07The gun's recoil shoved the 17-ton chassis backwards 6 inches.
07:13The shell crossed Ormok Bay in 1.2 seconds.
07:17Direct hit.
07:18The round punched through the ship's starboard side, just above the waterline.
07:23The armor-piercing shell was designed to penetrate 3 inches of steel armor at 1,000 yards.
07:29Transport No. 159 had hull plating less than 1 inch thick.
07:34The shell went through the hull, through the cargo hold, and detonated against the port bulkhead.
07:40The blast tore a hull the size of a truck in the ship's side.
07:45Water poured into the cargo hold at approximately 2,000 gallons per minute.
07:50The vessel listed 7 degrees to starboard immediately.
07:55Japanese troops on the ramps stopped unloading.
07:59Troops still inside the hold scrambled for the exits.
08:02The ship's crew attempted to assess damage, while American artillery began zeroing in on the beached vessel.
08:10The second flare went up 40 seconds after the first.
08:14Another 60-millimeter illumination round.
08:17The bay lit up again.
08:19Transport No. 159 was deeper in the water now, settling into the sand.
08:25The stern had dropped three feet.
08:29Troops were abandoning the vessel, wading through chest-deep water toward the shore.
08:34The Japanese defenders in the hills were firing mortars at the American positions on the Ormok waterfront.
08:41The return fire was immediate and devastating.
08:45The M-10 that had scored the first hit fired again.
08:49The crew had adjusted for the ship's changing position.
08:53The second round struck below the waterline aft, opening another breach in the hull.
08:58The Japanese vessel was flooding from two separate hulls now.
09:01The rate of water intake exceeded any capacity to pump it out.
09:06The ship was finished.
09:09But four more vessels were still approaching Ormok from the north.
09:13Three barges and one larger transport.
09:16The Americans could see them clearly under the illumination.
09:20The Japanese captains were watching Transport No. 159 go down.
09:25They were calculating odds.
09:28They had 700 troops to deliver.
09:30They had orders from General Yamashita himself.
09:34Retreat was not an acceptable option in the Imperial Japanese Army.
09:38The Japanese vessels kept coming.
09:41The M-10 crews reloaded.
09:43The mortar teams prepared more illumination rounds.
09:46The 7AA Anti-Aircraft Battalion moved their 40mm guns into position along the waterfront.
09:53The 77th Infantry Division was about to engage in the only ship-to-shore artillery duel of the Pacific War.
10:01The third flare climbed into the sky.
10:04The second Japanese vessel was 600 yards from shore.
10:08The M-10 crews tracked it through their sights.
10:11Every gun along the Ormok waterfront had a target now.
10:16General Bruce was watching from his command post 300 yards inland.
10:20This was not in any tactical manual he had studied at Fort Sill.
10:24But the old bastards had stopped following the manual the day they hit the beaches on Guam.
10:29The order came down at 0015.
10:32All guns.
10:34Fire at will.
10:35The Ormok waterfront exploded.
10:3740mm anti-aircraft guns firing at surface targets.
10:41.50 caliber machine guns raking the Japanese barges.
10:45Self-propelled howitzers from the 307th Infantry Regiment slamming high-explosive shells into the approaching vessels.
10:52And three M-10 tank destroyers firing three-inch armor-piercing rounds built to kill tigers and panthers at ships
11:00built to carry troops.
11:02The mathematics favored the Americans overwhelmingly.
11:05The Japanese vessels had no armor.
11:08No meaningful defensive weapons.
11:10No ability to maneuver in the shallow water of Ormok Bay.
11:13They were cargo carriers attempting to deliver troops while being engaged by concentrated artillery fire from prepared positions on shore.
11:22The second Japanese transport took the first hit at 0016.
11:27M-10 round through the bow.
11:29The shell penetrated the forward hold and detonated among troops packed for landing.
11:34The explosion killed an estimated 40 soldiers instantly.
11:38The vessel kept coming.
11:40Japanese discipline held even under fire.
11:44The captain held course toward shore.
11:47The self-propelled howitzers fired next.
11:50105-millimeter high-explosive shells.
11:53These rounds were not designed to penetrate.
11:56They were designed to annihilate everything in a 15-yard radius through overpressure and fragmentation.
12:03The first shell struck the transport's superstructure.
12:06The second struck the deck.
12:09The third struck the waterline and ripped the hull open like a can opener.
12:14The transport covered another 200 yards before the flooding became critical.
12:20The captain ran it aground 400 yards from shore.
12:24Too far for the troops to wade.
12:26Too shallow for the vessel to stay afloat.
12:29Japanese soldiers leapt into water over their heads.
12:33Many drowned immediately.
12:34The ones who could swim pushed toward shore while American machine guns tracked them through the water.
12:42Transport number 159 was completely submerged by 0020.
12:48Only the superstructure remained above the surface.
12:52Approximately 150 Japanese troops had made it ashore before the ship went under.
12:57Another 200 were in the water.
13:01The rest went down with the vessel.
13:04The Americans estimated 300 casualties from that ship alone.
13:09The three barges were smaller and faster.
13:12They drew less water and could operate closer to shore.
13:16Each carried approximately 50 troops.
13:19The Japanese captains scattered them, hoping to divide American fire.
13:24It was a reasonable tactical decision.
13:27It failed entirely.
13:30The 7AA battalion had positioned six 40mm guns along the waterfront.
13:37Each gun could fire 120 rounds per minute.
13:41The effective range against surface targets was 2,000 yards.
13:46The Japanese barges were well inside that range.
13:49The 40mm crews opened up at 0022.
13:54The first barge disintegrated.
13:5740mm rounds are explosive.
14:00They detonate on impact.
14:03When 50 explosive rounds strike a wooden barge in 12 seconds,
14:08the barge ceases to exist as a functional vessel.
14:11It becomes floating wreckage and body parts.
14:14The American gun crews watched the barge come apart like balsa wood under a sledgehammer.
14:21Survivors in the water numbered less than 10.
14:24The second barge tried to pull away.
14:27The helmsman threw the rudder hard over and attempted to flee into deeper water.
14:32The M10 crews tracked the movement.
14:36The lead M10 fired at 0024.
14:39The round hit the barge amid ships and split it in half.
14:43Both sections sank in less than 30 seconds.
14:47Japanese troops thrashed in the oil-slicked water.
14:51Machine gun fire found them there.
14:54The third barge made it closest to shore.
14:57The captain drove it straight at the beach at full speed,
15:00ignoring the fire from American positions.
15:0350 caliber rounds punched through the wooden hull.
15:07Mortar shells detonated in the water around it.
15:10The barge grounded in three feet of water, 70 yards from shore.
15:16Japanese troops poured over the sides and waded toward the beach.
15:20They made it 15 yards before the machine guns cut them down.
15:23The 77th Infantry Division had positioned interlocking fields of fire across every approach to the Ormok waterfront.
15:31The Japanese troops waded into a killing zone with no cover and no supporting fire.
15:38They died in the water.
15:40All 50 of them.
15:43The engagement lasted 18 minutes.
15:47Five Japanese vessels attacked.
15:49Five Japanese vessels were destroyed.
15:52Estimated enemy casualties?
15:54750 troops.
15:56American casualties?
15:58Zero.
16:05General Bruce received the after-action report at 0040.
16:10Five enemy vessels destroyed?
16:13Estimated 750 enemy casualties?
16:17Zero American losses?
16:19One M-10 tank destroyer had fired seven rounds.
16:23Another had fired five.
16:25The third had fired three.
16:28Fifteen three-inch shells total.
16:30The self-propelled howitzers had expended 42 rounds.
16:34The 40mm guns had fired approximately 600 rounds combined.
16:39The mathematics told Bruce everything he needed to understand.
16:43The Japanese could not reinforce Ormok by sea, as long as the 77th controlled the waterfront.
16:50Every vessel that attempted landing would face the same concentrated fire.
16:54Every Japanese soldier who tried to wade ashore would die in the water.
17:00The Imperial Japanese Navy had just lost an engagement to an infantry division that had no business fighting ships.
17:07Bruce sent his report to 24th Corps headquarters at O-100.
17:11The message was characteristically brief.
17:24The Corps' commander read the report twice before he believed it.
17:29The strategic implications were immediate.
17:31Ormok was the last major port on the western coast of Leyte still accessible to Japanese reinforcement convoys.
17:40General Yamashita had been funneling supplies and troops through Ormok Bay since late October,
17:46despite devastating losses to American air and naval strikes.
17:50Between November 9th and December 11th, the Japanese had attempted nine major convoy operations to Leyte.
17:58They had landed approximately 34,000 troops.
18:02They had lost 20 transport vessels, 6 destroyers, 1 submarine, 3 escort vessels, and 1 patrol boat.
18:12The Americans had lost 3 destroyers, 1 high-speed transport, and 2 LSMs in the same period.
18:21Naval historians would later call the Battle of Ormok Bay one of the most savage series of engagements in the
18:26Pacific War.
18:28Admiral Halsey committed Task Force 38.
18:31The 5th Air Force flew continuous interdiction sorties.
18:35PT boats hunted in the shallow waters every night.
18:37And now the 77th Infantry Division had turned the Ormok waterfront into a killing zone
18:43that even the Imperial Japanese Navy could not breach.
18:47The Japanese tried again on the night of December 12th.
18:51Two barges approached from the north at 2200 hours.
18:55American illumination rounds lit them up at 800 yards.
18:59The M-10 crews destroyed both barges before they came within 500 yards of shore.
19:04Estimated casualties, 100 troops.
19:08American losses, zero.
19:11They tried again on December 13th.
19:14One transport and three escort barges.
19:17The transport was larger than number 159.
19:20Possibly 900 tons displacement.
19:23It carried an estimated 400 troops and heavy equipment.
19:27The American guns sank it in 12 minutes.
19:30The escort barges never made it within 1,000 yards of shore.
19:36Estimated casualties, 550 troops.
19:39American losses, zero.
19:43General Yamashita stopped sending reinforcements to Ormok after December 13th.
19:48The mathematics had become impossible.
19:50He had lost approximately 1,300 troops in three nights trying to reinforce positions that the
19:5877th was systematically destroying during the day.
20:02The Americans owned Ormok Valley.
20:05The Japanese forces remaining in the mountains were cut off from resupply and reinforcement.
20:10They would fight until they died, but they would not receive help.
20:14The 77th Infantry Division pushed north from Ormok on December 14th.
20:20The 307th Infantry Regiment took point.
20:24Colonel Aubrey Newman commanded.
20:2643 years old.
20:28Career infantry officer.
20:30Veteran of Guam.
20:31He had watched his
20:33regiment destroy Japanese vessels from shore.
20:36Now he was leading them into the mountains to destroy what remained of the Japanese 35th Army.
20:44The division moved through Kogan on December 15th.
20:47Through Valencia on December 21st.
20:51The Japanese 1st Division tried to hold the Libungao Road Junction.
20:56The 77th went around them, through terrain the Japanese considered impassable.
21:01The division made contact with the 1st Cavalry Division coming south on December 25th.
21:07Christmas Day.
21:10Leyte was secure.
21:11The official campaign statistics told the story.
21:15The 77th Infantry Division had killed 19,456 Japanese soldiers on Leyte.
21:22They had captured 124.
21:25They had lost 543 men killed and 1,469 wounded.
21:32The kill ratio was 36 to 1.
21:36But those numbers did not include the ships sunk on the night of December 11th.
21:40The United States Army conducted an official investigation in January 1945.
21:46The question was straightforward.
21:48Had an infantry division actually sunk enemy naval vessels using tank destroyers?
21:53The answer required verification, because nothing like this had ever occurred in modern warfare.
22:01Tanks had never engaged warships.
22:04Tank destroyers had never fired at ships.
22:06The M-10 was built to kill armor, not sink transports.
22:12The investigation team examined the wrecks in Ormoc Bay at low tide.
22:17Transport No. 159 was visible in 15 feet of water.
22:21The hull showed two 3-inch entry holes on the starboard side.
22:27The investigators measured the holes.
22:30Diameter, 3.0 inches.
22:33Consistent with M-10 armor-piercing rounds.
22:36The holes were below the waterline.
22:39The flooding pattern matched the timeline from the after-action reports.
22:43The 2nd transport was in deeper water, but still accessible to Navy divers.
22:48They found three penetrations in the hull.
22:52Two from 3-inch rounds.
22:54One from a 105-millimeter howitzer shell.
22:57The 3-inch rounds had passed completely through the vessel.
23:00Entry starboard side.
23:02Exit port side.
23:04The divers recovered shell fragments from the seafloor.
23:07Metallurgy confirmed they were M-10 armor-piercing rounds,
23:10manufactured in 1944 at the Watervalide Arsenal in New York.
23:15The investigation concluded that the 77th Infantry Division
23:18had indeed sunk multiple Japanese vessels
23:21using M-10 tank destroyers firing from shore positions.
23:25The report noted this was the only confirmed instance in World War II
23:29of armored fighting vehicles engaging and destroying enemy warships.
23:33The only instance in the Pacific War.
23:36The only instance in the European War.
23:38The only instance in the entire global conflict.
23:43The Germans had never done it.
23:45The Soviets had never done it.
23:47The British had never done it.
23:49The Japanese had never done it.
23:52Only the 77th Infantry Division had converted tank destroyers
23:56into coastal defense guns
23:57and used them to sink enemy ships attempting amphibious landings.
24:01The tactical manual for the M-10 was updated in March 1945.
24:07A new section was added,
24:09Employment Against Naval Targets.
24:12The section was three paragraphs long.
24:15It noted that M-10 rounds could penetrate unarmored vessels
24:18at ranges up to 1,000 yards.
24:20It recommended using armor-piercing rounds against waterline targets
24:25to maximize flooding.
24:27It cited the Ormok engagement as the reference case.
24:30The update was largely theoretical.
24:33The opportunity to use tank destroyers against ships never arose again.
24:38The Japanese stopped attempting major amphibious reinforcement operations after Leyte.
24:44The island-hopping campaign moved to Iwo Jima and Okinawa,
24:48where the Japanese defenders were already in place before American forces arrived.
24:53There were no more situations where enemy ships
24:56tried to beach themselves under American shore guns.
24:59The M-10 crews who had fired on Transport No. 159 received no special recognition.
25:06No medals were awarded for sinking ships.
25:09The action was treated as part of the normal defense of Ormok.
25:14The crews went on to fight through the remainder of the Leyte campaign
25:17and then shipped out for the invasion of Okinawa.
25:21General Bruce mentioned the engagement exactly once in his official memoirs.
25:26He wrote that the 77th had demonstrated remarkable flexibility
25:31in employing all available weapons against enemy forces,
25:35regardless of whether those weapons were designed for the task.
25:39He considered this flexibility the defining trait of the division.
25:44The old bastards did not care what the manual said.
25:48They cared about killing the enemy as efficiently as possible.
25:54The M-10 tank destroyers remained with the 77th through the Okinawa campaign.
25:59They destroyed Japanese fortifications.
26:02They provided direct fire support for infantry assaults.
26:06They knocked out enemy artillery positions.
26:09They did everything tank destroyers were designed to do.
26:12But they never sank another ship.
26:15The opportunity never presented itself again.
26:18By the time the war ended, the night of December 11th had become a footnote in the division's history.
26:24The 77th had fought through three major campaigns.
26:28Guam, Leyte, Okinawa.
26:30They had killed more than 43,000 enemy soldiers.
26:34They had lost more than 2,000 of their own men.
26:38The sinking of five Japanese vessels in 18 minutes
26:41was just another engagement in a year of continuous combat.
26:45But for the military historians who studied the Pacific War,
26:48the Ormok engagement remained unique.
26:51No other tank had ever sunk a ship.
26:54No other tank destroyer had ever engaged naval vessels.
26:58It happened once.
27:00On one night.
27:01At one place.
27:03And it never happened again.
27:04The 77th Infantry Division was never meant to be an elite unit.
27:08When the division reactivated in March 1942,
27:12the War Department expected it to be a standard infantry formation.
27:16Nothing special.
27:17No unique capabilities.
27:19Just another division to feed into the Pacific meat grinder.
27:23The men who filled the ranks were not elite soldiers.
27:27They were civilians from New York and New Jersey.
27:30Average age?
27:3132.
27:32Too old for most infantry divisions.
27:34The Army called them reservists.
27:37Everyone else called them the old bastards.
27:40They were accountants and taxi drivers and factory workers
27:44who had been drafted because America needed bodies.
27:48They trained at Fort Jackson in South Carolina for 14 months.
27:52Standard infantry training.
27:54Nothing exotic.
27:55The division practiced amphibious landings.
27:58They learned jungle warfare.
28:00They qualified on their weapons.
28:02They passed their physical fitness tests,
28:05despite being a decade older than the soldiers in other divisions.
28:09By June 1943, the 77th was ready for deployment.
28:14General Bruce took command in May 1943.
28:17He was 47 years old.
28:19An artillery officer with a reputation for aggressive tactics
28:23and zero tolerance for incompetence.
28:26He looked at his division of middle-aged civilians
28:28and saw potential.
28:30Not physical potential.
28:32These men would never outrun the younger soldiers in the 1st Marine Division.
28:36But they had something the Marines did not have.
28:39Life experience.
28:41Patience.
28:42The ability to think before they acted.
28:46Bruce trained them differently than other division commanders trained their men.
28:50He emphasized fire discipline over speed.
28:54Maneuver over frontal assault.
28:56Conservation of force over heroic charges.
29:00The old bastards learned to let firepower do the work that young Marines did with bayonets.
29:06They learned to go around enemy strongpoints instead of through them.
29:10They learned to stay alive while killing the enemy efficiently.
29:15The division deployed to Hawaii in March 1944.
29:19They continued training in amphibious and jungle warfare.
29:22The men were now averaging 33 years old.
29:25Still the oldest infantry division in the United States Army.
29:29Still the unit that other divisions looked at and wondered how they would hold up under fire.
29:34The 77th got their answer on Guam.
29:37The division landed on July 21, 1944, as part of Operation Forager.
29:42The initial landings were relatively light.
29:45The Japanese had concentrated their defenses elsewhere.
29:48But as the 77th pushed inland, they ran into the real resistance.
29:53Fortified positions in the jungle.
29:55Machine gun nests in caves.
29:57Artillery observers hidden in the trees.
30:00Bruce's training paid off immediately.
30:03The old bastards did not charge the Japanese positions.
30:06They surrounded them.
30:08Called in artillery.
30:09Waited for the bombardment to finish.
30:11Then moved in and cleared what was left.
30:15The casualty ratio favored the Americans heavily.
30:18The 77th killed enemy soldiers at a rate far exceeding their own losses.
30:23By August 8, Guam was secure.
30:26The 77th had proven they could fight.
30:29More importantly, they had proven they could win without taking unsustainable casualties.
30:34The division's after-action report noted that fire discipline and tactical patience had been the key factors in success.
30:42Translation?
30:43The old bastards thought before they shot.
30:46And they maneuvered before they assaulted.
30:49The division was supposed to go to New Caledonia for rest and refitting.
30:53They made it halfway there before the orders changed.
30:57Leyte was turning into a nightmare.
30:59The 6th Army needed reinforcements.
31:02The 77th turned around and headed for the Philippines.
31:06They landed on Leyte on November 23, 1944.
31:10Thanksgiving Day.
31:11No rest.
31:12No refit.
31:14Just straight back into combat.
31:16The division spent two weeks training and patrolling in the rear areas.
31:20Then Bruce got the order for the Ormok operation.
31:24Amphibious assault on the western coast.
31:27Seize the port.
31:28Cut off Japanese reinforcements.
31:30The 77th loaded onto the ships on December 6th.
31:34They hit the beaches at Deposito on December 7th.
31:38They captured Ormok on December 10th.
31:41And on the night of December 11th, they sank five Japanese vessels attempting to reinforce the garrison.
31:47The engagement lasted 18 minutes.
31:50It demonstrated everything Bruce had drilled into his division.
31:54Use the right weapon for the target.
31:57Overwhelm the enemy with concentrated fire.
31:59Do not take unnecessary risks.
32:03The M-10 crews had never trained to fight ships.
32:06But they understood the principle.
32:08Put rounds on target until the target stops being a threat.
32:12That principle carried the 77th through Leyte, through Okinawa, and through 200 days of continuous combat.
32:20The 77th Infantry Division finished the Leyte campaign on February 5th, 1945.
32:27Final Statistics.
32:42The division had destroyed the Japanese 35th Army as an effective fighting force.
32:47General Yamashita abandoned his plan to make Leyte the decisive battle of the Philippines.
32:54The Americans owned the island.
32:56The old bastards had 60 days before their next assignment.
33:01They used the time to absorb replacements and repair equipment.
33:04The M-10 tank destroyers received maintenance.
33:08New barrels for the guns that had fired the most rounds.
33:11Track replacement for vehicles that had covered hundreds of miles of jungle roads.
33:16The crews trained the new men on the fundamentals.
33:19How to load, how to aim, how to fire without getting killed.
33:24Nobody trained them on how to sink ships.
33:28That lesson was already inscribed in the division's history.
33:31The M-10 crews, who had engaged transport number 159 on December 11th, were already thinking about the next campaign.
33:41Okinawa was going to be worse than Leyte.
33:43Everyone knew it.
33:44The Japanese were not going to give up their home islands without extracting maximum American casualties.
33:50The 77th landed at Kurama Reto on March 26th, 1945.
33:56The small islands west of Okinawa needed to be secured before the main invasion.
34:02The division spent five days clearing Japanese defenders and destroying suicide boat bases.
34:08American casualties?
34:1027 killed, 81 wounded.
34:13Japanese casualties?
34:15Over 650 dead or captured.
34:18The mathematics remained consistent.
34:21The main Okinawa operation began on April 1st.
34:25The 77th was held in reserve initially.
34:28They landed on Ieshima on April 16th.
34:32The island had an airfield the Americans needed.
34:35The Japanese had fortified every cave and ridgeline.
34:39The fighting was brutal.
34:41Hand-to-hand combat in tunnels.
34:43Flamethrowers against bunkers.
34:45Artillery barrages that turned hills into moonscapes.
34:50Ernie Pyle died on Ieshima on April 18th.
34:53The famous war correspondent had been with the 77th for weeks.
34:58He liked the old bastards.
35:00He wrote about them with respect.
35:02A Japanese machine gunner shot him in the head while he was advancing with a reconnaissance patrol.
35:08The division erected a monument at the spot.
35:10The inscription read,
35:12On this spot, the 77th division lost a buddy.
35:17Ieshima fell on April 21st.
35:20The 77th moved to Okinawa proper on April 25th.
35:23They relieved the 96th division on the southern front.
35:27The Japanese defensive lines stretched across the island.
35:31Fortified caves.
35:33Interlocking fields of fire.
35:35Artillery positioned in reverse slope positions where American naval guns could not reach them.
35:41The 77th attacked on April 28th.
35:44The escarpment became the division's nightmare.
35:47A near vertical ridge that demanded scaling ladders and cargo nets to assault.
35:51The Japanese held the high ground with machine guns and mortars.
35:55Every yard gained cost American lives.
35:58The old bastards took the ridge through sustained artillery bombardment and methodical infantry assault.
36:04No heroic charges.
36:06No desperate attacks.
36:08Just firepower and patience.
36:10The division drove to Shuri in conjunction with the 1st Marine Division.
36:15They occupied the ruins on May 31st.
36:18The Japanese had already pulled back to their final defensive positions in the south.
36:23The 77th continued attacking through June, sealing cave positions and clearing ridge lines.
36:29The division moved to Cebu in the Philippines in July to prepare for the invasion of Japan.
36:35The atomic bombs fell in August.
36:39Japan surrendered on August 15th.
36:41The 77th never invaded the home islands.
36:45They occupied Hokkaido instead.
36:48Peaceful occupation.
36:50No combat.
36:51The old bastards had fought their last battle on Okinawa.
36:55The division was deactivated on March 15th, 1946 in Japan.
37:00Final statistics for World War II.
37:02Approximately 44,000 enemy killed.
37:06488 prisoners captured.
37:092,140 men killed in action.
37:137,000 wounded.
37:15200 days of sustained combat across three campaigns.
37:19The capture rate remained 0.8%, the lowest in the Pacific War.
37:24The 77th Infantry Division had lived up to their reputation.
37:28They took no prisoners.
37:30They gave no quarter.
37:32They killed the enemy efficiently and went home.
37:35Most of them went home.
37:382,140 did not.
37:41Their names are on memorials across the Pacific.
37:44Guam.
37:45Leyte.
37:47Okinawa.
37:48Men who were too old for infantry combat but fought regardless.
37:52Men who turned tank destroyers into ship killers because the mission demanded it.
37:58The night of December 11th remained in the history books as a footnote.
38:02But the men who were there remembered.
38:04The last surviving crew member of the M10 that sank transport number 159 died in 2003.
38:12His name was Robert Henderson.
38:14He was 84 years old.
38:16He had never spoken publicly about the night of December 11th.
38:20When his family asked him about the war, he said he had done his job and come home.
38:25That was all.
38:27Henderson's grandson found his service records after he passed.
38:31Bronze Star.
38:33Purple Heart.
38:34Campaign ribbons for Guam, Leyte, and Okinawa.
38:38A citation for exceptional performance during the defense of Ormok.
38:43The citation mentioned engaging enemy naval vessels with tank destroyer fire.
38:48The grandson had never heard that story.
38:50Henderson had never told it.
38:53Most of the old bastards never told their stories.
38:56They came home in 1946.
38:59They went back to driving taxis in Manhattan.
39:02Back to keeping books in Brooklyn.
39:05Back to working factory lines in Jersey City.
39:08They had families.
39:09They had jobs.
39:10They had lives to rebuild.
39:14The war was something they had survived, not something they wanted to revisit.
39:19The division reunions happen every year in New York.
39:23The Old Bastards Club met at their headquarters on East 39th Street.
39:27They talked about Guam and Leyte and Okinawa in language their families never heard.
39:34They remembered names that had not been spoken in decades.
39:37They raised glasses to the 2,140 who never made it home.
39:44But even at the reunions, nobody talked much about sinking ships.
39:48It was just another engagement in a year of continuous combat.
39:52Just another night when they had used the weapons at hand to kill the enemy threatening their position.
39:57The M10 crews had fired 15 rounds and sunk 5 vessels.
40:02Then they had moved on to the next mission.
40:05The historical significance took decades to surface.
40:09Military historians studying the Pacific War eventually noticed the Ormok engagement.
40:15They realized it was unique.
40:18They confirmed it was the only time in World War II that armored fighting vehicles had engaged
40:24and destroyed enemy warships from shore positions.
40:28They wrote papers about it.
40:30They included it in analyses of combined arms warfare.
40:34They noted it as an example of tactical flexibility under fire.
40:39But the papers and analyses never captured what it meant to the men who were there.
40:44The cold mathematics of 15 rounds destroying 5 ships.
40:49The illumination flares turning night into day.
40:53The Japanese soldiers dying in the water while the old bastards fired from prepared positions on shore.
41:00The absolute certainty that this was the job and they were going to do it, regardless of what the manual
41:07said.
41:08That certainty defined the 77th Infantry Division.
41:12They were too old, they were too slow, they were not supposed to be elite soldiers.
41:19But they killed 44,000 enemy troops and took fewer than 500 prisoners.
41:25Because they understood one fundamental principle.
41:29Use every weapon available, maximize firepower, minimize risk, complete the mission.
41:37The M10 tank destroyer was built to kill German armor in France.
41:42The 77th used it to sink Japanese ships in the Philippines.
41:46Nobody had trained them for that mission.
41:48Nobody had written the manual for that engagement.
41:51But when transport number 159 tried to land troops at Ormok,
41:56the M10 crews put rounds through the hull and sent it to the bottom.
42:01Because that was the job.
42:03Eighty years later, that job is nearly forgotten.
42:07The men who did it are gone.
42:09The M10s were scrapped decades ago.
42:12Transport number 159 is still on the bottom of Ormok Bay, invisible under 15 feet of water and 80 years
42:20of silt.
42:21The night of December 11, 1944, exists only in after-action reports and declassified documents that almost nobody reads.
42:30But it happened.
42:32American tank destroyers sank Japanese warships.
42:35Once.
42:37On one night.
42:38In one place.
42:40It never happened before.
42:43It never happened again.
42:45It was the only time in history.
42:47And now you know the story.
42:49If this story moved you the way it moved us, do me a favor.
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43:02We're rescuing forgotten stories from dusty archives every single day.
43:07Stories about soldiers who turned tank destroyers into ship killers.
43:11Stories about the old bastards who did impossible things because the mission demanded it.
43:16Real people.
43:18Real heroism.
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