- 2 days ago
Why the 77th Infantry Division used tank destroyers against the Imperial Japanese Navy during WW2 — and why it only happened once in history. This World War 2 story reveals how General Bruce turned armor designed for German tanks into an improvised weapon nobody expected to work.
December 11, 1944. Major General Andrew D. Bruce commanded the 77th Infantry Division defending the Ormoc waterfront on Leyte, Philippines. Japanese vessels were approaching under cover of darkness to land reinforcements. Bruce had M10 Tank Destroyers positioned along the shore. Every training manual said this was impossible. The M10 was designed to kill German Panthers and Tigers in Europe, not engage warships. Command called it a waste of ammunition.
They were all wrong.
What the M10 crews discovered that night wasn't about following the manual. It was about mathematics in a way that contradicted everything they'd been taught. Three-inch armor-piercing rounds designed to penetrate tank armor behaved very differently against unarmored ship hulls. By the end of that night — when the Old Bastards fought the Imperial Navy — a tactical problem had been solved in a way nobody anticipated.
This engagement b
December 11, 1944. Major General Andrew D. Bruce commanded the 77th Infantry Division defending the Ormoc waterfront on Leyte, Philippines. Japanese vessels were approaching under cover of darkness to land reinforcements. Bruce had M10 Tank Destroyers positioned along the shore. Every training manual said this was impossible. The M10 was designed to kill German Panthers and Tigers in Europe, not engage warships. Command called it a waste of ammunition.
They were all wrong.
What the M10 crews discovered that night wasn't about following the manual. It was about mathematics in a way that contradicted everything they'd been taught. Three-inch armor-piercing rounds designed to penetrate tank armor behaved very differently against unarmored ship hulls. By the end of that night — when the Old Bastards fought the Imperial Navy — a tactical problem had been solved in a way nobody anticipated.
This engagement b
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00:00At 2300 hours on December 11, 1944, Corporal James McKenzie crouched behind a shattered
00:06concrete wall on the Ormok waterfront, watching three dark shapes move across the black water
00:11of the bay.
00:1232 years old, two months in combat, zero experience fighting warships, the Japanese Imperial Navy
00:19had sent at least five vessels into Ormok Bay that night, carrying an estimated 750
00:24troops to reinforce their collapsing defensive line.
00:28McKenzie was not supposed to be watching for ships.
00:30Nobody in the 77th Infantry Division was supposed to be fighting the Japanese Navy.
00:35But the 77th had stopped following the rulebook the moment they landed on Guam six months earlier.
00:40They were the oldest infantry division in the United States Army, average age 32.
00:46The other divisions called them the Old Bastards.
00:49The Japanese called them something that translated roughly to demons who take no prisoners.
00:54The statistics supported both names.
00:56Across the entire Pacific War, American forces killed approximately 2,200,000 enemy troops
01:03and captured 50,000 prisoners, a capture rate of 2.2%.
01:08The 77th Infantry Division had killed 43,385 Japanese soldiers and taken 358 prisoners, a capture
01:18rate of 0.8%.
01:20One-third the rate of every other American unit in the Pacific.
01:24On Leyte alone, the division had killed 19,456 enemy soldiers in six weeks.
01:31They had taken 124 prisoners, a kill-to-capture ratio of 157 to 1.
01:38Major General Andrew D. Bruce commanded this division of accountants and taxi drivers and
01:42factory workers who had turned the western shore of Leyte into a graveyard.
01:46Bruce was 49 years old, a career artillery officer who believed in mathematics and firepower.
01:53He had landed his division at Deposito on December 7th, three-and-a-half miles south of
01:58Ormok.
01:58The Japanese had not expected an amphibious assault on the western coast.
02:03They had expected the Americans to fight their way through the mountains.
02:07Bruce gave them 72 hours to realize their mistake.
02:10By December 10th, the 77th had fought through 23 miles of enemy positions and captured Ormok.
02:17The town was rubble.
02:19Camp Downs was ash.
02:21The Antilao River ran red for three days.
02:24But the Japanese kept coming.
02:26Every night, barges and landing craft and small transports tried to slip past American naval
02:32patrols and deliver reinforcements to the remaining Japanese forces in the mountains.
02:37The Imperial Japanese Army needed those reinforcements.
02:41General Tomoyuki Yamashita had committed to making Leyte the decisive battle of the Philippines.
02:47He could not hold the island without fresh troops.
02:50The Americans needed to stop those reinforcements.
02:53Stopping them was the Navy's job.
02:55Destroyers patrolled the approaches to Ormok Bay.
02:58PT boats hunted in the shallow waters near the coast.
03:02Army infantry divisions were not equipped to engage naval vessels.
03:05The 77th Infantry Division had brought M-10 tank destroyers with them to Leyte.
03:11The 3-inch gun motor carriage M-10 was designed to kill German tanks in Europe.
03:16It carried a 3-inch gun mounted in an open-top turret on a modified Sherman chassis.
03:22Maximum effective range against armor?
03:251,000 yards.
03:26Maximum effective range against a ship?
03:29Unknown.
03:30Nobody had ever tried.
03:31The M-10s were positioned along the Ormok waterfront with the 307th Infantry Regiment.
03:37Their primary mission was destroying Japanese fortified positions and machine gun nests.
03:43Their secondary mission was direct fire support for infantry assaults.
03:48Engaging enemy naval vessels was not in the manual.
03:51If you want to see how the 77th turned tank destroyers into coastal defense guns, please hit that like button.
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04:03Back to McKenzie.
04:04McKenzie watched the dark shapes grow larger.
04:06The lead vessel was approximately the size of an LST, possibly a No. 101-class landing ship.
04:13It was moving slowly toward the beach northwest of Ormok, where Japanese troops still held defensive positions in the hills.
04:20If that ship reached the shore and unloaded its troops, the Americans would face another week of fighting to clear
04:26them out.
04:26The M-10 crews had received their orders 20 minutes earlier.
04:30Track the vessels.
04:31Wait for illumination.
04:33Fire on command.
04:34Nobody knew if tank destroyer rounds would penetrate a ship's hull.
04:38Nobody knew if the Japanese vessels would return fire.
04:41Nobody knew if this would work.
04:43McKenzie checked his watch.
04:4423.55.
04:46Five minutes to midnight.
04:48The dark shapes were less than 1,000 yards from shore, and the M-10 crews were waiting for someone
04:53to light up the night.
04:56The first flare went up at midnight exactly.
04:59A 60-millimeter illumination round fired from an infantry mortar position 200 yards inland.
05:04The shell climbed 300 feet and burst into white phosphorus light that turned Ormok Bay into a stage lit for
05:11execution.
05:13The Japanese landing ship appeared in perfect silhouette.
05:16Designation.
05:17Transport number 159.
05:20Length.
05:20Approximately 200 feet.
05:22Displacement.
05:23800 tons.
05:24The vessel had already beached itself northwest of Ormok and was unloading troops down ramps at bow and stern.
05:32Dark figures moved against the white sand.
05:34Heavy equipment rolled off the deck.
05:36The Japanese were bringing tanks.
05:39The American gun crews had 30 seconds of illumination before the flare burned out.
05:4430 seconds to acquire target, calculate range, load, and fire.
05:48The M-10 crews had trained for this moment without knowing it.
05:52Every tank they had destroyed in practice.
05:55Every fortified position they had demolished during the drive to Ormok.
05:58Every hour spent calculating deflection and elevation for moving targets.
06:03All of it applied to a ship the same way it applied to armor.
06:06The lead M-10 fired first.
06:093-inch armor-piercing round.
06:11Muzzle velocity.
06:132,600 feet per second.
06:15Range to target.
06:17970 yards.
06:19The gun's recoil threw the 17-ton chassis backwards 6 inches.
06:23The shell crossed Ormok Bay in 1.2 seconds.
06:27Direct hit.
06:28The round punched through the ship's starboard side, just above the waterline.
06:32The armor-piercing shell was designed to penetrate 3 inches of steel armor at 1,000 yards.
06:38The transport number 159 had hull plating less than 1 inch thick.
06:43The shell went through the hull, through the cargo hold, and detonated against the port bulkhead.
06:48The explosion tore a hole the size of a truck in the ship's side.
06:52Water poured into the cargo hold at approximately 2,000 gallons per minute.
06:57The vessel listed 7 degrees to starboard immediately.
07:00Japanese troops on the ramps stopped unloading.
07:03Troops still inside the hold scrambled for the exits.
07:06The ship's crew attempted to assess damage while American artillery began ranging in on the beached vessel.
07:12The second flare went up 40 seconds after the first.
07:15Another 60-millimeter illumination round.
07:18The bay lit up again.
07:19Transport number 159 was deeper in the water now, settling into the sand.
07:25The stern had dropped three feet.
07:27Troops were abandoning the vessel, wading through chest-deep water toward the shore.
07:32The Japanese defenders in the hills were firing mortars at the American positions on the Ormok waterfront.
07:38The return fire was immediate and overwhelming.
07:41The M-10 that had scored the first hit fired again.
07:45The crew had corrected for the ship's changing position.
07:48The second round hit below the water line aft, opening another breach in the hull.
07:53The Japanese vessel was taking water from two separate holes now.
07:57The rate of flooding exceeded any capacity to pump it out.
08:00The ship was doomed.
08:01But four more vessels were still approaching Ormok from the north.
08:06Three barges and one larger transport.
08:08The Americans could see them clearly under the illumination.
08:11The Japanese captains were watching transport number 159 sink.
08:16They were calculating odds.
08:18They had 700 troops to deliver.
08:20They had orders from General Yamashita himself.
08:23Retreat was not an acceptable option in the Imperial Japanese Army.
08:27The Japanese vessels kept coming.
08:29The M-10 crews reloaded.
08:32The mortar teams prepared more illumination rounds.
08:35The 7AAA Anti-Aircraft Battalion moved their 40mm guns into position along the waterfront.
08:42The 77th Infantry Division was about to engage in the only ship-to-shore artillery duel of the Pacific War.
08:48The third flare climbed into the sky.
08:51The second Japanese vessel was 600 yards from shore.
08:55The M-10 crews tracked it through their sights.
08:57Every gun along the Ormok waterfront had a target now.
09:01General Bruce was watching from his command post 300 yards inland.
09:04This was not in any tactical manual he had studied at Fort Sill.
09:08But the old bastards had stopped following the manual the day they landed on Guam.
09:13The order came down at 0015.
09:16All guns.
09:17Fire at will.
09:20The Ormok waterfront erupted.
09:2340mm anti-aircraft guns firing at surface targets.
09:2750 caliber machine guns raking the Japanese barges.
09:30Self-propelled howitzers from the 307th Infantry Regiment pumping high-explosive shells into the approaching vessels.
09:38And three M-10 tank destroyers firing 3-inch armor-piercing rounds designed to kill tigers and panthers at ships
09:47designed to carry troops.
09:48The mathematics favored the Americans overwhelmingly.
09:52The Japanese vessels had no armor.
09:54No meaningful defensive weapons.
09:56No ability to maneuver in the shallow water of Ormok Bay.
10:00They were cargo carriers, trying to deliver troops while being engaged by concentrated artillery fire from prepared positions on shore.
10:08The second Japanese transport took the first hit at 0016.
10:13M-10 round through the bow.
10:15The shell penetrated the forward hold and detonated among troops packed for landing.
10:21The explosion killed an estimated 40 soldiers instantly.
10:25The vessel kept coming.
10:27Japanese discipline held even under fire.
10:30The captain maintained course toward shore.
10:33The self-propelled howitzers fired next.
10:36105mm high-explosive shells.
10:39These rounds were not designed to penetrate.
10:41They were designed to destroy everything in a 15-yard radius through overpressure and fragmentation.
10:48The first shell hit the transport's superstructure.
10:50The second hit the deck.
10:52The third hit the waterline and opened the hull like a can opener.
10:56The transport made it another 200 yards before the flooding became critical.
11:02The captain ran it aground 400 yards from shore.
11:05Too far for the troops to wade.
11:07Too shallow for the vessel to float.
11:10Japanese soldiers jumped into water over their heads.
11:13Many drowned immediately.
11:15The ones who could swim struck out for shore, while American machine guns tracked them through the water.
11:21Transport number 159 was completely submerged by 0020.
11:26Only the superstructure remained above water.
11:30Approximately 150 Japanese troops had made it ashore before the ship sank.
11:35Another 200 were in the water.
11:38The rest went down with the vessel.
11:39The Americans estimated 300 casualties from that ship alone.
11:44The three barges were smaller and faster.
11:48They drew less water and could operate closer to shore.
11:51Each carried approximately 50 troops.
11:54The Japanese captains scattered them, hoping to split American fire.
11:58It was a reasonable tactical decision.
12:01It failed completely.
12:03The 7AA battalion had positioned six 40-millimeter guns along the waterfront.
12:10Each gun could fire 120 rounds per minute.
12:14The effective range against surface targets was 2,000 yards.
12:18The Japanese barges were well inside that range.
12:22The 40-millimeter crews opened fire at 0022.
12:26The first barge disintegrated.
12:2940-millimeter rounds are explosive.
12:31They detonate on impact.
12:33When 50 explosive rounds hit a wooden barge in 12 seconds, the barge ceases to exist as a functional vessel.
12:41It becomes floating wreckage and body parts.
12:44The American gun crews watched the barge come apart like balsa wood under a hammer.
12:50Survivors in the water numbered less than 10.
12:53The second barge tried to turn away.
12:56The helmsman put the rudder hard over and attempted to retreat into deeper water.
13:01The M10 crews tracked the movement.
13:04The lead M10 fired at 0024.
13:08The round hit the barge amid ships and broke it in half.
13:11Both sections sank in less than 30 seconds.
13:15Japanese troops thrashed in the oil-slicked water.
13:19Machine gun fire found them there.
13:21The third barge made it closest to shore.
13:24The captain drove it straight at the beach at maximum speed, ignoring the fire from American positions.
13:3150-caliber rounds punched through the wooden hull.
13:34Mortar shells detonated in the water around it.
13:37The barge grounded in 3 feet of water, 70 yards from shore.
13:42Japanese troops poured over the sides and waded toward the beach.
13:46They made it 15 yards before the machine guns cut them down.
13:50The 77th Infantry Division had positioned interlocking fields of fire across every approach to the Ormok waterfront.
13:57The Japanese troops waded into a killing zone with no cover and no supporting fire.
14:03They died in the water.
14:04All 50 of them.
14:06The engagement lasted 18 minutes.
14:09Five Japanese vessels attacked.
14:11Five Japanese vessels were destroyed.
14:13Estimated enemy casualties.
14:15750 troops.
14:17American casualties?
14:19Zero.
14:20But the night was not over.
14:22The radio intercept teams were reporting more vessels approaching from the north.
14:27General Bruce received the after-action report at 0040.
14:31Five enemy vessels destroyed.
14:34Estimated 750 enemy casualties.
14:37Zero American losses.
14:39One M-10 tank destroyer had fired seven rounds.
14:43Another had fired five.
14:45The third had fired three.
14:4715 three-inch shells total.
14:49The self-propelled howitzers had expended 42 rounds.
14:53The 40-millimeter guns had fired approximately 600 rounds combined.
14:58The mathematics told Bruce everything he needed to know.
15:01The Japanese could not reinforce Ormok by sea as long as the 77th held the waterfront.
15:06Every vessel that attempted landing would face the same concentrated fire.
15:11Every Japanese soldier who tried to wade ashore would die in the water.
15:16The Imperial Japanese Navy had just lost an engagement to an infantry division that had no business fighting ships.
15:23Bruce sent his report to 24th Corps headquarters at 0-100.
15:27The message was characteristically brief.
15:38The Corps commander read the report twice before he believed it.
15:42The strategic implications were immediate.
15:44Ormok was the last major port on the western coast of Leyde still accessible to Japanese reinforcement convoys.
15:51General Yamashita had been running supplies and troops through Ormok Bay since late October,
15:56despite devastating losses to American air and naval attacks.
16:01Between November 9th and December 11th, the Japanese had attempted nine major convoy operations to Leyde.
16:07They had landed approximately 34,000 troops.
16:11They had lost 20 transport vessels, six destroyers, one submarine, three escort vessels, and one patrol boat.
16:18The Americans had lost three destroyers, one high-speed transport, and two LSMs in the same period.
16:24Naval historians would later call the Battle of Ormok Bay one of the most brutal series of engagements in the
16:30Pacific War.
16:31Admiral Halsey committed Task Force 38.
16:34The 5th Air Force flew continuous interdiction missions.
16:37PT boats hunted in the shallow waters every night.
16:40And now the 77th Infantry Division had turned the Ormok waterfront into a killing zone
16:46that even the Imperial Japanese Navy could not penetrate.
16:50The Japanese tried again on the night of December 12th.
16:52Two barges approached from the north at 2,200 hours.
16:57American illumination rounds lit them up at 800 yards.
17:00The M-10 crews destroyed both barges before they came within 500 yards of shore.
17:05Estimated casualties?
17:07100 troops.
17:08American losses?
17:09Zero.
17:10They tried again on December 13th.
17:13One transport and three escort barges.
17:15The transport was larger than No. 159, possibly 900 tons displacement.
17:21It carried an estimated 400 troops and heavy equipment.
17:24The American guns sank it in 12 minutes.
17:27The escort barges never made it within 1,000 yards of shore.
17:31Estimated casualties?
17:33550 troops.
17:35American losses?
17:36Zero.
17:36General Yamashita stopped sending reinforcements to Ormok after December 13th.
17:42The mathematics had become untenable.
17:44He had lost approximately 1,300 troops in three nights trying to reinforce positions that
17:50the 77th was systematically destroying during the day.
17:53The Americans owned Ormok Valley.
17:56The Japanese forces remaining in the mountains were cut off from resupply and reinforcement.
18:01They would fight until they died.
18:03But they would not receive help.
18:05The 77th Infantry Division pushed north from Ormok on December 14th.
18:10The 307th Infantry Regiment took the lead.
18:13Colonel Aubrey Newman commanded.
18:1543 years old.
18:17Career infantry officer.
18:19Veteran of Guam.
18:20He had watched his regiment destroy Japanese vessels from shore.
18:24Now he was taking them into the mountains to destroy what remained of the Japanese 35th Army.
18:29The division moved through Kogan on December 15th.
18:32Through Valencia on December 21st.
18:34The Japanese 1st Division tried to hold the Libungao Road Junction.
18:39The 77th went around them through terrain the Japanese considered impassable.
18:44The division made contact with the 1st Cavalry Division coming south on December 25th.
18:50Christmas Day.
18:51Leyte was secure.
18:53The official campaign statistics told the story.
18:55The 77th Infantry Division had killed 19,456 Japanese soldiers on Leyte.
19:03They had captured 124.
19:05They had lost 543 men killed and 1,469 wounded.
19:12The kill ratio was 36 to 1.
19:15But those numbers did not include the ships sunk on the night of December 11th.
19:21The United States Army conducted an official investigation in January, 1945.
19:26The question was simple.
19:28Had an infantry division actually sunk enemy naval vessels using tank destroyers?
19:33The answer required verification because nothing like this had ever happened in modern warfare.
19:39Tanks had never engaged warships.
19:41Tank destroyers had never fired at ships.
19:43The M10 was designed to kill armor, not sink transports.
19:48The investigation team examined the wrecks in Ormok Bay at low tide.
19:53Transport number 159 was visible in 15 feet of water.
19:56The hull showed two 3-inch entry holes on the starboard side.
20:00The investigators measured the holes.
20:03Diameter?
20:043.0 inches.
20:05Consistent with M10 armor-piercing rounds.
20:08The holes were below the waterline.
20:10The flooding pattern matched the timeline from the after-action reports.
20:14The second transport was in deeper water, but still accessible to Navy divers.
20:19They found three penetrations in the hull.
20:21Two from 3-inch rounds.
20:23One from a 105-millimeter howitzer shell.
20:26The 3-inch rounds had gone completely through the vessel.
20:28Entry starboard side.
20:30Exit port side.
20:32The divers recovered shell fragments from the seafloor.
20:34Metallurgy confirmed they were M10 armor-piercing rounds manufactured in 1944 at the Watervilliet Arsenal in New York.
20:42The investigation concluded that the 77th Infantry Division had indeed sunk multiple Japanese vessels using M10 tank destroyers firing from
20:52shore positions.
20:52The report noted this was the only confirmed instance in World War II of armored fighting vehicles engaging and destroying
21:00enemy warships.
21:01The only instance in the Pacific War.
21:04The only instance in the European war.
21:06The only instance in the entire global conflict.
21:09The Germans had never done it.
21:11The Soviets had never done it.
21:13The British had never done it.
21:15The Japanese had never done it.
21:16Only the 77th Infantry Division had turned tank destroyers into coastal defense guns and used them to sink enemy ships
21:23attempting amphibious landings.
21:25The tactical manual for the M10 was updated in March 1945.
21:30A new section was added.
21:32Employment against naval targets.
21:34The section was three paragraphs long.
21:37It noted that M10 rounds could penetrate unarmored vessels at ranges up to 1,000 yards.
21:43It recommended using armor-piercing rounds against waterline targets to maximize flooding.
21:48It cited the Ormok engagement as the reference case.
21:51The update was mostly theoretical.
21:53The opportunity to use tank destroyers against ships never arose again.
21:58The Japanese stopped attempting major amphibious reinforcement operations after Leyte.
22:03The island-hopping campaign moved to Iwo Jima and Okinawa, where the Japanese defenders were already in place before American
22:10forces arrived.
22:11There were no more situations where enemy ships tried to beach themselves under American shore guns.
22:17The M10 crews who had fired on transport number 159 received no special recognition.
22:23No medals were awarded for sinking ships.
22:25The action was considered part of the normal defense of Ormok.
22:29The crews went on to fight through the rest of the Leyte campaign and then shipped out for the invasion
22:34of Okinawa.
22:35General Bruce mentioned the engagement exactly once in his official memoirs.
22:39He wrote that the 77th had demonstrated unusual flexibility in employing all available weapons against enemy forces, regardless of whether
22:49those weapons were designed for the task.
22:51He considered this flexibility the defining characteristic of the division.
22:55The old bastards did not care what the manual said.
22:58They cared about killing the enemy as efficiently as possible.
23:02The M10 tank destroyers remained with the 77th through the Okinawa campaign.
23:08They destroyed Japanese fortifications.
23:10They provided direct fire support for infantry assaults.
23:13They knocked out enemy artillery positions.
23:15They did everything tank destroyers were designed to do.
23:18But they never sank another ship.
23:21The opportunity never came again.
23:23By the time the war ended, the night of December 11th had become a footnote in the division's history.
23:28The 77th had fought through three major campaigns.
23:32Guam, Leyte, Okinawa.
23:34They had killed more than 43,000 enemy soldiers.
23:38They had lost more than 2,000 of their own men.
23:41The sinking of five Japanese vessels in 18 minutes was just another engagement in a year of continuous combat.
23:47But for the military historians who studied the Pacific War, the Ormok engagement remained unique.
23:52No other tank had ever sunk a ship.
23:55No other tank destroyer had ever engaged naval vessels.
23:58It happened once, on one night, at one place.
24:02And it never happened again.
24:06The 77th Infantry Division was never supposed to be an elite unit.
24:10When the division reactivated in March 1942,
24:13the War Department expected it to be a standard infantry formation.
24:17Nothing special.
24:18No unique capabilities.
24:20Just another division to feed into the Pacific meat grinder.
24:23The men who filled the ranks were not elite soldiers.
24:26They were civilians from New York and New Jersey.
24:28Average age 32.
24:30Too old for most infantry divisions.
24:32The Army called them reservists.
24:34Everyone else called them the old bastards.
24:36They were accountants and taxi drivers and factory workers who had been drafted because America needed bodies.
24:42They trained at Fort Jackson in South Carolina for 14 months.
24:46Standard infantry training.
24:48Nothing exotic.
24:49The division practiced amphibious landings.
24:51They learned jungle warfare.
24:53They qualified on their weapons.
24:55They passed their physical fitness tests,
24:57despite being a decade older than the soldiers in other divisions.
25:00By June 1943, the 77th was ready for deployment.
25:04General Bruce took command in May 1943.
25:08He was 47 years old.
25:09An artillery officer with a reputation for aggressive tactics and minimal tolerance for incompetence.
25:15He looked at his division of middle-aged civilians and saw potential.
25:19Not physical potential.
25:20These men would never outrun the younger soldiers in the 1st Marine Division.
25:24But they had something the Marines did not have.
25:27Life experience.
25:28Patience.
25:29The ability to think before they acted.
25:31Bruce trained them differently than other division commanders trained their troops.
25:35He emphasized fire discipline over speed.
25:37Maneuver over frontal assault.
25:39Conservation of force over heroic charges.
25:42The old bastards learned to let firepower do the work that young Marines did with bayonets.
25:47They learned to go around enemy strongpoints instead of through them.
25:50They learned to stay alive while killing the enemy efficiently.
25:53The division deployed to Hawaii in March 1944.
25:56They continued training in amphibious and jungle warfare.
26:00The men were now averaging 33 years old.
26:02Still the oldest infantry division in the United States Army.
26:06Still the unit that other divisions looked at and wondered how they would perform under fire.
26:11The 77th got their answer on Guam.
26:14The division landed on July 21st, 1944, as part of Operation Forager.
26:20The initial landings were relatively light.
26:22The Japanese had concentrated their defenses elsewhere.
26:25But as the 77th pushed inland, they hit the real resistance.
26:30Fortified positions in the jungle.
26:32Machine gun nests in caves.
26:34Artillery observers hidden in the trees.
26:36Bruce's training paid off immediately.
26:39The old bastards did not charge the Japanese positions.
26:41They surrounded them, called in artillery, waited for the bombardment to finish,
26:46then moved in and cleared what remained.
26:49The casualty ratio favored the Americans heavily.
26:52The 77th killed enemy soldiers at a rate far exceeding their own losses.
26:57By August 8th, Guam was secure.
27:00The 77th had proven they could fight.
27:02More importantly, they had proven they could win without taking unsustainable casualties.
27:07The division's after-action report noted that fire discipline and tactical patience
27:11had been the key factors in success.
27:14Translation?
27:15The old bastards thought before they shot, and they maneuvered before they assaulted.
27:19The division was supposed to go to New Caledonia for rest and refitting.
27:23They made it halfway there before the orders changed.
27:26Leyte was turning into a nightmare.
27:28The 6th Army needed reinforcements.
27:31The 77th turned around and headed for the Philippines.
27:34They landed on Leyte on November 23rd, 1944, Thanksgiving Day.
27:40No rest, no refit.
27:42Just straight back into combat.
27:43The division spent two weeks training and patrolling in the rear areas.
27:47Then Bruce got the order for the Ormok operation.
27:51Amphibious assault on the western coast.
27:53Seize the port.
27:54Cut off Japanese reinforcements.
27:57The 77th loaded onto the ships on December 6th.
28:00They hit the beaches at Deposito on December 7th.
28:03They captured Ormok on December 10th.
28:06And on the night of December 11th, they sank five Japanese vessels trying to reinforce the garrison.
28:13The engagement lasted 18 minutes.
28:16It demonstrated everything Bruce had taught his division.
28:19Use the right weapon for the target.
28:22Overwhelm the enemy with concentrated fire.
28:25Do not take unnecessary risks.
28:27The M-10 crews had never trained to fight ships.
28:30But they understood the principle.
28:32Put rounds on target until the target stops being a threat.
28:36That principle carried the 77th through Leyte, through Okinawa, and through 200 days of continuous combat.
28:45The 77th Infantry Division finished the Leyte campaign on February 5th, 1945.
28:52Final statistics.
28:5319,456 enemy killed.
28:57124 captured.
29:00543 American dead.
29:021,469 wounded.
29:05The division had destroyed the Japanese 35th Army as an effective fighting force.
29:10General Yamashita abandoned his plan to make Leyte the decisive battle of the Philippines.
29:16The Americans owned the island.
29:18The old bastards had 60 days before their next assignment.
29:22They used the time to absorb replacements and repair equipment.
29:25The M-10 tank destroyers received maintenance.
29:29New barrels for the guns that had fired the most rounds.
29:32Track replacement for vehicles that had covered hundreds of miles of jungle roads.
29:36The crews trained the new men on the basics.
29:39How to load.
29:40How to aim.
29:41How to fire without getting killed.
29:44Nobody trained them on how to sink ships.
29:46That lesson was already written in the division's history.
29:49The M-10 crews who had engaged Transport No. 159 on December 11th were already thinking about the next campaign.
29:59Okinawa was going to be worse than Leyte.
30:01Everyone knew it.
30:03The Japanese were not going to surrender their home islands without extracting maximum American casualties.
30:10The 77th landed at Karamaretto on March 26th, 1945.
30:14The small islands west of Okinawa needed to be secured before the main invasion.
30:20The division spent five days clearing Japanese defenders and destroying suicide boat bases.
30:26American casualties?
30:2827 killed, 81 wounded.
30:31Japanese casualties?
30:33Over 650 dead or captured.
30:36The mathematics remained consistent.
30:38The main Okinawa operation began on April 1st.
30:42The 77th was held in reserve initially.
30:45They landed on Ieshima on April 16th.
30:48The island had an airfield the Americans needed.
30:51The Japanese had fortified every cave and ridgeline.
30:54The fighting was brutal.
30:56Hand-to-hand combat in tunnels.
30:58Flamethrowers against bunkers.
31:00Artillery barrages that turned hills into moonscapes.
31:03Ernie Pyle died on Ieshima on April 18th.
31:06The famous war correspondent had been with the 77th for weeks.
31:10He liked the old bastards.
31:12He wrote about them with respect.
31:14A Japanese machine gunner shot him in the head while he was moving forward with the reconnaissance patrol.
31:19The division erected a monument at the spot.
31:21The inscription read,
31:23On this spot, the 77th division lost a buddy.
31:27Ieshima fell on April 21st.
31:29The 77th moved to Okinawa proper on April 25th.
31:33They relieved the 96th division on the southern front.
31:36The Japanese defensive lines stretched across the island.
31:39Fortified caves.
31:41Interlocking fields of fire.
31:42Artillery positioned in reverse slope positions where American naval guns could not reach them.
31:47The 77th attacked on April 28th.
31:50The escarpment became the division's nightmare.
31:53A near-vertical ridge that required scaling ladders and cargo nets to assault.
31:57The Japanese held the high ground with machine guns and mortars.
32:00Every yard gained cost American lives.
32:03The old bastards took the ridge through sustained artillery bombardment and methodical infantry assault.
32:09No heroic charges.
32:10No desperate attacks.
32:12Just firepower and patience.
32:14The division drove to Shuri in conjunction with the 1st Marine Division.
32:18They occupied the ruins on May 31st.
32:21The Japanese had already withdrawn to their final defensive positions in the south.
32:25The 77th continued attacking through June, sealing cave positions and clearing ridge lines.
32:31The division moved to Cebu in the Philippines in July to prepare for the invasion of Japan.
32:36The atomic bombs fell in August.
32:38Japan surrendered on August 15th.
32:41The 77th never invaded the home islands.
32:44They occupied Hokkaido instead.
32:46Peaceful occupation.
32:47No combat.
32:49The old bastards had fought their last battle on Okinawa.
32:52The division was deactivated on March 15th, 1946, in Japan.
32:57Final statistics for World War II.
33:01Approximately 44,000 enemy killed.
33:04488 prisoners captured.
33:072,140 men killed in action.
33:107,000 wounded.
33:12200 days of sustained combat across three campaigns.
33:16The capture rate remained 0.8 percent, the lowest in the Pacific War.
33:20The 77th Infantry Division had lived up to their reputation.
33:25They took no prisoners.
33:26They gave no quarter.
33:28They killed the enemy efficiently and went home.
33:31Most of them went home.
33:332,140 did not.
33:35Their names are on memorials across the Pacific.
33:38Guam, Leyte, Okinawa.
33:41Men who were too old for infantry combat but fought anyway.
33:45Men who turned tank destroyers into ship killers because the mission required it.
33:49The night of December 11th remained in the history books as a footnote.
33:53But the men who were there remembered.
33:57The last surviving crew member of the M-10 that sank transport number 159 died in 2003.
34:04His name was Robert Henderson.
34:07He was 84 years old.
34:09He had never spoken publicly about the night of December 11th.
34:12When his family asked him about the war, he said he had done his job and come home.
34:17That was all.
34:19Henderson's grandson found his service records after he died.
34:22Bronze Star, Purple Heart, campaign ribbons for Guam, Leyte, and Okinawa.
34:28A citation for exceptional performance during the defense of Ormok.
34:32The citation mentioned engaging enemy naval vessels with tank destroyer fire.
34:37The grandson had never heard that story.
34:40Henderson had never told it.
34:42Most of the old bastards never told their stories.
34:45They came home in 1946.
34:47They went back to driving taxis in Manhattan.
34:50Back to keeping books in Brooklyn.
34:53Back to working factory lines in Jersey City.
34:55They had families.
34:57They had jobs.
34:58They had lives to rebuild.
35:00The war was something they had survived, not something they wanted to relive.
35:05The division reunions happened every year in New York.
35:08The Old Bastards Club met at their headquarters on East 39th Street.
35:12They talked about Guam and Leyte and Okinawa in language their families never heard.
35:17They remembered names that had not been spoken in decades.
35:21They raised glasses to the 2,140 who never came home.
35:26But even at the reunions, nobody talked much about sinking ships.
35:30It was just another engagement in a year of continuous combat.
35:34Just another night when they had used the weapons available to kill the enemy threatening their position.
35:40The M-10 crews had fired 15 rounds and sunk 5 vessels.
35:44Then they had moved on to the next mission.
35:47The historical significance took decades to emerge.
35:50Military historians studying the Pacific War eventually noticed the Ormach engagement.
35:55They realized it was unique.
35:57They confirmed it was the only time in World War II that armored fighting vehicles had engaged and destroyed enemy
36:04warships from shore positions.
36:06They wrote papers about it.
36:08They included it in analyses of combined arms warfare.
36:11They noted it as an example of tactical flexibility under fire.
36:15But the papers and analyses never captured what it meant to the men who were there.
36:20The cold mathematics of 15 rounds destroying 5 ships.
36:25The illumination flares turning night into day.
36:28The Japanese soldiers dying in the water while the old bastards fired from prepared positions on shore.
36:34The absolute certainty that this was the job and they were going to do it regardless of what the manual
36:41said.
36:42That certainty defined the 77th Infantry Division.
36:45They were too old.
36:47They were too slow.
36:48They were not supposed to be elite soldiers.
36:50But they killed 44,000 enemy troops and took fewer than 500 prisoners because they understood one fundamental principle.
36:59Use every weapon available.
37:01Maximize firepower.
37:03Minimize risk.
37:04Complete the mission.
37:05The M-10 tank destroyer was designed to kill German armor in France.
37:09The 77th used it to sink Japanese ships in the Philippines.
37:13Nobody had trained them for that mission.
37:15Nobody had written the manual for that engagement.
37:18But when Transport No. 159 tried to land troops at Ormok, the M-10 crews put rounds through the hull
37:25and sent it to the bottom.
37:27Because that was the job.
37:2980 years later, that job is almost forgotten.
37:32The men who did it are gone.
37:34The M-10s were scrapped decades ago.
37:36Transport No. 159 is still on the bottom of Ormok Bay, invisible under 15 feet of water and 80 years
37:45of silt.
37:45The night of December 11, 1944, exists only in after-action reports and declassified documents that almost nobody reads.
37:54But it happened.
37:56American tank destroyers sank Japanese warships.
37:59Once.
38:00On one night.
38:01In one place.
38:03It never happened before.
38:04It never happened again.
38:05It was the only time in history.
38:07And now you know the story.
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38:20We're rescuing forgotten stories from dusty archives every single day.
38:24Stories about soldiers who turned tank destroyers into ship killers.
38:28Stories about the old bastards who did impossible things because the mission required it.
38:33Real people.
38:34Real heroism.
38:35Drop a comment right now and tell us where you're watching from.
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39:02These men deserve to be remembered.
39:03And you're helping make that happen.
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