- 2 days ago
Off Samar, a battered American destroyer did the unthinkable: USS Johnston turned toward Yamato and the Japanese battle fleet, fought without orders, and kept drawing fire long enough to help save the escort carriers behind her. The story follows Captain Ernest Evans and the men of Taffy 3 as they launch smoke, fire torpedoes, and press the attack against overwhelming odds in one of the most dramatic naval battles of World War II.
Through survivor testimony and battlefield detail, this military history narration traces Johnston’s first hits, her torpedo strike on Kumano, the damage from heavy shells, and the desperate final minutes as the ship was steered by hand after her bridge was shattered. It also explains the moment a Japanese officer later stood at attention and saluted the sinking destroyer, a gesture that has puzzled readers of WW2 stories for decades.
This is a gripping World War 2 documentary-style story of naval combat, courage, sacrifice, and the Battle off Samar. It is ideal for listeners searching for WW2 stories, naval warfare history, military history narration, and forgotten war stories told with a cinematic, storytime pace.
For fans of WW2 stories, naval battle history, destroyer action, Battle off Samar, USS Johnston, Ernest Evans, Yamato, and military history narration, this episode delivers a powerful World War II story with strong search relevance for history documentary, war stories, and dramatic naval combat.
Through survivor testimony and battlefield detail, this military history narration traces Johnston’s first hits, her torpedo strike on Kumano, the damage from heavy shells, and the desperate final minutes as the ship was steered by hand after her bridge was shattered. It also explains the moment a Japanese officer later stood at attention and saluted the sinking destroyer, a gesture that has puzzled readers of WW2 stories for decades.
This is a gripping World War 2 documentary-style story of naval combat, courage, sacrifice, and the Battle off Samar. It is ideal for listeners searching for WW2 stories, naval warfare history, military history narration, and forgotten war stories told with a cinematic, storytime pace.
For fans of WW2 stories, naval battle history, destroyer action, Battle off Samar, USS Johnston, Ernest Evans, Yamato, and military history narration, this episode delivers a powerful World War II story with strong search relevance for history documentary, war stories, and dramatic naval combat.
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LearningTranscript
00:00October 25, 1944
00:03Ten minutes past ten in the morning, in the Philippine Sea off the island of Samar.
00:08An American destroyer is going under.
00:12The USS Johnston rolls over, one end drops, and she slides down.
00:18A sailor in the water, named Harold Barisonsky, notices one thing in her last seconds.
00:24Her flag is still flying.
00:27Clint Carter watches her go.
00:30Two hours ago, he was captain of Gun 55, the five-inch mount on her fantail,
00:35a Texan from the country around Sweetwater.
00:38Now he's one of the men scattered across the oily swell where she used to be.
00:43Some are on rafts.
00:45Some hang on floater nets.
00:47Some have nothing but a kapok life jacket and a shipmate too badly burned to hold on alone.
00:54And a Japanese destroyer is coming toward them.
00:57She slows.
00:59Her bow settles.
01:01She closes carefully, the way a ship approaches something she isn't sure about.
01:06Every man in the water knows what usually comes next.
01:10Quartermaster Neil Deathlifts is holding up a badly scalded sailor named Wally Wygand.
01:16He starts untying the strings of Wygand's life jacket so that if the machine guns open up, he can pull
01:21him under with him.
01:22A few yards away, Joseph Cech takes a breath and ducks beneath the surface.
01:28Bobby Chastain, a gun trainer from the forward mount, drifts to within about 50 feet of her side.
01:35Close enough to see faces.
01:37Close enough to see polished brown boots.
01:40He'd remember it in one sentence.
01:43They were watching us as we watched them.
01:47The guns don't fire.
01:49Instead, Carter sees the Japanese crew lined along the rail in sharp khaki, and he realizes they're standing at attention.
01:57On the wing of the bridge, a smartly dressed officer stands perfectly erect and raises his hand in a salute
02:04as his ship slides past the wreckage.
02:07Carter's words.
02:09It appeared to me that every man on her deck was standing at attention, like a muster, giving us one
02:15big salute.
02:16Stop for a second and think about that.
02:18That fleet had spent the whole morning trying to destroy this ship.
02:22Its gunners had just put shell after shell into her hull until she rolled over.
02:28The salute came from the side that won.
02:31And sailors don't salute a target.
02:33A salute is something one professional gives another.
02:37Whatever that officer saw that morning, it had turned the Johnston, in his eyes, from a target into something else.
02:45So what did he see?
02:47To answer that, we have to go back three hours and watch what he watched, from the first shell splash
02:53to the moment she went under.
02:55Keep that bridge wing in mind.
02:58We're coming back to it, and by then, you'll know what that officer knew.
03:02If you want to see what the American sailors of the USS Johnston did in those three hours, hit like
03:07and subscribe.
03:08It helps this story reach people who've never heard her name.
03:136.45 that morning.
03:14The sun is barely up.
03:16The Johnston is one of seven small warships guarding a group of American escort carriers called Taffy 3.
03:22Jeep carriers, the sailors call them.
03:25Six of them built on merchant ship hulls, thin-skinned and slow.
03:30Their job is to fly support for the troops landing on Leyte.
03:34They carry bombs for trenches and depth charges for submarines.
03:39They were never meant to face a battle fleet.
03:42Neither was their screen.
03:44Three destroyers, Johnston, Hull, and Heerman.
03:49Four smaller destroyer escorts, among them the Samuel B. Roberts.
03:53In command is Rear Admiral Clifton Sprague on the carrier Fanshawe Bay.
03:59The Johnston herself is two days short of her first birthday.
04:04Five five-inch guns, ten torpedoes, 327 men.
04:10Her gunnery officer, Lieutenant Bob Hagen, figured about 85% of them were green.
04:15The heavy American fleet that's supposed to stand between Taffy 3 and the Japanese Navy,
04:20Admiral Halsey's battleships and fast carriers, went north during the night, chasing Japanese carriers.
04:28Nobody told Sprague that San Bernardino Strait, just to his north, has been left unguarded.
04:35At 646, radar picks up ships that shouldn't be there.
04:40A pilot on anti-submarine patrol reports battleships, cruisers, and destroyers.
04:46Sprague's first order is to have him verify it.
04:49Then the lookouts see for themselves.
04:52Pagoda masts on the northern horizon.
04:55Here's what came through that strait.
04:57Four battleships, six heavy cruisers, two light cruisers, 11 destroyers.
05:04At their head, the Yamato, the largest battleship ever built.
05:10Now hold on to this, because it sets the scale for everything that follows.
05:13A single shell from the Yamato's main guns weighs about 3,200 pounds.
05:20A shell from the Johnston's 5-inch guns weighs about 55.
05:25The Japanese can reach the carriers from more than 17 miles away.
05:30The Johnston's guns reach barely 10.
05:33At about 6.58, the first salvos land among the carriers.
05:37The columns of water rise higher than their masts, stained red, yellow, green, and purple.
05:44The Japanese load dye into their shells, so each ship can spot its own fall.
05:49On the Johnston's bridge stands her captain, Commander Ernest Evans.
05:54Sprague hasn't ordered the escorts to do anything yet.
05:57Nobody has.
05:58And the order Evans gives in the next minute is the first link in a chain that ends with a
06:03Japanese officer saluting on a bridge wing.
06:06What he decides to do, with no one telling him to, is where the answer begins.
06:11Ernest Evans is 36 years old, a Cherokee and Creek from Oklahoma, who joined the Navy as an enlisted sailor
06:17and then won his way into Annapolis.
06:20At the Naval Academy, they called him the Chief.
06:24In February 1942, he was aboard the old destroyer Alden at the Battle of the Java Sea, when Japanese cruisers
06:31tore apart an Allied fleet.
06:34Two weeks later, he had command of her, and the job then was to get away.
06:40Remember that word, away.
06:43On October 27, 1943, Evans stood in front of the Johnston's new crew at her commissioning in Seattle, and told
06:50them what kind of ship this would be.
06:52This is going to be a fighting ship.
06:54I intend to go in harm's way, and anyone who doesn't want to go along had better get off right
07:00now.
07:02Nobody got off.
07:04Now it's a year later.
07:05The dye-stained columns are walking toward the carriers, and nobody has given him an order.
07:11Here's what he says, in sequence, on his own authority.
07:15All hands to general quarters.
07:18Prepare to attack major portion of the Japanese fleet.
07:21All engines ahead flank.
07:24Commence making smoke and stand by for a torpedo attack.
07:29And then...
07:31Left full rudder.
07:32Left full rudder turns the Johnston toward the Japanese.
07:36Think about what that order means for the 327 men aboard.
07:41They are on a ship with no armor worth the name, turning toward the largest battleship ever built.
07:47And the decision has been made for them in about the time it takes to read that sentence.
07:53Seaman Bill Mercer is already running for his 40mm mount.
07:58Lieutenant Ellsworth Welch, the junior officer of the deck, has been watching the water rise in towers over the carriers.
08:05Down in the engineering spaces, Lieutenant Joe Whirling starts feeding the boilers for flank speed.
08:12And then something goes wrong.
08:14The smoke is slow.
08:16The black funnel smoke that's supposed to hide the carriers comes out thin.
08:21Evans picks up the sound-powered phone, and his voice goes down into the fire rooms.
08:26I want a smoke screen, and I want it now!
08:29He gets it.
08:30Bob Hagen, the gunnery officer, would later write that the Johnston was the first ship in the screen to make
08:36smoke.
08:36The first to open fire, and the first to launch torpedoes.
08:41Three firsts, and the Johnston wasn't ordered into any of them.
08:45At about 7.10, the range to the nearest Japanese heavy cruiser has closed to around 18,000 yards.
08:52Ten miles, the extreme edge of what a five-inch gun can do.
08:57She's the Kumano, leading a column of cruisers bearing down on the carrier's flank.
09:03Hagen sits in the gun director above the bridge with his fire controlmen, George Himmelwright, James Busby, and Tony Gringari.
09:10And the director swings onto her.
09:13The Johnston opens fire.
09:16Here's a number I want you to notice.
09:18In roughly five minutes, the Johnston's guns put more than 200 shells toward the Kumano.
09:25Hagen claims something like 40 hits.
09:27Five-inch shells won't sink a heavy cruiser.
09:30They'll strip her decks, start fires, and tell her captain that someone small is coming straight at him and isn't
09:36afraid of him.
09:38Splashes are falling around the Johnston now, too.
09:41One heavy shell lands so close, it throws a sheet of colored water over her side and stains her hull
09:47with dye.
09:49The battleships have noticed her.
09:51On the bridge, Hagen has one worry, and he says it out loud to his captain.
09:57Please, sir, let us not go down before we fire our damn torpedoes.
10:02That's the whole point of the run.
10:04The guns are noise.
10:05The torpedoes are the punch.
10:08The Johnston carries ten of them in two mounts amid ships,
10:11and the only way to use them against a heavy cruiser is to get close enough for them to hit.
10:1715,000 yards.
10:1912,000.
10:20Stand by for torpedo attack.
10:23Lieutenant Jack Bechtel, the torpedo officer, sets the speed and the angles.
10:28Torpedo men Thomas Sullivan and John Moran are on the first mount.
10:32Red Benjamin and Frank Gillis on the second.
10:36Jim O'Gorick stands by, holding a wooden mallet,
10:39in case the firing mechanism fails and someone has to hit it by hand.
10:44At about 10,000 yards, a little over five miles,
10:48Evans gives the order.
10:50Fire torpedoes!
10:52Ten torpedoes leave the ship, one after another.
10:56Evans swings her hard to port and runs back into his own smoke.
11:01And then they wait.
11:03And a torpedo run feels very long when you're waiting.
11:07At 7.24, lookouts aboard the Kumano report torpedo tracks in the water.
11:13Three of them.
11:18One torpedo hits her in the bow, and the explosion tears the front of the ship away.
11:24Let that settle for a moment, because it's bigger than it sounds.
11:28The Kumano displaces six times what the Johnston does.
11:33She has ten eight-inch guns and the armor to take punishment.
11:37Now she's down to a crawl, out of the battle line,
11:40and the admiral commanding her cruiser division has to shift his flag to another ship.
11:45The first serious blow of the battle off Samar has been struck,
11:48by the smallest class of warship on the field, which wasn't ordered to attack, and went anyway.
11:55Keep the Kumano in mind.
11:57Every Japanese ship in that formation now knows there's at least one American destroyer out there that hits back.
12:05But here's the problem with what Evans just did.
12:08The Johnston has fired every torpedo she owns.
12:11By any reasonable reading of her job, she has done it.
12:16She's turning away at flank speed, back into the smoke, back toward the carriers she's protecting.
12:21And the heavy guns that died her hull a few minutes ago haven't stopped looking for her.
12:26At 7.30, three shells arrive from a battleship.
12:31Remember that weight you were asked to hold onto?
12:34What those shells did to the Johnston should have ended the story right there.
12:38What Evans did next is the first thing in this battle that the men on the Japanese bridges would have
12:43had no way to explain.
12:45Lieutenant Bob Hagen found the words for it later, and nobody who was there ever improved on them.
12:51It was like a puppy being smacked by a truck.
12:56The first shell punches through the main deck and explodes against the reduction gears of the port propeller shaft.
13:01The second cuts electrical cables and steam lines in the after-engine room.
13:07The third hits a boiler in the after-fire room.
13:10Men in those spaces are scalded to death in seconds.
13:21Hagen believed they were 14-inch shells, probably from the battleship Congo.
13:27Some historians now think they came from the Yamato herself, the heaviest shells ever fired at sea.
13:34Hold on to that question.
13:3777 years later, the bottom of the Philippine trench would offer its own answer.
13:43Then the smaller shells come.
13:45Six-inch, from a light cruiser, or the Yamato's secondary battery.
13:50One hits the number two stack.
13:52Two hit the port wing of the bridge.
13:55Hagen's helmet, his phones, and his binoculars are blown off his head.
13:59He goes down with a gash across his kneecap.
14:03Around him on the bridge, Lieutenant Junior Grade Joe Pliska is killed instantly.
14:09Ensign Gordon Fox is killed.
14:11Signalman Joel Dixon is killed at his station.
14:14Jack Bechtel, the torpedo officer who set the fish that took the Kumano's bow eight minutes earlier,
14:20has lost a leg at the knee.
14:22He won't survive the day.
14:24Coxson Ed Block has a smashed shoulder and shrapnel in his eye.
14:29Ellsworth Welch moves among the wounded with morphine.
14:32And Commander Evans is standing in the middle of it,
14:35with his cap blown away, his shirt shredded,
14:38shrapnel in his face, neck, and chest,
14:41and two fingers of his left hand, gone.
14:44The ship's doctor, Lieutenant Robert Brown, comes to treat him.
14:48Evans waves him off.
14:49Don't bother me now.
14:51Help some of those guys who are hurt.
14:53Here's an odd fact that probably saved the ship.
14:56Armor-piercing shells are built to punch through thick steel
14:59and explode deep inside a battleship.
15:02The Johnston's hull was so thin
15:04that some of them went right through her
15:06and out the other side before their fuses had time to work.
15:10The Japanese were firing the wrong kind of ammunition at her.
15:14She was too small to kill properly.
15:17But what's left is bad enough.
15:20The steering engine is dead.
15:22The gyro compass is wrecked.
15:25The three after-five-inch guns have lost power
15:28and have to be trained and elevated by hand.
15:31From gun 54 forward,
15:34Boatsen's mate Bob Hollenbaugh reports that his communications are out.
15:38Below, in the flooding after-engine room,
15:41warrant machinist Marley Polk is looking for the source of the water
15:45when a piece of heavy machinery breaks loose
15:48and pins him in the bilge.
15:50His shipmates try to free him.
15:52He orders them out.
15:54They leave him there.
15:57Now picture where Evans is.
15:59His ship is half-crippled.
16:01His bridge is full of dead men.
16:03His torpedoes are gone.
16:05Every rule a destroyer captain learns says the same thing at this moment.
16:09You've done your job.
16:11Save your ship.
16:13So Evans looks for cover,
16:15and he finds some.
16:16A rain squall,
16:17moving across the sea to the south.
16:20He steers the Johnston into it.
16:22For about ten minutes,
16:23the rain hides her.
16:25Inside it,
16:26the crew works.
16:28Steering goes over to men on the fantail,
16:30turning the rudder by hand,
16:31swapped out every quarter hour
16:33because the work is brutal.
16:35Hagen gets his fire control circuits tested and repatched,
16:38and power comes back to two of the guns.
16:41The Johnston keeps shooting out of the rain
16:43at radar targets she can't see.
16:46And over the radio comes the order
16:48nobody on Taffy 3 wanted to hear.
16:50Admiral Sprague is calling his
16:52small boys,
16:54his destroyers and destroyer escorts,
16:56to form up and make a torpedo attack
16:58on the Japanese fleet.
17:00Hull,
17:01Heerman,
17:01and the Samuel B. Roberts
17:03start to turn in.
17:04The Johnston can't make a torpedo attack.
17:07She has nothing left to fire.
17:09Evans makes his decision anyway,
17:11and Hagen remembered the tone
17:13as much as the words.
17:15We'll go in with the destroyers
17:17and provide fire support.
17:19Pause on that.
17:20The Johnston has already struck
17:22the first blow of the battle
17:23and taken the hits that came back for it.
17:26She can't steer properly.
17:28On the way out of the squall,
17:30she makes a complete circle
17:31before the men on the rudder steady her.
17:33She's going back toward
17:35the Japanese battle line
17:36at half speed,
17:37with three of her five guns
17:39being cranked by hand,
17:40to draw fire away from ships
17:42that still have torpedoes.
17:45Now switch sides for a moment,
17:47because this is the part
17:48the man in our question
17:49would have seen.
17:50Rear Admiral Tomiji Koyanagi
17:52was Chief of Staff
17:54to Admiral Takeo Kurita,
17:56standing on the Yamato.
17:57When American interrogators
17:59sat him down after the war,
18:01he told them what they thought
18:02they were fighting that morning.
18:04We thought you were just one group
18:05of the task force,
18:07composed of five or six carriers.
18:09Big fleet carriers.
18:11A real battle force.
18:13They had no aircraft scouting for them,
18:16so they were judging by eye,
18:17through smoke so thick
18:19that Koyanagi said they couldn't see
18:21from the Yamato
18:22to the American carriers at all.
18:25And out of that smoke
18:26came torpedoes.
18:28He counted seven or eight tracks,
18:30and he said dodging them
18:31slowed the whole Japanese advance.
18:33That's the picture
18:34on the Japanese bridges.
18:36They didn't see a few destroyers.
18:39They saw a fleet
18:40that kept coming at them.
18:42And the Johnston,
18:43steering by hand,
18:44is heading back into the smoke
18:46where three other American destroyers
18:48are making blind torpedo runs
18:50at high speed.
18:51In that smoke,
18:53the next ship
18:54to nearly end the Johnston's fight
18:56would not be Japanese.
18:57Inside a smoke screen,
18:59a destroyer is blind
19:00in a way no radar fully fixes.
19:03Black funnel smoke
19:04and white chemical smoke
19:05hang in banks on the water.
19:07And through them,
19:08American ships are running
19:09at high speed,
19:10on courses nobody coordinated,
19:13toward targets nobody can see.
19:15Somewhere around 810,
19:17a shape comes out of the Merc,
19:18dead ahead of the Johnston.
19:20It's the USS Heerman,
19:22one of her own sister destroyers,
19:24making her torpedo run.
19:26Evans has seconds.
19:28All engines, back full!
19:30The Johnston has one working screw
19:33and men steering her by hand
19:34on the fantail.
19:36Her stern digs into the sea
19:38as the engine reverses.
19:40Lieutenant Ed DeGuardi
19:41runs into the pilot house
19:42to work the engine telegraph himself.
19:45Back aft,
19:46Bob Deal is nearly thrown off
19:47the depth charge racks.
19:50Hagen estimated the two ships
19:51passed within 10 feet of each other.
19:5410 feet.
19:55Two American destroyers
19:57almost finishing
19:58what the Japanese battle line couldn't.
20:00And the Johnston keeps going.
20:02Shells are landing around her
20:03all the time now.
20:05A near miss rips the headset off
20:07quartermaster striker Robert Billy
20:09and knocks out his teeth.
20:11Neil Dethlefs,
20:13the quartermaster,
20:14watches salvo after salvo
20:15walk across the water
20:17toward them
20:17and then past them.
20:19On the fantail,
20:21Clint Carter is shouting down
20:22to the handling room
20:23for more shells
20:24for gun 55.
20:25His mount is one of the three
20:27that lost power at 730.
20:29Every round is being loaded,
20:31aimed,
20:32and fired by muscle alone,
20:34and Carter wants more.
20:36Then the smoke thins,
20:38and Hagen sees something
20:39that's almost too big
20:40to take in.
20:41A Japanese battleship,
20:44a Congo class,
20:45about 7,000 yards
20:46off the port beam.
20:48Four miles.
20:50Close enough to see
20:51the layers of her pagoda mast.
20:53Hagen's reaction was dry.
20:55Well,
20:56I sure as hell can see that.
20:58In about 40 seconds,
21:00the Johnston fires
21:0130 rounds at her.
21:03Hagen counted roughly 15 hits
21:05on the superstructure.
21:07Now here's the honest part,
21:08and Hagen said it himself.
21:10Five-inch shells
21:11against a battleship's armor
21:12were like bouncing paper wads
21:14off a steel helmet.
21:16He knew it.
21:17Evans knew it.
21:19They fired anyway,
21:20killing men on her decks
21:22and knocking out
21:22some of her smaller guns,
21:24and then the Johnston
21:25ducked back into the smoke
21:26before the battleship's main guns
21:28could settle on her.
21:30Ask yourself what that looks like
21:32from the battleship.
21:33A small,
21:34burning destroyer
21:35comes out of the smoke
21:36four miles away,
21:38unloads 30 rounds
21:39in less than a minute,
21:40and disappears again.
21:42Your whole force
21:43has been expecting
21:44fleet carriers
21:45and heavy cruisers.
21:47And the escorts
21:48don't run away.
21:49At 8.20,
21:51the escort carrier
21:52Gambier Bay
21:52is hit
21:53and falls out of formation.
21:55She's dropping a stern,
21:57losing speed,
21:58and a Japanese heavy cruiser
21:59is closing on her
22:00and firing into her
22:01at close range.
22:03Evans sees it
22:04from his bridge.
22:05And this is the order
22:06that I'd ask you to remember
22:07above every other order
22:09he gave that day.
22:10He turns to Hagen.
22:13Commence firing
22:13on that cruiser,
22:14Hagen.
22:15Draw her fire on us
22:16and away from the Gambier Bay.
22:19Think about what he's asking.
22:20He isn't asking
22:21his gunnery officer
22:22to sink the cruiser.
22:23A cripple destroyer.
22:25can't do that.
22:26He's asking Hagen
22:27to make the Johnston
22:28the more interesting target
22:30so the cruiser
22:31will turn its guns
22:32away from a carrier
22:33full of men
22:34and onto his own ship.
22:36Hagen called it
22:38the most courageous order
22:39I've ever heard.
22:42The Johnston closes
22:43to 6,000 yards.
22:45Hagen's gunners
22:46score five hits
22:47on the cruiser.
22:48It isn't enough.
22:50The Japanese captain
22:51Johnston doesn't take the bait.
22:52His turrets stay
22:54on the Gambier Bay.
22:55A little after nine
22:57she rolls over
22:58and sinks.
22:59The only American aircraft carrier
23:01ever sunk
23:02by enemy gunfire.
23:04Nearly 130 of her men
23:06are killed.
23:08So at this point
23:09in the morning
23:09the Johnston has done
23:10everything a destroyer
23:11can do.
23:12She's struck first.
23:14She's taken battleship hits
23:16and kept fighting.
23:17She's gone back in
23:18with nothing left to throw.
23:20She's tried to buy
23:22a carrier's life
23:23with her own.
23:23And some of it worked
23:24and some of it didn't.
23:26But here's where
23:27the story takes a turn.
23:29And it's the turn
23:30that leads straight
23:30to the salute.
23:32At about 8.40
23:33something new appears
23:35off the Johnston starboard side.
23:37A column of ships
23:38is coming in fast
23:39toward the American carriers.
23:42A Japanese light cruiser
23:44the Yahagi
23:44flagship of Rear Admiral
23:46Susumu Kimura
23:47leading a squadron
23:49of four destroyers.
23:50The Nowaki
23:51the Urakaze
23:52the Isokaze
23:54and the Yukikaze.
23:56This is a torpedo attack.
23:58The kind of attack
23:59the Imperial Japanese Navy
24:01trained for longer
24:02and harder
24:02than any navy on earth.
24:05Japanese destroyer men
24:06were the night fighting
24:07long lance torpedo specialists
24:09who had wrecked
24:10allied squadrons
24:11in the Solomons
24:11two years earlier.
24:13If that column
24:14gets into position
24:15the carriers
24:16of Taffy 3
24:17are finished.
24:18And the only
24:19American warship
24:20in a position
24:20to stand in their way
24:22is the one
24:22with no torpedoes
24:24one engine
24:24and men
24:25turning her rudder
24:26by hand.
24:27Remember the destroyer
24:28that stopped
24:29beside Clint Carter's raft.
24:31Later accounts
24:32identify her
24:32as the Yukikaze.
24:34If they're right
24:35then this is the moment
24:37her crew
24:38first meets the Johnston
24:39face to face.
24:41And what Evans does next
24:43is the thing
24:44they would still have
24:44in their minds
24:4590 minutes later
24:46standing at attention
24:48on her deck.
24:49Here's the problem
24:50Evans is looking at.
24:51The Japanese column
24:52is fast.
24:53Five ships in line.
24:55The light cruiser
24:55Yahagi leading
24:56and four destroyers
24:58behind her.
24:59They're angling in
25:00toward the American carriers
25:01to fire torpedoes.
25:03The Johnston
25:04is off to one side
25:05slowed to 17 knots
25:06steering by hand.
25:08And Evans does
25:09what he's done
25:10all morning.
25:11He turns toward them.
25:13He brings the Johnston
25:14around to the west
25:15straight across the head
25:17of the Japanese column.
25:18In naval terms
25:20it's called
25:20crossing the T.
25:22It's the oldest geometry
25:23in surface warfare.
25:25Your ship turns
25:26broadside
25:27to the enemy line
25:28so every one
25:29of your guns
25:29can bear
25:30while the enemy
25:31coming at you
25:32bow on
25:33can only fire
25:34his forward guns.
25:36Admirals have built
25:37whole careers on it.
25:39Evans is doing it
25:40with a single
25:40damaged destroyer
25:41against a cruiser
25:42and four destroyers.
25:44The range drops
25:45to about 7,500 yards.
25:48Hagen has the Yahagi
25:49and his director
25:50almost from the first salvo.
25:52The Japanese fire back
25:53and the Johnston
25:54takes several
25:55five-inch hits.
25:56Hagen keeps shooting.
25:58By his count
25:59about 12 shells
26:00hit the Yahagi.
26:00Then he shifts
26:02to the destroyer
26:03behind her
26:03and puts in
26:04five more.
26:05And then
26:06something happens
26:07that nobody
26:08on the Johnston's
26:09bridge expects.
26:11The Yahagi
26:12turns away.
26:13One by one
26:14the destroyers
26:15behind her
26:16turn too.
26:17They fire their
26:18torpedoes
26:18from long range
26:19far outside
26:21the distance
26:21their training
26:22called for
26:22and swing off
26:23to the west.
26:25Those torpedoes
26:26run slow
26:26and long
26:27toward the American carriers
26:29and by the time
26:30they arrive
26:31they're nearly spent.
26:33None of them hits.
26:35On the Johnston's
26:36bridge
26:36Evans is bleeding
26:38from his hand
26:38his face
26:39and his neck.
26:40He's lost
26:41two fingers
26:42and most of his ship.
26:44Hagen watched him
26:45stride across
26:45the wrecked bridge
26:46as happy as he'd
26:47seen him all morning
26:48and heard him crow
26:50now I've seen
26:51everything.
26:53Now I have to be
26:54straight with you
26:55about what actually
26:56happened there
26:57because you should
26:58know both sides of it.
26:59From the Japanese
26:59records
27:00the Yahagi
27:01and her destroyers
27:02weren't fleeing
27:02the Johnston's
27:03gunfire.
27:04They had come in
27:05to fire their
27:05torpedoes
27:06they had fired
27:07them
27:07and they were
27:08turning to reform
27:09the way a torpedo
27:10squadron does
27:11after an attack.
27:13Their real mistake
27:14was launching too
27:15early
27:15from too far out
27:17and that's why
27:18the torpedoes
27:18failed.
27:20But think about
27:21why they launched
27:22early.
27:22A Japanese torpedo
27:24squadron in 1944
27:25was carrying the
27:26longest range
27:27torpedo in the world
27:28and some of the
27:29best-trained
27:30torpedo crews
27:31afloat.
27:32They had the
27:32speed to close.
27:34What they didn't
27:35have was a clear
27:36approach because a
27:37burning American
27:38destroyer had put
27:39herself across their
27:40path and was
27:41hitting their
27:41flagship over and
27:43over.
27:44Whatever they intended
27:45the Johnston
27:46forced their hand
27:47at the moment
27:47that mattered.
27:49The carriers lived
27:50through it.
27:50Remember that word
27:51from earlier.
27:53Away.
27:55In 1942,
27:56on the Alden,
27:57Ernest Evans had
27:58been the one
27:59turning away from
28:00Japanese cruisers.
28:01Two and a half
28:01years later,
28:02he's watching a
28:03Japanese cruiser
28:04squadron turn away
28:05from him.
28:06And remember who
28:07was in that column.
28:08If the later
28:09accounts are right,
28:11the Yukikaze was
28:12one of those four
28:12destroyers.
28:14Her crew had just
28:15watched one crippled
28:16American destroyer
28:17cross their bow,
28:18take their fire,
28:19and hit their
28:20flagship a dozen
28:21times.
28:23Whatever they
28:24thought of Americans
28:24that morning,
28:25they now knew what
28:26this particular ship
28:27was.
28:29The whole battle is
28:30coming apart for the
28:31Japanese.
28:32The hull, one of the
28:33Johnston's sister
28:34destroyers, has gone
28:36down after her own
28:37torpedo runs.
28:38The Samuel B.
28:39Roberts is a burning
28:40wreck and dying.
28:41But the attacks have
28:43cost Kurita time,
28:44ships, and his sense
28:46of what he's facing.
28:47The Kumano is out of
28:49the fight.
28:49Two more of his
28:50heavy cruisers, the
28:51Chokai and the
28:52Chikuma, have been
28:53crippled by air
28:54attacks from the
28:55escort carriers, and
28:56won't make it home.
28:58American aircraft from
28:59all three Taffy groups
29:00keep coming in.
29:01Through the smoke, he
29:03still believes he's
29:04fighting fleet
29:04carriers.
29:05At 9-11, Admiral
29:07Kurita sends a signal
29:08to his entire force.
29:11Rendezvous, my
29:12course north, speed
29:1320.
29:15The most powerful
29:16surface fleet Japan
29:17has left, Yamato and
29:19all, is turning
29:20around.
29:21It came within reach
29:22of the American
29:23invasion fleet off
29:24Leyte, and it's
29:25breaking off.
29:27Koyanagi later
29:28listed the reasons.
29:29Fuel, delays, fear
29:32of more American
29:33carriers to the north,
29:34the destruction of
29:35the southern force at
29:36Surigao Strait the
29:37night before.
29:38Every one of those
29:40reasons was real.
29:40But what drove them
29:42was a morning of
29:43being hit, again and
29:45again, by an enemy
29:47who refused to act
29:48beaten.
29:50Here's the part that
29:51still bothers me about
29:52this battle.
29:53The men aboard the
29:54Johnston don't know
29:55any of that.
29:56They have no idea the
29:58fleet has turned
29:58north.
29:59To them, the battle
30:01is still going on, and
30:03the Japanese ships
30:03nearest to them aren't
30:05leaving.
30:05The Yahagi and her
30:07destroyers have finished
30:08reforming.
30:09They come back.
30:10Two Japanese cruisers
30:12are now on the
30:12Johnston's port side.
30:14Two more are ahead
30:15of her.
30:17Destroyers are closing
30:18from starboard.
30:19The Johnston is alone,
30:21surrounded, with one
30:23engine and a handful
30:24of guns.
30:25The Japanese fleet has
30:27already decided to leave
30:28the battlefield.
30:29What its ships do to
30:31the Johnston in the
30:32next 30 minutes, and
30:33how her crew answers, is
30:35what the men on that
30:36Japanese deck saw last,
30:38before they lined the
30:39rail.
30:40The reason for the
30:41salute is in those 30
30:43minutes.
30:44For the men aboard the
30:45Johnston, the last 30
30:46minutes don't come in
30:47order.
30:47They come in pieces.
30:50Shells come in from
30:51both sides now.
30:52One wrecks the
30:53coding room.
30:54Another takes out
30:55chart storage and
30:56radio control.
30:57Gun 52, under gun
30:59captain Donald Coleman,
31:00takes a hit right at
31:01the pointer's seat, and
31:03every man in the mount
31:04is killed or badly
31:05wounded.
31:07Fire breaks out in the
31:08magazine below it, and
31:09smoke pours up into the
31:10handling room.
31:11A ready locker of 40
31:13millimeter ammunition
31:14cooks off.
31:16Up in the gun director,
31:17Hagen is still trying to
31:18fight the ship.
31:19His own description is
31:21short.
31:21The place was full of
31:23smoke.
31:25Ellsworth Welch climbs
31:26back to the bridge and
31:27finds no one there.
31:29The classified books have
31:30been taken.
31:31The bridge is a shell.
31:33Because by now, Evans has
31:35moved.
31:36Around 920, with the
31:38bridge on fire and no
31:39steering from it anyway,
31:40he goes aft to the
31:42fantail, to the hatch
31:43above the compartment
31:44where men are turning
31:45the rudder by hand.
31:46He cons the ship from
31:47there.
31:48He calls the course
31:49changes to his talker,
31:50Joe Wolfe, who passes
31:52them down through the
31:53open hatch.
31:54Below, Chief Bosun's
31:56mate Clyde Burnett and
31:57John Scheindell take
31:59turns heaving on the
31:59rudder pump.
32:01Burnett is 24, an orphan
32:03raised by four different
32:04families in South Texas.
32:06Evans picked him
32:07personally out of a
32:08receiving station in San
32:10Diego, and the younger
32:11men on the ship treat him
32:12almost like a father.
32:14Over and over, the order
32:16comes down through the
32:17hatch.
32:17Shift your rudder!
32:20Picture what the Japanese
32:21gunners are watching from a
32:22few thousand yards away.
32:24A destroyer with no bridge,
32:26no main mast, and fires
32:28burning amid ships keeps
32:29zigzagging.
32:31Her course keeps changing.
32:33Somebody aboard her is
32:34still steering, still
32:36dodging salvos, still
32:37refusing to settle into a
32:39straight line and die.
32:41Below decks, motor
32:43machinist's mate Bob Deal
32:44feels a hit in the engine
32:46room and feels the ship's
32:47heading drift.
32:48In the emergency generator
32:49room, Alan Johnson is
32:51wounded.
32:52His friend, Roger Goujol, is
32:54killed under the diesel.
32:55On deck, seaman Bill
32:57Mercer kneels beside a
32:59shipmate named Glenn
33:00Hereford, whose leg has
33:02been nearly torn off.
33:04Hereford asks him for one
33:05thing.
33:06Merck, straighten my leg
33:08out.
33:09At about 9.40, what
33:11Hornfisher called an
33:12avalanche of shells hits the
33:14ship at once.
33:16One goes into the number
33:17one boiler room.
33:18The starboard screw stops.
33:20The Johnston's last engine
33:21is gone.
33:22She is dead in the water.
33:25At 9.45, Evans gives the
33:27order.
33:28Abandon ship.
33:30Lieutenant Jesse Cochran, of
33:32the repair party, came up on
33:33deck amid ships to the port
33:35side and found what he
33:36called a pile of people,
33:38bodies, half alive, half
33:41dead.
33:42Welch helps the wounded
33:43coxswain Ed Block into a
33:45life jacket and eases him over
33:47the side.
33:48A cook named Dusty Rhodes and
33:50Warren Williams heave a
33:52floater net into the sea.
33:54Robert Billy, who lost his
33:56teeth earlier that morning
33:58and now has only one working
33:59arm, gets to the rail and the
34:02next blast throws him
34:04overboard.
34:05Hagen is one of the last to
34:07hear the order.
34:08When he finally understands
34:09what's happening, his reaction
34:11is pure Hagen.
34:12What the hell are we doing
34:14here?
34:15Torpedo man Jim O'Gorick tells
34:17him the torpedoes from the
34:18morning ran hot, straight, and
34:21normal.
34:22Then Hagen goes over the
34:23side.
34:24Bill Mercer watched a sailor
34:26named Marquard stop to comb his
34:28hair, then toss the comb aside.
34:30I don't guess I'll ever need that
34:32again.
34:33And Evans walks forward, into the
34:35wrecked wardroom where the ship's
34:37doctor, Robert Brown, is still
34:39working on the wounded.
34:41He tries to get Brown to leave.
34:43Brown refuses.
34:45A shell explodes there a short
34:47time later, and the doctor is
34:49killed.
34:50Hagen, who learned about it
34:52later, wept.
34:53On his way back aft, Evans passes
34:56motor machinist's mate Bob Sochor
34:58in a passageway.
35:00Sochor heading aft, Evans going
35:02forward.
35:03Neither says a word.
35:05They just look at each other.
35:07Alan Johnson, from the water, sees an
35:09officer in khaki in the ship's damaged
35:11motor whale boat, pulling a wounded
35:13sailor aboard.
35:14It may have been Evans.
35:17Nobody knows.
35:18After the ship sank, no one ever
35:21saw him again.
35:23Here's something worth noticing about
35:25those last 30 minutes.
35:27The Japanese fleet had already
35:28turned north at 9-11.
35:30The battle, as a battle, was over.
35:34And the Japanese ships around the
35:35Johnston spent the final half-hour of
35:37it pouring fire into one dead
35:39American destroyer, instead of running
35:42down the carriers.
35:44Every minute they spent on her was a
35:46minute Taffy 3 spent getting away.
35:49Even dead in the water, she was still
35:51doing the job Evans gave her that
35:53morning.
35:54Bill Mercer and an older shipmate,
35:56J.B. Strickland, end up in the
35:58water between the Johnston and a
36:00Japanese destroyer that's still firing
36:02into her hull from close range.
36:04Strickland has served a long time.
36:07He turns to the young seaman.
36:08Kid, I have never seen anything like
36:11this.
36:11At 10-10, the Johnston rolls over.
36:15Oren Vadne watched it.
36:17First, one end went down, and she
36:19slipped below the sea.
36:21Harold Barisonsky saw the flag go
36:23under.
36:24Bob Sochor turns to pharmacist's mate
36:26Ken Bowers in the water and says,
36:28Take your last look at the Johnston.
36:30You know what happens next.
36:32The destroyer slows.
36:34Her crew lines the rail.
36:36An officer on her bridge wing comes to
36:38attention.
36:39But there's one thing that destroyer did
36:42to the Johnston just before the salute
36:43that most retellings leave out.
36:46Bob Hagen recorded it.
36:47And once you know it, the salute stops
36:49looking like simple respect and starts
36:52looking like something much more specific.
36:54Here's the line in Bob Hagen's account,
36:56and it's almost buried.
36:57As the Johnston was going down, a Japanese
37:00destroyer closed to about 1,000 yards and
37:03fired one more shell into her.
37:06To make sure.
37:07And then, in the very next breath of his
37:10account, a survivor saw the Japanese
37:12captain salute her as she went down.
37:15Put those two sentences side by side.
37:18The ship that saluted the Johnston may
37:20well be the ship that fired the last shot
37:23into her.
37:24That officer wasn't a bystander
37:26who happened to pass by and feel
37:27sorry for the losers.
37:29He was a professional who had just
37:31finished a job, and the salute was
37:33his verdict on the ship he'd had to
37:35finish.
37:37That changes the question.
37:39It's not, why would an enemy feel pity?
37:42It's, what did a Japanese destroyer
37:44officer see at 1,000 yards that made
37:48him come to attention for the ship
37:49he'd just killed?
37:51Let's walk back through what he saw,
37:53because now you know all of it.
37:55At 1,000 yards, there's no smoke and
37:58no confusion.
37:59Koyonagi said the Japanese fleet spent
38:01that whole morning believing it was
38:02fighting a carrier task force, big
38:05carriers and heavy escorts.
38:07Up close, in clear air, the officer on
38:10that bridge wing could see exactly what
38:12had been fighting him.
38:13Not a cruiser, not a battle group.
38:16One destroyer, 376 feet long,
38:20shot to pieces, with her flag still
38:22flying.
38:24If he came from the column we met
38:26earlier, then he'd watch this same
38:28ship cross the head of his squadron,
38:30taking fire from a cruiser and four
38:32destroyers, and hit his flagship a dozen
38:34times.
38:35He knew she was missing an engine, and
38:38steering by hand while she did it.
38:40Every Japanese ship in Kurita's force
38:42had seen her charge at the start of the
38:44battle, and Kumano had paid for it.
38:47And he knew something the men in the water
38:49didn't know.
38:50His own fleet had already turned north.
38:53The Yamato, the Nagato, the Kongo, the
38:56Haruna, the cruisers, all of it, were
39:00heading away from Leyte Gulf without
39:01having fired a shot at the invasion fleet.
39:04That is the core of it.
39:06The Japanese came to Samar to destroy the
39:08American landings at Leyte.
39:10That was the whole operation.
39:12Japan put almost everything it had left
39:14into one plan, gave up four carriers as
39:17bait to pull Halsey away, and it worked.
39:20The road to Leyte Gulf was open, and it
39:24was closed again by a handful of escort
39:26carriers and destroyers that should have
39:28been swept aside in 20 minutes.
39:31The officer on that bridge wing was part
39:33of a navy that had just lost the battle
39:35it came to win.
39:37He was saluting one of the ships that
39:39made it lose.
39:40Back on Admiral Sprague's bridge on the
39:43Fanshawe Bay, the Americans had a hard
39:45time believing it, too.
39:47At about 9.25, as the Japanese ships
39:50began pulling away, a signalman yelled
39:52out what everyone was thinking.
39:54God damn it, boys.
39:56They're getting away.
39:57Admiral Nimitz later called the outcome
39:59nothing short of special dispensation
40:01from the Lord Almighty.
40:04Now go back to the water and look at the
40:06whole scene the way the men in it actually
40:08remembered it, because it wasn't as clean
40:10as a painting.
40:12Bobby Chastain saw the Japanese crew watching
40:14them.
40:15Clint Carter saw them standing at attention.
40:18He also saw a Japanese sailor filming the
40:20survivors with a handheld movie camera, and
40:23another one thumbing his nose and blowing a
40:25raspberry.
40:26Then a man on the destroyer's fan tail threw
40:29something into the water near Carter.
40:31A big can of tomatoes.
40:33The label said it was packed in Arkansas.
40:37Carter's reaction is one of the best lines of the
40:39whole war.
40:40Three years of war and they were still eating USA
40:43canned tomatoes.
40:46Other survivors remembered it differently.
40:49Years later, James Hornfisher said the men he
40:51interviewed told him all sorts of versions.
40:54One remembered the Japanese giving them the finger.
40:57Others remembered potatoes and cans of food coming
40:59over the side.
41:01One remembered a salute.
41:03That's what real memory looks like after a morning
41:06like that.
41:08Eyewitnesses don't agree, but on the central point,
41:11the men who were close enough to see the bridge wing
41:13agree.
41:15The guns stayed quiet.
41:17The crew stood at the rail.
41:19An officer came to attention and saluted.
41:22And Clint Carter, who had been firing at those ships by
41:26hand for three hours, said the destroyer, appreciated a
41:30fighting lady, USS Johnston.
41:34He understood exactly what he was looking at.
41:37So did the man on the bridge wing.
41:39An American historian wrote the same verdict from the other
41:42side of the war.
41:44Samuel Elliot Morrison, the Navy's official historian,
41:47wrote,
42:00A Japanese officer said it with one hand raised to his cap,
42:05a thousand yards away, about 40 minutes after Morrison's two
42:09hours ended.
42:10So that's the answer to the question in our title.
42:12The Japanese officer saluted the Johnston because he had fought
42:17her himself, finished her himself, and seen at close range what
42:21she was.
42:23One small destroyer that went at a battle fleet without orders,
42:26went back in with no torpedoes, drew fire off a carrier,
42:31turned a torpedo squadron, and kept steering by hand until there was
42:35nothing left to steer with.
42:36And his whole fleet was sailing away from the target it had come
42:40for.
42:41But the salute wasn't the end of it for the men in the water.
42:44The destroyer steamed off to join the retreat,
42:47and the Johnston survivors were left behind,
42:50hundreds of miles of empty sea on every side.
42:53It would be more than two days before anyone came for them.
42:57What happened to them in those 50 hours,
42:59and what happened to Ernest Evans,
43:02is the last part of this story.
43:03They were in the water for about 50 hours.
43:06The Johnston survivors gathered on three rafts and two floater nets,
43:10with the badly wounded lifted onto the rafts and everyone else hanging off the sides.
43:15The first afternoon, American planes flew over them more than once.
43:20Nobody came.
43:21Bob Hagen never got over that.
43:23He wrote that a lot of men would be alive today if rescue had come sooner.
43:28The first night, a Japanese destroyer passed close by in the dark.
43:33The men went silent and lay still on the water.
43:36One of them said a group that had been noisy a moment before went as silent as a graveyard.
43:41This time, there was no salute.
43:44She kept going.
43:46Then the sharks came.
43:48One man was killed.
43:49Chief Gunner's mate Harry Henson was bitten twice on the thigh and lived.
43:54Clint Carter, the Texan from Gun 55, the man who saw the salute,
43:59was bitten while his shipmate Chuck Campbell held him up in the water.
44:03Campbell got him onto a raft, bleeding.
44:06Lieutenant Ellsworth Welch summed up the second day for all of them.
44:09My contract with the Navy was to fight the enemy, not sharks.
44:15Men went out of their heads with thirst and exposure.
44:18One sailor, Don Starks, kept seeing Commander Evans out on the water.
44:23On the morning of October 27th, a small group of American landing craft and a patrol craft,
44:29PC-623, came over the horizon from Leyte and started pulling men out of the water.
44:36A hundred and forty-one men of the Johnston came home.
44:40Two of them, Bill Shaw and Oren Vadness, had drifted off on their own and were found later,
44:46after about four days in their life jackets.
44:50Here's a number I'd ask you to sit with.
44:53Of the 327 men aboard the Johnston that morning, 186 died.
45:00By Hagen's count, about 60 of them were killed in the fighting.
45:05More than twice that many died in the water afterward, or were never found.
45:10Ernest Evans was one of the men never found.
45:13The Johnston's surviving officers and men recommended him for the Medal of Honor,
45:17and every one of them signed.
45:20It was awarded in 1945.
45:23He was the first Native American in the history of the United States Navy to receive it.
45:28Hagen ended his own account with a plain sentence.
45:32Evans remained in command until he went down with his ship.
45:36The Japanese destroyer that later accounts name as the one at the bridge wing that morning,
45:41the Yukikaze, survived the war, one of very few Japanese destroyers that did.
45:47Her men went home.
45:49So did the men from the water who had watched her stop.
45:52And then, for 75 years, the Johnstons simply waited.
45:57In October 2019, the research vessel Petrel found wreckage in the Philippine Trench.
46:03A gun mount, a propeller shaft, debris that couldn't be identified for certain.
46:09The rest lay deeper than its equipment could reach.
46:12On March 31, 2021, Victor Vescovo, a retired American naval officer,
46:18took the submersible, limiting factor, down more than 21,000 feet, about four miles.
46:24No ship on Earth had ever been found that deep.
46:28Here's what he found.
46:29The forward two-thirds of the Johnstons sits upright on the bottom.
46:33The whole number, 557, is still readable on both sides of her bow.
46:38The torpedo racks are empty.
46:40The ten fish fired at the Kumano long gone.
46:44The guns are still trained out to the side,
46:46toward where the Japanese ships were when she sank.
46:49And the stern is missing.
46:52The back third of the ship was torn away,
46:54apparently by an 18-inch shell.
46:57Remember the question about those first big hits at 7.30,
47:00whether they came from the Congo or the Yamato?
47:03The wreck points to the Yamato.
47:06The biggest gun ever put to sea hit the Johnston at the start of the morning,
47:10and she fought on for more than two hours after it.
47:14Nothing was taken from the wreck.
47:16No one was disturbed.
47:18Now come back one last time to that sea off Samar,
47:22a little after 10 in the morning, on October 25, 1944.
47:27A Japanese officer on a bridge wing raises his hand to his cap.
47:32Below him, in the oil, Clint Carter is holding on to whatever he can.
47:38Bobby Chastain is watching the faces at the rail.
47:42Neil Deathlifts has his fingers on the strings of a burned shipmate's life jacket,
47:47ready to pull him under if the guns open up.
47:50The salute was real, and the reason for it was simple.
47:55That officer had watched one American destroyer do, from start to finish,
48:01what no one could have ordered her to do.
48:03And his own fleet was sailing away from Leyte Gulf because of ships like her.
48:10But the men in the water didn't need a salute to know what they'd done.
48:15They'd known it since a morning in Seattle a year earlier,
48:18when their captain told them he intended to go in harm's way,
48:21and said anyone who didn't want to go along should leave.
48:26Not one of them left.
48:28Thank you for staying with this story to the very end.
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49:00We read every one, and we'd like to remember them too.