Battle off Samar

Part of Battle of Leyte Gulf, Philippines Campaign (1944–45), Pacific War (World War II)

The escort carrier Gambier Bay, burning from earlier gunfire damage, is bracketed by a salvo from a Japanese cruiser (faintly visible in the background, center-right) shortly before sinking during the Battle off Samar.

Date	October 25, 1944
Location	East of Samar Island
Result	American victory

Belligerents

United States

Japan

Commanders and leaders

Clifton Sprague

Takeo Kurita

Strength

"Taffy 3"
6 escort carriers,
3 destroyers,
4 destroyer escorts,
400 aircraft from Taffy 1, 2, 3

Japanese Center Force
4 battleships,
6 heavy cruisers,
2 light cruisers,
11 destroyers,
30 aircraft (in kamikaze attack)

Casualties and losses

2 escort carriers sunk
2 destroyers sunk
1 destroyer escort sunk
23 aircraft lost
3 escort carriers damaged
1 destroyer damaged
2 destroyer escorts damaged
1,583 killed and missing
913 wounded

3 heavy cruisers sunk
3 heavy cruisers damaged
1 destroyer damaged
52 aircraft

Unknown number

3 heavy cruisers sunk
3 heavy cruisers damaged
1 destroyer damaged
52 aircraft

The Battle off Samar was the centermost action of the Battle of Leyte Gulf, one of the largest naval battles in history, which took place in the Philippine Sea off Samar Island, in the Philippines on October 25, 1944. As the only major action in the larger battle where the Americans were largely unprepared against the opposing forces, it has been cited by historians as one of the greatest military mismatches in naval history.

Adm. William Halsey, Jr. was lured into taking his powerful 3rd Fleet after a decoy fleet, leaving only three escort carrier groups of the 7th Fleet. The escort carriers and destroyer escorts which had been designed to protect slow convoys from submarine attack had been repurposed to attack ground targets, and had few torpedoes as they could normally rely on Halsey's fleet to protect them from any threats from armored warships. A Japanese surface force of battleships and cruisers, battered earlier in the larger battle and thought to have been in retreat, instead turned around unobserved and encountered the northernmost of the three groups, Task Unit 77.4.3 ("Taffy 3"), commanded by Rear Admiral Clifton Sprague. Taffy 3's seven destroyers and destroyer escorts possessed neither the firepower nor armor to effectively oppose the 33 ships of the Japanese force, but nevertheless desperately attacked with 5 in (127 mm)/38 cal guns and torpedoes to cover the retreat of their slow "jeep" carriers. Aircraft from the carriers of Taffy 1, 2, and 3, including FM-2 Wildcats, F6F Hellcats and TBM Avengers, strafed, bombed, torpedoed, rocketed, depth-charged, fired at least one .38 caliber handgun and made numerous "dry" runs at the Japanese force when the American planes ultimately ran out of ammunition.

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Wikipedia