Battle of Surigao Strait

[Resica]

Happened today 78 years ago. Admiral Oldendorfs 6 old Battleships, some sunk at Pearl Harbor, crossed the T and hammered the Jap fleet. The Battle off Samar tomorrow was a little different with only our escort carriers, destroyers and destroyer escorts performing bravely against Jap Battleships, cruisers and destroyers trying to get to our landing beach but the Japs turned around on that one too!! God bless these guys!!

 

[westcobbdog]

Caught the end of a show about the William Roberts, I think an escort destroyer, how it was pretty small but seen next to a bigger ship gave the Japs from afar the impression it was a big ship next to a bigger ship. The nips set their torpedos real low in the water like for a battleship hull and they actually went under the much smaller WR, while their terrific artillery barrage mostly went over the WR because they thought it was farther away misjudging it's size and the actual distance away.

 

[The Original Rooster]

And the last battleship to battleship action in naval history. The only pre-WW2 American battleship left is the USS Texas. Hope to go see it one day.

 

[Dutch]

A excellent book about Surigao Strait battle.
Battle of Surigao Strait (Twentieth-Century Battles)


Battle of Samar was today as well.

Escort Carriers and Destroyers against the Yamato and her battlegroup.

The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour

“This will be a fight against overwhelming odds from which survival cannot be expected. We will do what damage we can.” - Lieutenant Commander Robert W. Copeland, USS Samuel B. Roberts

 

[Dutch]

 

[Dutch]