Comments by "josh fritz" (@joshfritz5345) on "5 Incredible But Lesser Known Last Stands" video.

  1. The battle off Samar. A huge fleet of modern Japanese warships were in position to steamroll over a small US escort group. Any words I say cannot do justice to the sheer audacity of the US forces in that battle. Pilots making strafing runs on warships with machine guns, running out of ammo and firing their sidearms at the ships. Destroyers making torpedo runs on cruisers and battleships. One destroyer escort, the USS Samuel B Roberts (one of the smallest oceangoing warships in service) got so close to a heavy cruiser that the cruiser could not depress it's guns low enough to hit the tiny ship, leaving the tiny ship free to rake the cruiser's deck with cannon and machine gun fire until it ran out of ammunition. The destroyer USS Johnston had engaged in several separate gunnery duels in this battle against much larger ships. It sustained and inflicted so much damage over the course of the battle, it was recorded as having been sunk twice that battle as two separate ships, once as a battleship, and another time as a heavy cruiser, ships 10-20 times it's size. Near the end of the battle, the Johnston single handedly turned back an entire squadron of Japanese destroyers, ruining their chance at a torpedo strike on the retreating US carriers.
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