A Desperate Battle off Samar Island

In the early dawn hours of October 25, 1944, Rear Admiral Clifton "Ziggy" Sprague confronted a terrifying sight: a Japanese fleet of 4 battleships, 12 cruisers, and 15 destroyers was bearing down on his small detachment off Samar Island in the Philippines.  To resist them, he had only 6 unarmored escort carriers, 4 destroyers, and 3 smaller destroyer escorts.  The largest Japanese ship, battleship Yamato, could fire 18-inch shells.  The largest gun in Sprague's inventory: 5 inches.

Admiral Ozawa, Admiral "Bull" Halsey, Admiral Takeo Kurita, Admiral Ziggy Sprague

In October 1944, the Americans were moving north through the Philippine islands toward the largest island of Luzon. Admiral William "Bull" Halsey's Third Fleet protected the routes to the current beachhead of Leyte Island.  Knowing his reputation for boldness, the Japanese ordered Admiral Ozawa to decoy Halsey to the north with a fleet of four carriers that were not outfitted for combat.  If Halsey left the San Bernardino Straits unguarded, Admiral Kurita could break through with his battleships and destroy the American landing force in Leyte Gulf.  Halsey had exchanged fire with Kurita a few days earlier and thought he was in retreat - Halsey also had permission to attack targets of opportunity.  The Japanese ruse worked perfectly, decoying Admiral Halsey to take his entire Third Fleet north of the Philippines to open the passage for Kurita's fleet.

On the map, the red icons depict Ozawa's fleet to the north and Kurita coming through the straits.  The blue icons are Halsey chasing Ozawa in the north and Sprague in the east with his small force called "Taffy 3."  The island to the left of Sprague's icon is Samar Island.  Taffy 3 was a fleet designed to provide extra air support from behind the main battle line.  The escort carriers were not well armed or armored and the destroyers and destroyer escorts were designed for sea-to-shore fire, anti-submarine patrols, and mine-sweeping.  In view of his long odds, Sprague did the only feasible thing: he ordered the carriers to launch all of their planes and flee east while the destroyers and escorts were to lay a smoke screen for them.

USS Johnston, CDR Ernest Evans, Japanese cruiser Kumano

On board one destroyer, the USS Johnston, the skipper noted that the cruisers and battleships leading Kurita's task force were targeting the small ships making the smoke screen.  Commander Ernest Evans, a graduate of the Naval Academy from Pawnee, Oklahoma, took initiative.  Rather than waiting for the Japanese to find the range, Johnston charged in a zigzag pattern toward the attacking fleet.  Miraculously, she reached lethal range and launched her 10 torpedoes, hitting the heavy cruiser Kumano, and knocking off her bow.  The Kumano left the fight and a second heavy cruiser went with her for security.  The Japanese began to hit the Johnston immediately, but she had removed two cruisers from the fight.

USS Hoel, Commander Leon Kintberger, the Navy Cross

Shortly thereafter, at 7:50 AM, Admiral Sprague ordered the other destroyers to go on a torpedo run.  USS Hoel, USS Heermann, USS Dennis and the destroyer escort USS Samuel B. Roberts moved out past the damaged Johnston and entered the terribly mismatched fray.  The three destroyers launched their torpedoes, which did not hit the Japanese ships, but they did break up their formations and delay their advance on the escort carriers.  The Heermann's torpedoes endangered the Yamato and the largest battleship ever built actually turned away, never to reenter the battle.  The Japanese sank the Hoel, as she dueled with 5-inch guns against the 8- to 16-inch guns of the Japanese.  The skipper, Commander Leon Kintberger, received the Navy Cross, which is the Navy's second-highest award for valor.

USS Samuel B. Roberts, LCDR Robert Copeland

The Samuel B. Roberts was the smallest ship that engaged decisively in the Battle off Samar Island that day.  The other two destroyer escorts continued laying the smoke screen while Roberts' skipper, Lieutenant Commander Robert Copeland, requested permission to go on the torpedo run.  They only had 3 torpedoes, but one of them hit the Japanese cruiser Chokai and, along with bombs from the aircraft, sent her to the bottom of Leyte Gulf.  Japanese fire sank the Roberts in short order, but she had exacted a remarkable toll. 
The small ships' only advantage came from the aircraft, some of which were equipped with bombs and torpedoes.  The fighters strafed the decks of the Japanese ships and harassed them to the best of their ability.   When they ran out of ammunition, the pilots flew dry runs to draw fire away from the armed planes.    

CDR Evans' Naval Academy photo, the Medal of Honor

The Japanese battleships sank the escort carrier Gambier Bay with surface fire and the St. Lo fell victim to a kamikaze, a weapon making its debut.  The other four escort carriers continued their retreat east and south.  One Japanese cruiser led a formation of destroyers on a torpedo run for the carriers and only one ship could do anything about it.  Commander Evans directed the Johnston to "cross the T" of the cruiser, which prompted the Japanese to launch their torpedoes prematurely.  The Japanese then turned their attention on the Johnston, and sank her.  Admiral Kurita, certain that a larger force was on the way to reinforce the small ships of Taffy 3, ordered a withdrawal to the north.  The carriers White Plains, Fanshaw Bay, Kalinin Bay, and Kitkun Bay owed a debt of gratitude to the brave crews of the small "tin cans."
Rescue ships picked up the survivors of the three small ships, including Commander Kintberger and Lt. Commander Copeland.  No one could confirm what happened to Commander Evans, who had been wounded early in the battle and may have gone down with the ship.  Commander Evans had declared that the Johnston would be a fighting ship during her commissioning ceremony.  "I intend to go in harm's way, and anyone who doesn't want to go along had better get off right now."  On October 25, 1944, he lived up to his word.
Read and watch more: James Hornfischer's book Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors is an excellent account of the battle.  The History channel series "Dogfights" features this battle in an episode titled "Death of the Japanese Navy."

A Daring Escape in Georgia

October 16, 1862: Fourteen Soldiers of the 2nd, 21st and 33rd Ohio Infantry Regiments sat in Fulton County Prison, expecting to be tried for their lives.  Eight of their number had already been hanged as spies, including their leader, a civilian named James J. Andrews.  Having staged one escape attempt that had freed only two of them briefly, they decided to hatch a daring and audacious plan.
It all began in April 1862, when General Don Carlos Buell took his Army of the Ohio west to fight the Battle of Shiloh north of Corinth, Mississippi.  He left one division of 10,000 men under General Ormsby Mitchel to guard Nashville in his absence.  Mitchel planned to march south, cut the east-west railroad line at Huntsville, Alabama, then march east to overwhelm the small force holding Chattanooga.  To cut the rail line south from Atlanta, Mitchel sent a civilian, James J. Andrews, with 20 enlisted men and one other civilian into Georgia to burn the railroad bridges.  On April 12, they boarded the train"The General" in Marietta wearing civilian clothes and hijacked the locomotive and three boxcars at Big Shanty, where the crew stopped for breakfast.  The conductor, William A. Fuller, actually took off after his train on foot, accompanied by the engineer, Jeff Cain, and the superintendent of the railroad, Anthony Murphy.

(L to R) James J. Andrews, the General, and William A Fuller

The spies stopped to cut the telegraph wire between stations and removed a rail with tools they borrowed from a work crew. Strangely, none had thought to bring tools for tearing up track, so they lacked a reliable device for removing rail spikes.  Fuller, Cain, and Murphy took a handcar from the work crew near Acworth and continued north until they reached an ironworks, where they commandeered a small switch engine, the Yonah.  Southbound traffic was heavier than usual and delayed the General for over an hour in Kingston.  By the time the raiders rolled out, Fuller was close behind them.  He took on a faster train at Kingston, but the raiders took out another rail to stop him.  The last southbound train, the Texas, came to Fuller's aid.

Superintendent Anthony Murphy, the Texas, and Engineer Pete Bracken 

The Texas was heading south, so Fuller directed Bracken to drop his cars in Adairsville and head north in reverse.  The raiders sent a boxcar down a hill to derail the Texas, but the attempt failed.  The raiders had planned to burn the bridges along the rail line, but several days of rain made that mission all but impossible.  Picking up a telegraph operator named Joe Henderson in Calhoun, Fuller dictated a message to him, which he sent out from Dalton to Chattanooga before the raiders could cut the telegraph wire again.  Near Ringgold, the General ran low on fuel and the raiders abandoned it.  Soldiers and citizens took to the woods and rounded up every raider from Andrews' band.  Since they wore civilian clothes in a sabotage mission behind enemy lines, all were to be tried as spies in Knoxville, TN.  Due to Union Army movements threatening that city, however, only eight trials took place.  Andrews and William Campbell, the two civilians, as well as Private (PVT) George Wilson, PVT Perry Shadrach, PVT Samuel Robertson, PVT Samuel Slavens, Sergeant John Scott, and Sergeant Major Marion Ross were convicted of spying and hanged in June 1862.  The other fourteen spies waited in suspense until October.

Fulton County Jail, Private John Porter, Private John Wollam, Private Robert Buffum

Kept on the second floor of Fulton County Jail, the raiders decided to escape out the front door at dinner time, rushing the guards with bare hands.  William Knight, one of the engineers, had managed to scrounge a pocket knife and carve makeshift keys out of chicken bones to open some of their wrist shackles.  The elderly jailer, Mr. Turner, came to the cell to pick up their dinner dishes on October 16.  When he opened the door, two raiders grabbed him and Bob Buffum took his keys, opening the other cells on the floor.  They took the six guards by surprise, some of whom were playing cards with their rifles stacked.  After a short melee, fourteen fled, and eight got away in pairs.
Porter and Wollam hid in the woods until dark, then headed northwest to the Chattanooga area.  Finding Buell's Army no longer there, they stole a canoe and traveled west on the Tennessee River.  They reached Union lines near Corinth, MS, a month later.

Private William Knight, Private Wilson Brown, Corporal Daniel Dorsey, and Corporal Martin Hawkins

William Knight and Wilson Brown headed northeast through the Blue Ridge Mountains into East Tennessee. On one occasion, they approached a home and asked for breakfast.  When a posse approached the home, they realized that their "Union sympathizer" host was not as friendly as he seemed.  The vigilantes sent hounds after them, but Brown and Knight fended off their pursuers with rocks and rejoined their regiment in Kentucky.  Dorsey and Hawkins followed a similar route through Tennessee, taking advantage of the divided loyalties of the residents of Appalachia to gain food and shelter from a number of civilians.

Alf Wilson and Mark Wood chose perhaps the most daring escape route, as they fled south instead of north.  Stealing a small boat, they found the Chattahoochee River and floated through Georgia, along the border with Alabama, and all the way to the Union naval fleet floating off the mouth of the river in Mobile Bay.  The Andrews Raiders became the first recipients of the Medal of Honor on March 25, 1863.
Read and Watch More: Russell Bonds wrote a magnificent book titled "Stealing the General" in 2007.  Disney made a very accurate movie titled "The Great Locomotive Chase" starring Fess Parker and Jeffrey Hunter in 1956.  Both are available at Amazon.com.

Skill and Daring: Lt. Col. Neel Kearby

In the annals of World War II aerial combat, Butch O'Hare achieved a rare and amazing feat by shooting down five Japanese aircraft in one dogfight.  Incredibly, Lieutenant Colonel Neel Kearby surpassed his feat against equally long odds later in the war.

October 11, 1943: As the campaign for New Guinea raged in the air and the ground, allied pilots of the 348th Fighter Group sent out a reconnaissance patrol of four fighters in the vicinity of Wewak.  Their mission was to identify the locations of airfields and other ground installations for future American bombing runs.  The leader of the patrol was Lieutenant Colonel Neel Kearby, a short man only 5' 9" tall from Wichita Falls, Texas.  They flew the P-47D Thunderbolt, a rugged, sturdy fighter nicknamed "The Jug," that enjoyed an advantage in diving speed, but lacked maneuverability in a turning fight.  Kearby named his airplane "Fiery Ginger," after his wife.

With their reconnaissance mission complete, the four Thunderbolts had turned to head home, but Kearby saw a lone Japanese "Oscar" fighter plane and shot it down in a diving pass.  He shot down the Japanese Lieutenant Colonel Taniya Teranishi, a squadron commander with several kills to his credit.  Moments later, the patrol sighted a Japanese flight of 12 bombers escorted by as many as 36 fighters.  Kearby led them in a high arc behind the formation so that they could attack in a dive once again.  Swooping down from 8,000 feet above the Japanese, Kearby flamed one Oscar immediately.  A "Tony" fighter got on Kearby's tail, but his wingman, Captain Bill Dunham shot it down.  Kearby got another Oscar, then a third, while Captain John Moore, the trail airplane picked a second Japanese plane off of his tail.
Having accounted for six aircraft altogether, Kearby led his little patrol against a fleeing flight of "Tony" fighters.  He took one, then Moore shot one off of Kearby's tail for his second kill of the day.  As he pulled out of the pass, Moore saw two Tony's on his own tail and expected them to shred his aircraft.  Through brilliant maneuvering, however, Kearby got behind the Tonys and shot one down, possibly damaging the other, which dove for the ground.  Kearby had killed six aircraft in a feat of daring that made him as famous as his aircraft.
Sadly, after shooting down a total of 22 enemy aircraft, Colonel Kearby was shot down and killed on March 5, 1944.  He is pictured below with his wife, Virginia, whom he called Ginger.  Today, his medals are on display at the National Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.

As many veterans can attest, we lose some of our best and bravest.

Semper Fidellis: Kelso and Watkins, USMC

Some of our Servicemen have earned the Medal of Honor for amazing feats of daring and courage, others for self-sacrifice.  Staff Sergeant Lewis Watkins and Private First Class Jack W. Kelso performed both on a bloody hill in Korea.

October 7, 1952: the Korean War had degenerated to a brutal stalemate, as the Chinese and North Koreans fought with the UN forces to take and retake hills and ridges north of the 38th Parallel.  Each hill lost or gained gave a slight propaganda advantage to one side or the other at the negotiations table, but the American public had grown war-weary and would oust the incumbent President Truman in favor of Eisenhower one month later.  

Seldom has one regiment distinguished itself as thoroughly as did the 7th Marines in Korea.  Beginning with the bloody winter of 1950-51 in the Chosin Reservoir, where nine of their unit earned our nation's highest award, and gaining the last one only a few days before the armistice, the 7th finished the war with 20 Medals of Honor, surpassing all others from Korea and most from the Second World War.

On October 2, 1952, the Chinese poured over Detroit Hill a short distance northeast of Panmunjom, where the armistice negotiations were in progress.  They began to dislodge the Marines in a very bitter fight, surrounding a bunker known as Outpost Warsaw.  Five Marines fired out of the bunker, but the Chinese surrounded them and began throwing grenades in.  Private First Class Jack Kelso from Fresno, California, caught one grenade, ran outside and threw it back.  He was wounded in the explosion, but stood his ground, firing at the Chinese and drawing their fire.  His heroic stand until he fell mortally wounded allowed his four companions to break out and rejoin their unit.  

Five days later, the Marines were still fighting doggedly to retake Detroit Hill.  The ebb and flow of advancing and retreating lines had caused twelve Marines to get cut off by the Chinese.  They had held out for three days in a bunker when Staff Sergeant Lewis Watkins led his platoon on a rescue mission.  Since his platoon leader and platoon sergeant had already become casualties, the 27-year-old non-commissioned officer from Seneca, South Carolina was the senior leader available.
Chinese fire wounded Staff Sergeant Watkins, but he continued and reached a trench line near the bunker where their fellow Marines were trapped.  When a burst of fire wounded a Marine with a Browning Automatic Rifleman (BAR), Watkins grabbed the weapon and rushed a Chinese machine gun team, firing as he ran.  The South Carolinian fired skillfully from the hip, silencing the gun crew and opening a way to the bunker of trapped Marines.  A Chinese grenade fell among his platoon and Watkins took immediate action.  Pushing a fellow Marine out of the way, he grabbed the grenade, attempting to throw it back.  The grenade went off as he threw it, wounding Watkins mortally.  His platoon pushed forward, however, and rescued their twelve brothers in arms.  Kelso and Watkins gave their lives so that sixteen of their fellow Marines could have a chance to live.
Today, Watkins' Medal of Honor is on display at the Veterans Museum in Walhalla, South Carolina.

Allatoona Pass - a Needless Effusion of Blood

Gen Sherman, US Army

Gen Hood, CS Army

October 5, 1864: Atlanta had fallen and Sherman's March to the Sea was underway.  Confederate General Hood had decided to strike Sherman's lines of supply to the north, mainly the Western and Atlantic Railroad, running between Atlanta and Chattanooga.  After that, he planned to march into Tennessee and recapture Nashville.  In actuality, President Jefferson Davis had dictated the plan, just has he had ordered Hood to attack Sherman during the siege of Atlanta.  Davis even gave a speech describing the entire strategy, which the Southern papers reprinted, apparently oblivious to the valuable intelligence they were giving the Union Army. Sherman had already countered the first part of the plan by fanning out his army and living off the land between Atlanta and Savannah so that he did not rely on the railroad very much.  He knew the second part could not succeed because General Thomas, his trusted Rock of Chickamauga, had enough men at hand to hold Nashville.  
To cut the W & A RR near the middle of its span, Hood sent Brigadier General Samuel G. French with 3,000 men to capture the two forts at Allatoona Pass, where 976 men under LTC Tourtelotte defended.

In this picture from the time, there is one fort on top of each side of the pass.  On the left side, you can see where the breastworks sit above the natural rise of the slope.  It was a formidable fortification, but French may not have known that Sherman had dispatched a division from Rome under Brigadier General John Corse to reinforce the garrison.  Corse arrived early in the morning on the 5th and assumed overall command, with over 2,000 men.  

BG French, CSA

BG Corse, USA

 French arrived at Allatoona after a long march and demanded the forts surrender to avoid, "a needless effusion of blood."  Corse refused and the effusion began, mostly from gray uniforms.  An entrenched  division of this size could have defended against twice as many attackers.  The forts were well-built with fraise, abatis, and a height of 12 feet from the bottom of the outer trench to the top of the breastworks.  French followed his orders, attacking four times unsuccessfully, until he heard of additional reinforcements coming to the forts.  Corse sustained a facial wound and wrote to Sherman afterwards, "I am short a cheekbone and one ear, but am able to lick all hell yet."

One young private from the 12th Wisconsin Light Artillery, James Croft, who was English by birth, saw a gunner go down and assumed his position.  Although the gunner is usually the most experienced member of the crew, with the rank of sergeant, Croft showed considerable skill and inspired his comrades.  He alone received the Medal of Honor for the Battle of Allatoona Pass. 
Today, the forts are well preserved at Red Top Mountain State Park in Allatoona, GA.  The State of Iowa honored BG Corse with a statue in Des Moines and French has a bust at the Vicksburg Battlefield.

Gordon and Shughart - Greater Love Has No Man...

Sometimes Soldiers receive the Medal of Honor for displaying valor in a fight that turns against them unexpectedly.  On a few rare occasions, however, Soldiers have willingly entered an inferno from which they cannot possibly emerge alive.  October 3, 1993, in a battle made famous by the book Black Hawk Down by Mark Bowden and the movie of the same title, Americans of Task Force Ranger staged a daylight raid on Mogadishu, Somalia.  For eighteen men, it would be their last mission, but two of them earned immortality through their memorable sacrifice.

The mission that day was to capture some of the top lieutenants of the warlord Mohammed Farrah Aidid, who were meeting at a hotel near the middle of the city.  The plan seemed simple: Rangers would rope down from Blackhawks to seize the four road intersections around the hotel while elite Delta Force operators landed on the roof in OH-6 Little Bird choppers.   A ground convoy was to rush to the hotel, secure the prisoners that Delta captured, and take them back to the soccer stadium that served as the base of Task Force Ranger.  Unfortunately, the Americans underestimated both the number and sophistication of the weapons that Aidid's men could bring to bear against them.  Lacking both AC-130 Spectre gunships and Bradley Fighting Vehicles, the Soldiers in the ground convoy did not have the ability to clear the streets effectively as militia mobs put up a determined fight.  Helicopters provided some covering fire from above, but the men on the ground waged a tough running fight through the streets of Mogadishu, frequently losing their way as Somalis blocked roads with barricades of burning tires.  One specially-modified Rocket-propelled Grenade (RPG) struck a Blackhawk in the tail rotor and it went down in the city.

 Minutes later, while Rangers secured the crash site, a second RPG downed the Blackhawk "Super 64" outside the city in an area difficult for ground forces to reach.  Two Delta Force snipers on another helicopter provided covering fire for a while, but they could see that the hostile militias would reach the second crash site ahead of the American ground forces.  Master Sergeant Gary Gordon, a Delta sniper from Lincoln, Maine, requested permission to be inserted at the second site along with his fellow sniper, Sergeant First Class Randall Shughart, from Lincoln, Nebraska.  On their third request, their commander on the ground relented and gave permission for them to secure the second crash site on the chance that there might be survivors.

Gordon and Shughart, knowing that hundreds of the enemy would arrive before they could hope for any help, reached the wreckage and found one pilot, Mike Durant, was still alive.  Handing him one weapon to cover their rear, they fought it out with their CAR-15 and M-14 rifles, determined to sell their lives dearly and hopefully to save Durant's life.  In time, their ammunition supply ran low and Somali forces killed both Gordon and Shughart.  When they reached the crash site, however, the Somalis spared Durant, taking him prisoner.  In subsequent stories, the Somali militias reported having lost 25 Soldiers to the two men from Lincoln.  

Today, Gordon and Shughart remain symbols of the passage John 15:13, "Greater love has no man than this - that he lay down his life for his friends.  The Armed Forces have immortalized them in everything from a postage stamp to a ship, the  USS Gordon, to the "Shughart-Gordon Urban Warfare Training Facilities" at Fort Polk, LA and Fort Knox, KY.  Thankfully, these extraordinarily brave men will be remembered for years to come.

Colonel Joe Thompson and the Battle for Apremont

October 1, 1918: The American 28th Infantry Division, made up mostly of Pennsylvania National Guardsmen, had spent three days taking the town of Apremont as part of the Meuse-Argonne offensive.  Elements of the 55th Infantry Brigade, about 400 Soldiers, held Apremont on the morning of the 1st, when the Germans launched two Infantry regiments in a fierce counterattack.

 Major Joe Thompson, the former football coach of the University of Pittsburgh, moved from one position to another along the line, encouraging his men, directing their fire, and urging them to hold their positions.  They repulsed the attack and used the enemy withdrawal to advance to the next line of German-held trenches.  Thompson's Battalion included six tanks accompanying the infantry, but five of them were hit or broke down in No Man's Land.  With his infantry companies pinned down by a machine gun nest, Thompson ran to the final tank and acted as a forward spotter to direct its fire effectively.  Three times he ran forward to assess the enemy position and direct the tank to maneuver into an out-flank position.  Once they had reached a lethal close range of the nest, Thompson ordered the gunner to fire and the tank blew apart the nest, gaining the trench line for the Americans.

Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, celebrated Thompson as "Pitt's Fighting Athlete," juxtaposing "Coach Joe" with "Colonel Joe" in this poster above.  Colonel Joe is buried in Beaver Falls, with a humble gravestone, in keeping with the manner of the modest man who went above and beyond the call of duty in an amazing act of valor on this day in 1918.