On 25 October 1944, the destroyer escort USS Samuel B. Roberts and the rest of task unit Taffy 3 took part in the Battle off Samar during the Battle of Leyte Gulf. Nicknamed the Sammy B, the destroyer escort, and the rest of the task unit, was massively out-gunned by a much larger powerful Japanese surface fleet, but the Americans still managed to cause significant damage to the enemy force.

By the end of the two and a half hour battle, the Sammy B and three more U.S. Navy ships were sunk, but in the process, they had beaten back the Imperial Japanese Navy’s major offensive against the allied amphibious landings on Leyte. In this video, we will tell the story of the battle off Samar from the perspective of the American sailors aboard USS Samuel B. Roberts, the smallest vessel to take part in the battle.