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At dawn on October 25, 1944, in the vast expanse of the Philippine Sea, a lone destroyer charged straight into the teeth of death. The USS Johnston (DD-557), a Fletcher-class destroyer, found itself in a battle it had no hope of winning. Outgunned, outnumbered, and hopelessly outmatched, the crew of the Johnston didn’t flinch. Instead, they did the unthinkable—they attacked.
The Battle off Samar was supposed to be a mop-up operation for the Imperial Japanese Navy. The mighty Center Force, led by Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita, boasted four battleships—including the monstrous Yamato—along with eight cruisers and eleven destroyers. Their target: a small, unsuspecting force of American escort carriers, destroyers, and destroyer escorts known as “Taffy 3.” The Americans, lightly armed and unprepared, should have been wiped from the sea.
But they had the USS Johnston.
At 6:45 a.m., Captain Ernest E. Evans gave the order that would make history: “A large Japanese fleet has been contacted. They are fifteen miles away and headed in our direction. This will be a fight against overwhelming odds from which survival cannot be expected. We will do what damage we can.”
And with that, he turned his destroyer toward the enemy fleet and charged at flank speed.
Johnston fired first, launching a spread of torpedoes at the Japanese heavy cruisers. One of them, Kumano, took a direct hit, crippling it and forcing it out of the battle. The destroyer then weaved through enemy fire, its five-inch guns blazing at warships twenty times its size. At one point, the crew was so close to Yamato—the largest battleship ever built—that they could see sailors running on its deck. Johnston’s guns, laughably small against the armor of the enemy battleships, still found their mark, hammering away at Japanese superstructures, control towers, and gun positions.
For nearly two hours, Johnston dueled with giants. She shielded the retreating escort carriers, engaging everything in sight, never backing down. But the Japanese guns were relentless. Shell after shell tore into her hull, knocking out her engines, setting fires, and reducing her to a sinking wreck. Yet even as she burned, she kept fighting. Gunners fired manually. Wounded sailors passed shells to loaders with their bare hands. The ship refused to die.
Finally, listing and dead in the water, Johnston could fight no more. Japanese destroyers circled like sharks, blasting away at the wreckage. At 9:45 a.m., Captain Evans gave the order to abandon ship. Mortally wounded, he was last seen on the deck, refusing to leave his command. The USS Johnston slipped beneath the waves, its crew still defiantly firing until the very end.
Of the 327 men aboard, only 141 survived the battle and days adrift at sea. But their sacrifice was not in vain. Johnston’s suicidal attack had thrown the Japanese into disarray, buying time for the escort carriers and other American ships to escape. Incredibly, the Japanese fleet—shaken by the ferocity of the American defense—turned back, retreating from a battle they should have easily won.
Years later, a Japanese officer would describe the battle with disbelief: “The American destroyer’s attack was magnificent. I can compare it only to samurai warriors charging a horde of spearmen, armed only with swords.”
The wreck of the USS Johnston was finally discovered in 2019, resting 21,180 feet beneath the surface—the deepest shipwreck ever found. But its true place is in legend. The ship that had no chance, the men who fought to the last round, and the captain who led them into history—the USS Johnston’s last stand remains one of the most heroic moments in naval warfare.