Posted on 10/25/2015 1:13:03 AM PDT by WhiskeyX
Battle 360 Episode 9 -"Battle of Leyte Gulf"
Battle 360 is a great show, so many people nowadays have zero knowledge of our History.
I was fortunate to have met some survivors of the USS Gambier Bay and listen to their stories.
Halsey was lucky not to have been court marshaled after being fooled by the Japanese
Battle 360 Episode 9 -”Battle of Leyte Gulf” is an exceptionally good History Channel piece.
When my father was alive, he told me he participated in the Battle of Leyte Gulf Off Samar. I also knew he was on USS Heermann. I did not know until I watched this Battle 360 episode a half dozen years ago, how much he’d been through.
On vacation in New Orleans. I had the honor to chat with a survivor of the CVE-65 outside the WWII museum saturday. Also met the son of a Navajo code talker at my reunion.
See the Wikipedia article about the battle and the role of the USS HEERMANN
“ In no engagement of its entire history has the United States Navy shown more gallantry, guts and gumption than in those two morning hours between 0730 and 0930 off Samar ”
Samuel Eliot Morison, History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Volume XII, Leyte
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_off_Samar
Be sure to visit a library with a copy of Morrison’s Volume XII and read about your father’s ship and the larger battle.
Bill Klein WWII Vet & Battle Of Leyte Gulf Aboard USS Heermann
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MU0CeueTYcQ
To this day I’m amazed that Hollywood (even in its better days of war movies) has never given Leyte Gulf any consideration.
What is truly shameful is the way in which the crews of the sunken warships of TAFFY 3 were abandoned for days to drown, die of exposure, and be eaten by sharks with few acknowledgements of their ordeals. read the accounts by Samuel Eliot Morisson in the U.S. Navy histories Volume XII Leyte; and see the following television documentary in today’s FreeRepublic post:
WW2: Destroyer Escort USS Samuel B. Roberts DE-413
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3352644/posts
Never was close, he was doing what he was supposed to do. There was no unified command, communication issues prevented the dispatch of ships to cover the eastern exit of the San Bernadino Straits.
I hear ya. But one has to have some sympathy when the bait was aircraft carriers. I mean, who would be crazy enough to expend their carriers as decoys?
The fact that they had no planes or pilots left is irrelevant. Halsey had no way to know that.
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