page_title: Battle off Samar
section_title: Forces
hierarchical_section_title: Battle off Samar / Forces
caption_attribution_description: English: The U.S. Navy escort carrier USS Gambier Bay (CVE-73) and her escorts pictured amidst a smoke screen during the Battle off Samar, 25 October 1944. Gambier Bay is painted in Camouflage Measure 32, Design 15A. The nearer destroyer escort is painted in Camouflage Design 2C and is therefore USS Raymond (DE-341). The other destroyer escort is painted in Camouflage Design 22D, which was worn by USS Dennis (DE-405) and USS Samuel B. Roberts (DE-413) off Samar.
context_page_description: The Battle off Samar was the centermost action of the Battle of Leyte Gulf, one of the largest naval battles in history, which took place in the Philippine Sea off Samar Island, in the Philippines on October 25, 1944. It was the only major action in the larger battle in which the Americans were largely unprepared. The Battle off Samar has been cited by historians as one of the greatest last stands in naval history; ultimately the Americans prevailed over a massive armada – the Japanese Imperial Navy's Center Force under command of Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita – despite their very heavy losses and overwhelming odds.
  Admiral William Halsey, Jr. was lured into taking his powerful 3rd Fleet after a decoy fleet, taking with him every ship in the area that he had the power to command. The remaining American forces in the area were three escort carrier groups of the 7th Fleet. The escort carriers and destroyer escorts which had been built to protect slow convoys from submarine attack had been adapted to attack ground targets and had few torpedoes, as they normally relied on Halsey's fleet to protect them from armored warships.
context_section_description: The Japanese Center Force now consisted of the battleships Yamato, Nagato, Kongō, and Haruna; heavy cruisers Chōkai, Haguro, Kumano, Suzuya, Chikuma, Tone; light cruisers Yahagi, and Noshiro; and 11 Kagerō-, Yūgumo- and Shimakaze-class destroyers. The battleships and cruisers were fully armored against Taffy 3's 5-inch (127 mm) projectiles. They together had dozens of larger caliber guns, including the Yamato's 18.1-inch (460 mm) guns, which could reach out to 25 mi (22 nmi; 40 km). Surface gunnery was controlled by optical sighting which fed computer-assisted fire control systems, though they were less sophisticated than the radar-controlled systems on U.S. destroyers.
  Each of the three task units of the Seventh Fleet's Task Group 77.4 had six small Casablanca-class or larger Sangamon-class escort carriers (CVEs) defended by destroyers and destroyer escorts. The destroyers had five 5 in (127 mm) guns, the destroyer escorts had two, and the carriers only a single 5-inch (127 mm) gun "stinger" at the stern. Most of the pilots and sailors were reservists with scant combat experience, and because of their tasking against ground troops and submarines, the carriers had been given only a few armour-piercing bombs or torpedoes against the unlikely possibility that they might encounter attack by other ships.
  Lacking any ships with any larger guns that could reach beyond 10 mi (8.7 nmi; 16 km), Taffy 3 appeared hopelessly mismatched against Japanese gunnery, which emphasized long range and large guns. The battle revealed that Japanese Navy's partly-automated fire control was largely ineffective against maneuvering ships at long range though some ships such as Kongō hit their targets when they got closer. Although the Japanese warships opened fire with their heavier-caliber offensive armament at maximum range and scored some hits and damaging near misses, their fire was not effective until they had closed within range of the carriers' own 5-inch (127 mm) protective armament. By contrast, the American destroyers but not destroyer escorts had the Mark 37 gun fire-control system that aimed automatic, accurate fire against multiple surface and air targets while maneuvering. The lack of a comparable system in Japanese ships also contributed to reports from American pilots on the ineffectiveness of the Japanese antiaircraft fire.
  Rear Admiral Thomas L. Sprague's Task Unit 77.4.1 ("Taffy 1") consisted of the Carrier Division 22 escort carriers Sangamon, Suwannee, Santee, and Petrof Bay. (The remaining two escort carriers from Taffy 1, Rear Admiral George R. Henderson's Carrier Division 28 Chenango and Saginaw Bay, had departed for Morotai, Dutch East Indies on October 24, carrying "dud" aircraft from other carriers for transfer ashore for repair. They returned with replacement aircraft after the battle.)
  Rear Admiral Felix Stump's Task Unit 77.4.2 ("Taffy 2") Carrier Division 24 consisted of Natoma Bay and Manila Bay, and Rear Admiral William D. Sample's Carrier Division 27 Marcus Island, Kadashan Bay, Savo Island, and Ommaney Bay.
  Rear Admiral Clifton Sprague's Task Unit 77.4.3 ("Taffy 3") consisted of Carrier Division 25 Fanshaw Bay, St. Lo, White Plains, Kalinin Bay, and Rear Admiral Ralph A. Ofstie's Carrier Division 26 Kitkun Bay and Gambier Bay. Screening for Taffy 3 were the destroyers Hoel, Heermann and Johnston, and destroyer escorts Dennis, John C. Butler, Raymond, and Samuel B. Roberts.
  Though each escort carrier was small and carried an average of about 28 planes, that gave the 16 CVEs of the three "Taffies" a combined total of approximately 450 aircraft, equivalent to four large fleet carriers. While their top speed of 17.5 kn (20.1 mph; 32.4 km/h) was adequate to escort cargo convoys or to provide ground support, they were too slow to engage or to escape a fast task force in combat. Since their aircraft were intended for ground attack, defense against aircraft, and antisubmarine warfare, the first flights from Taffy 3 were armed only with machine guns, depth charges, and high-explosive and antipersonnel aerial bombs, that w
caption: Gambier Bay and her escorts laying a smoke screen early in the battle.
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