USS Johnston’s Last Charge: The Destroyer That Took On a Japanese Fleet

Before sunrise on October 25, 1944, USS Johnston was screening a group of small American escort carriers east of Samar in the Philippines.

Her crew expected threats from submarines and aircraft. They did not expect one of Japan’s most powerful surface forces to appear over the horizon.

The approaching formation included battleships, heavy cruisers, light cruisers and destroyers. Among them was Yamato, the largest battleship ever constructed. The American escort carriers were slow, lightly protected and carrying aircraft armed mainly to support troops fighting ashore on Leyte.

Between the Japanese fleet and those vulnerable carriers stood a thin screen of American destroyers and destroyer escorts.

USS Johnston was only one of them.

Her commanding officer, Commander Ernest E. Evans, did not turn away. He ordered his destroyer toward the Japanese fleet.

The Morning the Horizon Filled With Warships

USS Johnston, designated DD-557, was a Fletcher-class destroyer assigned to Task Unit 77.4.3, better known by its radio call sign: Taffy 3.

Rear Admiral Clifton Sprague’s formation consisted of six escort carriers, three destroyers and four destroyer escorts. Its mission was to support the American landings on Leyte—not to fight a major surface battle.

The Japanese force approaching from the northwest was Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita’s Center Force. Although it had already suffered losses during the wider Battle of Leyte Gulf, it remained an immensely powerful formation.

The difference in strength was severe.

USS Johnston carried five 5-inch guns and ten 21-inch torpedo tubes. Her speed and torpedoes made her dangerous, but she lacked the heavy armor and large-caliber guns of the Japanese battleships and cruisers.

A battleship could survive punishment that would destroy a Fletcher-class destroyer. Its main battery could also hit Johnston from beyond the effective range of her own guns.

Evans understood that imbalance. He also understood that the escort carriers needed time to escape.

Every Japanese gun aimed at Johnston was a gun temporarily diverted from those carriers.

Commander Ernest E. Evans

Ernest Edwin Evans was born in Pawnee, Oklahoma, in 1908. He had Muscogee and Cherokee ancestry and began his naval career as an enlisted sailor before entering the U.S. Naval Academy.

He graduated from Annapolis in 1931 and assumed command of the newly commissioned USS Johnston in October 1943.

At the ship’s commissioning ceremony, Evans reportedly made his expectations clear: Johnston was intended to be a fighting ship, and he planned to take her into danger.

On the morning of October 25, 1944, that declaration became reality.

As Japanese shell splashes began rising around the American formation, Evans ordered general quarters. Johnston started producing smoke and accelerated toward the enemy.

He did not wait for a perfect battle plan. The situation offered no such luxury.

The escort carriers were already turning away. Their aircraft were being launched with whatever weapons and fuel were available. Some pilots would eventually make attacks with bombs, depth charges, rockets or even empty guns simply to distract the Japanese ships.

Evans’s immediate objective was simple: disrupt the enemy advance before it reached the carriers.

Johnston Begins Her First Attack

USS Johnston charged toward the Japanese formation while her forward 5-inch guns opened fire.

The destroyer used smoke, rain squalls and rapid changes of direction to make herself a difficult target. Japanese battleships and cruisers fired back, throwing towering columns of water around the much smaller ship.

Evans continued closing the range.

Johnston’s gunners concentrated on the Japanese heavy cruiser Kumano. The destroyer’s 5-inch shells could not reliably penetrate the heaviest areas of a cruiser’s armor, but they could damage exposed weapons, communications equipment, fire-control positions and the bridge.

The torpedoes carried the greater destructive potential.

To use them effectively, however, Johnston had to approach within a dangerously short distance of the Japanese formation.

Evans pressed forward until the destroyer reached a suitable attack position. Johnston then launched all ten of her torpedoes and turned away beneath heavy fire.

At least one torpedo struck Kumano, tearing away part of the cruiser’s bow. The damaged ship was forced out of the immediate advance, while another Japanese cruiser maneuvered to assist it.

A single American destroyer had disrupted part of a much larger formation.

The Japanese response arrived almost immediately.

Heavy Shells Tear Into the Destroyer

Large-caliber shells struck USS Johnston as she attempted to withdraw.

The hits caused severe damage to the bridge, electrical systems, engineering spaces and steering controls. One engine was knocked out, reducing the destroyer’s speed. Communications failed in parts of the ship, and multiple compartments were damaged.

Commander Evans was seriously wounded. His clothing was torn, and injuries to his hand left him with limited control of it.

He remained in command.

A rain squall temporarily concealed the damaged destroyer from Japanese observation. Inside that curtain of rain, Johnston’s crew fought fires, treated the wounded and attempted emergency repairs.

They restored enough power and control to keep the ship moving.

The destroyer that emerged from the squall was slower and badly damaged. Her torpedo tubes were empty, and many of her systems were no longer functioning normally.

She could have attempted to withdraw.

Instead, Johnston returned to the battle.

Fighting Without Torpedoes

Taffy 3’s other destroyers and destroyer escorts were launching their own attacks.

USS Hoel and USS Heermann charged the Japanese formation with guns and torpedoes. The smaller destroyer escort USS Samuel B. Roberts also entered the fight, engaging ships many times her size.

Smoke covered large sections of the sea. Escort carriers turned through shell splashes while launching and recovering aircraft. American pilots repeatedly attacked the Japanese formation, sometimes returning to improvised landing fields to rearm before flying back into the battle.

USS Johnston joined another apparent torpedo attack even though she had already fired all ten of her torpedoes.

The Japanese ships could not immediately know that her launchers were empty. By turning toward them aggressively, Johnston still created a threat they had to consider.

The destroyer also continued firing her surviving 5-inch guns.

At different moments, Johnston engaged cruisers, provided covering fire for other American ships and positioned herself between the Japanese force and the escort carriers.

It was not a conventional duel. Evans was using the damaged destroyer as a moving obstruction—forcing larger ships to react while buying time for the carriers.

A Battle Measured in Minutes

As the battle continued, USS Johnston absorbed more hits.

Normal steering and communications became increasingly difficult. According to Evans’s Medal of Honor citation, steering orders eventually had to be shouted through an open hatch to sailors manually controlling the rudder from an aft compartment.

The destroyer was being attacked from several directions. Shells struck the hull and superstructure. Fires spread. Flooding increased, and weapons were gradually disabled or ran short of ammunition.

By this point, Johnston could no longer escape through speed.

Her contribution was measured in additional minutes: another minute in which Japanese guns concentrated on the destroyer, another minute for an escort carrier to increase its distance and another minute for American aircraft to make an attack.

The Japanese force possessed overwhelming firepower, but the resistance confronting it appeared more organized and dangerous than it really was.

Smoke obscured the American formation. Torpedo attacks forced Japanese ships to maneuver. Aircraft continued appearing overhead. Individual American vessels repeatedly emerged from the confusion to fire on ships far larger than themselves.

The defenders could not defeat Kurita’s force through firepower alone.

They could make its advance slower, more confused and increasingly costly.

The Final Fight of USS Johnston

By the later stages of the engagement, USS Johnston had become the target of concentrated Japanese fire.

Her speed fell further. The ship’s remaining guns continued firing until damage or ammunition shortages silenced them.

Eventually, Johnston lay nearly motionless in the water.

The order to abandon ship was given shortly before 10:00 a.m. Sailors entered a sea covered with smoke, oil and debris while the battle continued around them.

USS Johnston rolled over and sank at approximately 10:10 a.m.

Commander Evans was not among the survivors.

Of the 327 officers and sailors aboard the destroyer, 186 were lost. Survivors remained in the water for many hours before rescue arrived. Some men who survived the sinking died from wounds or exposure while waiting.

The destroyer had fought for roughly three hours against a force that should have overwhelmed her within minutes.

Why the Japanese Force Turned Away

USS Johnston did not single-handedly force the Japanese withdrawal.

Admiral Kurita was operating with incomplete information. His ships had suffered attacks from American aircraft and torpedoes. Smoke and rain reduced visibility, while the aggressive actions of Taffy 3 made the American force appear stronger than it was.

Several Japanese cruisers had been damaged or sunk during the wider engagement. Kurita also had to consider the possibility that more powerful American warships were approaching.

At approximately 9:20 a.m., he ordered his force to turn north and regroup. The Japanese ships ultimately withdrew instead of continuing into Leyte Gulf.

The vulnerable American invasion shipping escaped the surface attack that had threatened it.

USS Johnston, USS Hoel, USS Samuel B. Roberts and the escort carrier USS Gambier Bay were lost. Other ships suffered extensive damage.

Their resistance had helped prevent a tactical disaster.

The Medal of Honor

Commander Ernest E. Evans was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions during the Battle off Samar.

His official citation recognized that he led the first smoke-screen and torpedo attack, placed his ship between the enemy and the escort carriers and continued directing the battle despite serious wounds and crippling damage.

The medal was presented to his widow in September 1945.

Evans became the first Native American graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy to receive the Medal of Honor.

His actions are sometimes described as fearless, but that word can hide the more important truth.

Evans understood the danger. He knew what Japanese battleship shells could do to an unarmored destroyer. He also knew that the carriers behind him could not survive if the Japanese formation reached them without resistance.

His decision was therefore not an act of blind aggression. It was a calculated sacrifice made to protect other ships.

The Discovery of Johnston’s Wreck

For more than seven decades, USS Johnston remained somewhere beneath the Philippine Sea.

Underwater surveys located wreckage from a Fletcher-class destroyer in 2019. A crewed expedition returned to the site in 2021 and reached the main wreck at a depth of more than 21,000 feet.

Visible hull markings and structural details confirmed that the ship was USS Johnston.

The wreck rests more than four miles beneath the surface. Its extraordinary depth helped preserve recognizable parts of the bow, bridge, gun mounts and hull.

The site is more than an archaeological discovery. It is a protected war grave and the final resting place of sailors who never returned from the Battle off Samar.

Images from the expedition allowed historians to connect the physical remains of the destroyer with wartime records and survivor accounts.

The wreck confirmed where Johnston’s final journey ended.

It did not create her legacy.

Why Johnston’s Last Charge Still Matters

The Battle off Samar is sometimes summarized as a story in which small ships defeated large ones.

The true story is more complicated.

USS Johnston did not become equal to a battleship through courage. Japanese armor, heavy guns and superior numbers remained brutally real. The destroyer was eventually overwhelmed and sunk.

What Evans and his crew changed was the tactical situation.

They forced larger ships to maneuver. They damaged an enemy cruiser. They created smoke and confusion, drew fire away from the escort carriers and helped make the Japanese commander believe he faced a more dangerous force.

Most importantly, they continued performing those tasks after their own chance of survival had become extremely small.

That is why USS Johnston occupies such a powerful place in American naval history.

Her last charge was not a story about invulnerability or an easy victory.

It was the story of a captain and crew who understood that their ship might not return—and continued protecting others anyway.

USS Johnston: Essential Facts

Ship: USS Johnston
Hull number: DD-557
Class: Fletcher-class destroyer
Commanding officer: Commander Ernest E. Evans
Battle: Battle off Samar
Date lost: October 25, 1944
Crew aboard: 327
Personnel lost: 186
Main gun armament: Five 5-inch guns
Torpedo armament: Ten 21-inch torpedo tubes
Recognition: Presidential Unit Citation as part of Taffy 3
Commander’s award: Medal of Honor, awarded posthumously

Sources and Further Reading

• U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command — The Battle off Samar: The Sacrifice of Taffy 3

• U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command — USS Johnston (DD-557)

• U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command — Wreckage Confirmed as USS Johnston

• Congressional Medal of Honor Society — Commander Ernest E. Evans

• Samuel Eliot Morison — History of United States Naval Operations in World War II