Free A Sailor's History of the U.S. Navy by Thomas J. Cutler

these deadly projectiles would find their mark. Closer still, the rounds walked in, and Admiral Sprague wondered what he could possibly do to save his task group.
    Aboard the destroyer Johnston, Commander Ernest E. Evans ordered general quarters. Evans was a short, barrel-chested man with a booming voice whom nearly everyone described as a born leader. At the commissioning ceremony for USS Johnston on 27 October 1943, Evans told the crew and assembled guests that when war had broken out in the Pacific, he had been serving in an old World War I–vintage destroyer, USS Alden, in the Java Sea near the Dutch East Indies. He explained that after the Japanese navy had sunk the heavy cruisers Houston and Marblehead and the situation had become hopeless for the remnants of the U.S. Asiatic Fleet, Alden had been forced to beat a hasty retreat out of the Java Sea. Indicating the bunting-draped Johnston and recalling the words of John Paul Jones, Evans said, “Now that I have a modern, fighting ship, I intend to go in harm’s way.” Then, speaking with a conviction that many of the crew sensed was sincere and irrevocable, Evans declared, “I will never again retreat from an enemy force.”
    Almost a year to the day from that moment, Evans was about to get the chance to prove just how sincere he had been when making that promise. With Japanese ships closing on Taffy 3 and USS Johnston directly in their path, his moment had come.
    Just below the bridge on the port side, Bill Mercer, who routinely worked in the ship’s laundry, sat at his battle station as trainer for one of the twin 40-mm gun mounts. From that position he could hear the captain giving orders up on the bridge. Having seen the masts of Japanese ships poking above the horizon off Johnston ’s port quarter when he first arrived at his station, Mercer was most gratified to hear the captain order, “All engines ahead flank.” Heading away from the enemy as fast as possible seemed like an excellent idea to the eighteen-year-old Mercer. His happiness was short-lived, however. Before long, he heard the captain’s booming voice order, “Left full rudder,” and Mercer watched with dismay and mounting concern as Johnston ’s bow swung rapidly around toward the Japanese ships. He quickly began strapping on his life jacket. Evans was clearly taking his ship “in harm’s way.”

    â€œTaffy 3” escorts laying a smoke screen during the Battle of Samar. U.S. Naval Institute Photo Archive
    Captain Evans started zigzagging between the Japanese ships and the fleeing carriers. Intent upon obscuring the CVEs from Japanese view, he ordered the engineers to make black funnel smoke while the ship’s smoke generator detail began producing cottony white clouds that seemed to cling to the sea like a heavy fog. At the captain’s order, the crews manning the 5-inch guns commenced firing on the nearest Japanese cruiser. Soon Mercer could see hits registering on the enemy cruiser’s superstructure, which prompted the Japanese to retaliate. Giant splashes rose from the ocean’s surface close to Johnston . Evans “chased the splashes” by steering the ship toward the last shot to fall, a tactic based on the theory that the shooting ship will correct a missed shot, making the site of the last shot a relatively safe place to be.
    Quartermaster-striker Robert M. Billie watched the geysers leaping out of the sea from his lookout station on the port side of the flying bridge and felt the ship heeling over from one side to the other as she veered rapidly about in pursuit of the last enemy shell bursts. It was the only time he could remember wanting to dig a foxhole.
    As most of the carriers disappeared from view behind the smoke curtain laid down by Johnston and the other escorts, more of the Japanese ships turned their guns on Johnston in frustration. Billie listened in awe as battleship rounds passed overhead,