<div class="image-550">
<div>
<img src="https://cdn.kahimyang.com/resources-22/uss-johnston.avif" loading="lazy" alt="USS Johnston (DD-557), Battle off Samar" />
(USS Johnston (DD-557) off Seattle, Washington on October 27, 1943)
</div>
</div>
<h4>
Background
</h4>
<p>
The Battle off Samar was the only major action in the larger Battle of Leyte Gulf in which the Americans were largely unprepared. 
</p>
<p>
Following the Battle of the Sibuyan Sea on October 24, 1944, the Imperial Japanese Navy's First Mobile Striking Force (also known as the Kido Butai), under the command of Vice Admiral <a href="https://kahimyang.com/articles/2996/takeo-kurita-and-the-battle-of-leyte-gulf" class="news_link">Takeo Kurita</a>, had suffered significant damages and appeared to be retreating westward. However, by the next morning, the Japanese force had turned around and resumed its advance toward Leyte Gulf.
</p>
<h4>
The Battle
</h4>
<p>
With Admiral William Halsey Jr. lured into taking his powerful Third Fleet north after a decoy fleet and the Seventh Fleet engaged to the south, the recently-landed 130,000 men of the Sixth Army were left vulnerable to Japanese attack on Leyte. Kurita, aboard the battleship Yamato, took his large force of battleships, cruisers, and destroyers from the San Bernardino Strait and headed south toward Leyte, where they encountered Task Unit 77.4.3, also known as Taffy 3, the northernmost of the three escort carrier groups under Rear Admiral Clifton Sprague that comprised the only American forces remaining in the area.
</p>
<p>
Composed of only six small escort carriers, three destroyers, and four destroyer escorts, Taffy 3 was intended to provide shore support and anti-submarine patrols, and did not have guns capable of penetrating the Japanese armor. The Japanese opened fire shortly after dawn, targeting Taffy 3's escort carriers, which Kurita mistook for the main carriers of the Third Fleet.
</p>


The Battle off Samar Island in the Philippine Sea during the WWII took place on October 25, 1944