Tin Can Sailors - The National Association of Destroyer Veterans

Named for Civil War naval hero John Vincent Johnston, DD-557 was launched by the Tacoma Shipbuilding Company, Seattle, Washington, on 25 March and commissioned on 27 October 1943, with Cdr. Ernest E. Evans in command. At the commissioning ceremony, Cdr. Evans told the crew, “This is going to be a fighting ship. I intend to go in harm’s way, and anyone who doesn’t want to go along had better get off right now.”

Three months later, captain, crew, and ship were in the thick of the Marshall Islands campaign, bombarding the beaches at Kwajalein on 1 February 1944. The JOHNSTON moved on to Eniwetok for a 5-day bombardment from 17 to 22 February. Operating with the HALL (DD-583), AYLWIN (DD-355), MACDONOUGH (DD-351), MONAGHAN (DD-354), and MCCORD (DD-534), her main battery guns supported the invasion troops, destroying several pillboxes and firing on revetments along the beach.

En route to the Solomons on 28 March 1944, she bombarded Kapingamarangi Atoll in the Carolines, shelling an observation tower, several blockhouses, pillboxes, and dugouts. Two days later she came into the mouth of the Maririca River, southeast of Empress Augusta Bay, Bougainville, in the Solomon Islands, pounding the area with a heavy barrage. She then moved offshore on antisubmarine patrol with the HAGGARD (DD-555), HAILEY (DD-556), and FRANKS (DD-554). The destroyers began their hunt on 12 May 1944 and by the 15^th had arrived off Buka where an I-boat had been spotted. For twenty hours, the I-176 hid in the depths as the four destroyers searched overhead. At 2145, the HAGGARD finally made sonar contact and launched a depth-charge pattern. The sub evaded further contact, but only briefly. As the JOHNSTON and FRANKS joined her, the HAGGARD again made contact and dropped another pattern of depth charges. The JOHNSTON followed with her own depth-charge attack. At 0015 the FRANKS added yet another depth-charge array producing a thunderous explosion. The destruction of the 1-76 was confirmed when daylight revealed her scattered remains.

After 3 months of patrol in the Solomons, the JOHNSTON sailed to the Marshalls for that invasion and continued to the Marianas, where on 21 July 1944 she teamed up with the battleship PENNSYLVANIA (BB‑38) to bombard Guam. By 29 July, the destroyer had fired more than 4,000 rounds of shells, shattering 4‑inch battery installations and numerous pillboxes and buildings. She next screened escort carriers providing air support for the invasion and capture of the Palau Islands.

The push was on for General MacArthur’s long awaited return to the Philippines, and the JOHNSTON sailed 12 October 1944 to cover the escort carriers as their planes maintained air supremacy over eastern Leyte and the Gulf. Beginning on October 20, she operated with Escort Carrier Task Unit 77.4.3, known by its voice call as “Taffy 3”. The unit was made up of Rear Admiral Clifton A. F. Sprague’s flagship FANSHAW BAY (CVE‑70); five other escort carriers; the destroyers, JOHNSTON, HOEL (DD‑533), and HEERMANN (DD‑532); and the destroyer‑escorts DENNIS (DE-405), JOHN C. BUTLER (DE-339), RAYMOND (DE-341), and SAMUEL B. ROBERTS (DE‑113). The JOHNSTON’s guns swept enemy airfields, supported troop landings, and destroyed supply convoys on Leyte.

At 0645 on the morning of 25 October 1944, American planes detected a Japanese force of four battleships, seven cruisers, and eleven destroyers descending on the Sprague’s group off the island of Samar. Outnumbered and outgunned, the ships of Taffy 3 were all that stood between the enemy battleship force and Leyte Gulf. Help was on the way, but except for additional air cover, the battle would be over before other ships of the U.S. Fleet arrived off Samar. Making the best of a desperate situation, Sprague launched his planes against the oncoming enemy ships and sent his ships racing toward the Leyte Gulf.

In pursuit, the Japanese force split, with the cruisers circling the American ships from the east, destroyers from the west, and battleships down the center. At the same time, the destroyers and destroyer escorts of Taffy 3 moved into position east of Samar off San Bernadino Strait and prepared to counterattack the massive force bearing down on the escort carriers. The JOHNSTON’s gunnery officer, Lt. Robert C. Hagen, later reported, “We felt like little David without a slingshot.”

The JOHNSTON followed a zigzag course laying a smoke screen over a 2,500‑yard front to conceal the escort carriers from the enemy gunners. “Even as we began laying smoke, the Japanese started lobbing shells at us, and the JOHNSTON had to zigzag between the splashes,” Hagen continued. “We were the first destroyer to make smoke, the first to start firing, the first to launch a torpedo attack.”

With 5-inch guns blazing, Cdr. Evans sent his ship against the nearest cruiser, pumping 200 rounds at the enemy, before he gave the order, “Fire torpedoes!” The destroyer got off 10 torpedoes, then turned sharply to disappear into the screen of smoke. When she emerged a minute later, it was to see the doomed cruiser KUMANO burning furiously. But the JOHNSTON’s own situation was dire. She’d taken three hits from a battleship’s 14-inch shells, followed closely by three 6‑inch shells from a light cruiser. “It was like a puppy being smacked by a truck,” said Hagen. “The hits resulted in the loss of all power to the steering engine, all power to the three 5‑inch guns in the after part of the ship, and rendered our gyro compass useless.” Through “sheer providence” a rain squall came up, and the JOHNSTON “ducked into it” for a few minutes of rapid repairs and salvage work.

At 0750 when Admiral Sprague ordered the destroyers to attack with their torpedoes, it looked like the JOHNSTON would be out of the action. She’d already expended her torpedoes, and with one engine, couldn’t keep up with the others. “But that wasn’t Cdr. Evans’s way of fighting,” said Hagen. “We’ll go in with the destroyers and provide fire support,” Evans told his crew, and the JOHNSTON did just that. Dodging salvos and blasting back, she charged out of the blinding smoke to find herself headed straight for the HEERMANN. “All engines back full!” ordered Cdr. Evans, but with one engine, the JOHNSTON could do little more than slow down. The HEERMANN’s two engines were functioning, however, and backed her out of the collision course. But just barely. The two ships missed each other by less than 10 feet.

By that time, there was so much smoke that Evans ordered Hagen to hold his fire unless he could see the target. “Suddenly, at 0820, a 30,000‑ton KONGO‑class battleship loomed out of the smoke, only 7,000 yards off the JOHNSTON’s port beam. Hagen took one look at the unmistakable pagoda mast, and muttered, “I sure as hell can see that!” He gave the order to open fire. “In 40 seconds we got off 30 rounds,” he said, “at least 15 of which hit the pagoda superstructure. The BB belched a few 14‑inchers at us, but, thank God, registered only clean misses.”

Moments later, the JOHNSTON came upon the GAMBIER BAY (CVE‑73) under attack by a heavy cruiser. Cdr. Evans “gave me the most courageous order I’ve ever heard,” said Hagen. “Commence firing on that cruiser,” the captain said, “draw her fire on us and away from GAMBIER BAY.”

The diversion wasn’t enough to save the carrier, which was ripped apart by the cruiser’s fire, but the destroyer scored four hits in the ensuing exchange with the cruiser. She, then, ended the futile battle when a Japanese destroyer squadron appeared, closing rapidly on the American escort carriers. She changed her target to the lead destroyer, and then the second, turning them away, one right after the other. The remaining enemy destroyers broke off and moved out of range of the JOHNSTON’s guns. She had outfought the enemy’s entire destroyer squadron, which regrouped at a safe distance to fire their torpedoes. All missed, but the enemy’s gunners found their mark. Shells knocked out one of the JOHNSTON’s forward guns, damaged another, and hit her bridge, causing fires and explosions. Undaunted, Cdr. Evans shifted his command to the fantail, yelling orders through an open hatch to men turning her rudder by hand. At one of her batteries, a Texan kept calling “More shells! More shells!”

The JOHNSTON battled desperately to keep the Japanese destroyers and cruisers from reaching the five surviving American carriers. “We were now in a position where all the gallantry and guts in the world couldn’t save us,” Hagen remembered, “but we figured that help for the carriers must be on the way, and every minute’s delay might count. By 0930 we were going dead in the water; the Japanese couldn’t miss us. They circled around our ship, shooting at us like a bunch of Indians attacking a prairie schooner. Our lone engine and fire room were knocked out. We lost all power, and even the indomitable skipper knew we were finished. At 0945 he gave the saddest order a captain can give. ‘Abandon Ship.’ At 1010 the JOHNSTON rolled over and began to sink. A Japanese destroyer came up to 1,000 yards and pumped a final shot into her to make sure she went down. As she did, one of the survivors saw the Japanese captain salute her. That was the end of the JOHNSTON.”

From the JOHNSTON’s complement of 327 officers and crew, only 141 were saved. Of the 186 lost, about 50 were killed by enemy action, 45 died on rafts from battle injuries; and 92, including Cdr. Evans, were alive in the water after the destroyer sank, but were never seen again.

The HOEL and SAMUEL B. ROBERTS also fought to the death to save the escort carriers and to protect the landings at Leyte. The small U.S. force had paid dearly with the loss of one escort carrier, two destroyers, and one escort destroyer, but they had successfully intercepted the Japanese and had turned them back. Their intervention to block the entrance to the Leyte Gulf had bought time for planes from other escort carrier groups to reach the area of battle and convince the commander of the Japanese force that continuing the fight was not worth the risk.

The Japanese admiral ordered his ships to retire to the north, leaving behind a force defending the Leyte Gulf that he was sure had been made up of ESSEX-class carriers and cruiser escorts, not a half-dozen baby flat-tops and what Adm. Sprague called “small boys.”