USS St. Lo

St. Lo departed Seeadler Harbor on 12 October, to participate in the liberation of Leyte. Ordered to provide air coverage and close air support during the bombardment and amphibious landings, she arrived off Leyte, on 18 October. She launched air strikes in support of invasion operations at Tacloban, on the northeast coast of Leyte. Operating with Rear Admiral Clifton Sprague's escort carrier unit, "Taffy 3" (TU 77.4.3), which consisted of six escort carriers and a screen of three destroyers and four destroyer escorts, St. Lo steamed off the east coasts of Leyte and Samar, as her planes sortied from 18–24 October, destroying enemy installations and airfields on Leyte and Samar islands.[5]

Steaming about 60 mi (52 nmi; 97 km) east of Samar, before dawn of 25 October, St. Lo launched a four-plane anti-submarine patrol while the remaining carriers of Taffy 3 prepared for the day's initial air strikes against the landing beaches. The Battle off Samar began at 06:47, when Ensign Bill Brooks—piloting one of the TBF Avengers from St. Lo—reported sighting a large Japanese force comprising four battleships, eight cruisers, and twelve destroyers approaching from the west-northwest, only 17 mi (15 nmi; 27 km) away. At the same time, lookouts on St. Lo spotted the characteristic pagoda-like superstructures of Japanese battleships on the horizon. Rear Admiral Sprague ordered Taffy 3 to turn south at flank speed. Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita's force steadily closed and by about 06:58 opened fire on the slow, outnumbered, and outgunned ships of Taffy 3.[5]

St. Lo and the other five escort carriers dodged in and out of rain squalls and managed to launch all available fighter and torpedo planes with whatever armament they had handy (general-purpose bombs and even depth charges). Pilots were ordered "to attack the Japanese task force and proceed to Tacloban airstrip, Leyte, to rearm and refuel". The carriers dodged salvos from enemy cruisers and battleships. As salvos fell "with disconcerting rapidity" increasingly nearer St. Lo, her planes, striking the enemy force with bombs, rockets, and gunfire, continued to harass the closing ships.[5]

By 08:00, the enemy cruisers, approaching from St. Lo's port quarter, had closed to within 14,000 yd (13,000 m). St. Lo responded with rapid fire from her single 5 in (127 mm) gun,[5] claiming three hits on a Tone-class cruiser.

For the next 90 minutes, Admiral Kurita's ships closed in on Taffy 3, with his nearest destroyers and cruisers firing from as close as 10,000 yd (9,100 m) on the port and starboard quarters of St. Lo. Many salvos straddled the ship, landed close aboard, or passed directly overhead.[5] Throughout the running gun battle, the carriers and their escorts were laying a particularly effective smoke screen that Admiral Sprague credited with greatly degrading Japanese gunfire accuracy. Even more effective were the courageous attacks by the destroyers and destroyer escorts at point-blank range against the Japanese destroyers and cruisers. All the while, Kurita's force was under incessant attack by Taffy 3 aircraft and planes from the two other U.S. carrier units to the south.

Under heavy attack from the air and harassed by incessant fire from American destroyers and destroyer escorts, the enemy cruisers broke off action and turned north at 09:20. At 09:15, the enemy destroyers—which had been kept at bay by the daring exploits of USS Johnston, USS Hoel, and USS Samuel B. Roberts as well as the other units of Taffy 3—launched a premature torpedo attack from 10,500 yd (9,600 m).[5] The torpedoes had nearly run out of fuel when they finally approached the escort carriers, broaching the surface. A St. Lo Avenger, piloted by Lieutenant, junior grade Tex Waldrop, strafed and exploded two torpedoes in the wake of USS Kalinin Bay.

A kamikaze strikes St. Lo, causing an enormous fireball

At 10:50, the task unit came under a concentrated air attack by the Shikishima Special Attack Unit. During the forty-minute engagement with enemy kamikazes, all the escort carriers except USS Fanshaw Bay were damaged.[5] One Mitsubishi A6M2 Zero—perhaps flown by Lieutenant Yukio Seki—crashed into the flight deck of St. Lo at 10:51. Its bomb penetrated the flight deck and exploded on the port side of the hangar deck, where aircraft were in the process of being refueled and rearmed. A gasoline fire erupted, followed by six secondary explosions, including detonations of the ship's torpedo and bomb magazine. St. Lo was engulfed in flame and sank 30 minutes later.[6]

Of the 889 men aboard, 113 were killed or missing and approximately 30 others died of their wounds. The survivors were rescued from the water by USS Heermann, USS John C. Butler, USS Raymond and USS Dennis (which picked up 434 survivors).[6]