USS Samuel B. Roberts (DE-413)

Uncommon card · No. 77540

USS Samuel B. Roberts (DE-413) was a John C. Butler-class destroyer escort of the United States Navy, which served in World War II, the first of three U.S. Navy ships to bear the name. Samuel B. Roberts was named after Coxswain Samuel Booker Roberts Jr., a Navy Cross recipient, who had been commended for voluntarily steering a Higgins boat towards enemy forces at Guadalcanal to divert fire from evacuation efforts being undertaken by other friendly vessels. The ship was nicknamed the "Sammy B". Samuel B. Roberts was sunk in the Battle off Samar, in which a small force of U.S. warships prevented a vastly superior Imperial Japanese Navy force from attacking the amphibious invasion fleet off the Philippine island of Leyte. The battle formed part of the larger Battle of Leyte Gulf of October 1944. The ship was part of Task Unit 77.4.3 (Taffy 3), escort carriers only protected by relatively few destroyers and destroyer escorts. Taffy 3 was inadvertently left to fend off a fleet of heavily armed...

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