The Destroyer Escort that Fought like a Battleship
80 years ago today, a dramatic photo of the side launch of the future USS Samuel B. Roberts (DE-413) leaving the ways at Brown Shipbuilding Company, Houston, Texas, 20 January 1944.
Naval History and Heritage Command photo NH 82850
The first American warship named in honor of Coxswain Samuel Booker Roberts, Jr., “a good-looking kid with a cockeyed smile” who earned the Navy Cross, posthumously, at Guadalcanal in 1942, the John C. Butler-class destroyer escort was commissioned on 28 April 1944. She was sponsored at the above launch by Mrs. Anna [Wexler] Roberts, mother of Samuel, and soon sailed for the Pacific to avenge his death. Among her plankowners was Roberts’ younger brother, Jack, who was the “voice” of the Samuel B. Roberts on the ship’s intercom.
Her first combat, as part of RADM Thomas L. Sprague’s Escort Carrier TG 77.4, came while a member of the ill-fated Taffy 3 task unit. There, at the Battle off Samar on 25 October 1944, she and her fellow tin cans attempted to fight off a group of much larger Japanese cruisers and battleships, and the brave little greyhound succumbed to 14-inch shells and her crew– Jack Roberts included— endured three hellish days in the water before rescue.
From launching to loss was 274 days.
The ship’s national ensign was saved by Chief Torpedoman Rudy Skau and is part of the NHHC’s artifact collection.
She is remembered by the Samuel B. Roberts Survivors Association.
Her shattered hull was located more than four miles beneath the surface of the Philippine Sea in 2022.
The ship’s fighting spirit, however, echoes through the Navy.
A bronze plaque commemorating the crew of DE 413 was aboard the Oliver Hazard Perry-class guided missile frigate USS Samuel B. Roberts (FFG 58) when the ship struck an Iranian mine in the Persian Gulf on April 14, 1988. The mine blew a 15-foot hole in the hull of the ship, breaking its keel. Because of the fast actions of the crew, after a five-hour effort to purge water and fight fires, the ship was saved. The captain of the vessel, Cmdr. Paul Rinn noted that while running to their stations to save the ship, the FFG crew would touch the plaque for good luck to honor and recognize the bravery of the crew of DE 413.
