Iron bottom sound is littered with ships and skeletal remains of heroic American sailors and airmen...
The USS Samuel B Roberts’s heroic battle against superior numbers and firepower was a delaying action continued even after all its artillery ammo was expended...
Their headlong charge into the middle of a huge & powerful jap fleet, giving those slant-eyed bastards the idea that they were facing a far larger American fleet and convincing them to withdraw, contributed mightily to saving the invasion of Guadalcanal by the First Marine Division...
Whoops...
Wrong destroyer...
Wrong battle...
Your description of the battle was spot on - but it was the Battle of Samar, and it was the anchorage at Leyte that was saved - and MacArthur’s landing in Luzon that was saved.