USS Hoel was the first destroyer sunk at the Battle of Samar Island. Three fourths of her crew were lost.
As you all recall, the escorts of TASK UNIT 77.4.3, "TAFFY III, made repeated attacks against the Imperial Japanese Navy main force consisting of four battleships including the giant Yamato ( the largest warship in the world ), 10 heavy and 2 light cruisers, and 15 destroyers. These ships were USS Hoel, USS Johnston, USS S. B. Roberts, and USS Heermann.
TAFFY III was stationed at the northernmost end of the landing on Mindanao Island in the Philippines. Leyte Gulf.
Just before 7am lookouts on the escort carriers saw the masts and fighting-tops of Japanese battleships and cruisers appear above the northern horizon. A minute later heavy shells began falling near Taffy Three.
The surprise was complete. Taffy Three was in a desperate situation, facing an exceptionally powerful force which also had a great superiority in speed over the escort carriers, while the only ships which Clifton Sprague had available to protect his flattops were the three destroyers and four destroyer escorts of his screen.
At 0657 Admiral Clifton Sprague, commander of TAFFY III, had turned his carriers due east, begun working them up to their maximum speed of seventeen-and-a-half knots, ordered all his ships to lay smoke, and started to launch every available aircraft. At 0701 he issued a contact report and a call for assistance from anyone able to give it.
At 0716 Sprague ordered his three Fletcher-class destroyers - Hoel, Heermann and Johnston - to counter-attack the Japanese formation. This they did with remarkable heroism and tenacity. They unflinchingly took on the battleships and cruisers, engaging these heavy ships with their 5-inch guns as well as their torpedoes.
At about 0750 the American destroyer escorts with equal heroism joined the counter-attack. At 0754 the vast battleship Yamato, now serving as Kurita's flagship after the sinking of Atago on 23 October, was forced to turn away for ten minutes by torpedoes from the American destroyers and was never able to get back into the action.
A very confused struggle by the DDs and DEs against the Japanese force continued for over two hours. By 0945 the Hoel and Johnston, and the destroyer escort Samuel B. Roberts, had been sunk by Japanese gunfire. At least one torpedo hit was made on Kurita's ships, and probably more, but what was of much greater importance was that the Japanese heavy ships had been forced into repeated evasive action and that this had slowed their advance, caused increasing confusion in the already badly disorganised Japanese formation, and deprived Kurita of any chance of regaining effective control of his force.
While the small ships of Clifton Sprague's screen were conducting these desperate counter-attacks the Japanese ships were also subjected to incessant assaults by aircraft from the three Taffies. Many of these attacks were carried out by aircraft armed with weapons intended for ground support and quite unsuited for attack on large warships, and many others were dummy attacks by unarmed aircraft.
Nonetheless, with the weapons available to them, the aircraft succeeded in sinking three heavy cruisers and damaging several other ships. These air attacks also played a vital role in support of the destroyers and DEs in distracting the enemy ships from the escort carriers, forcing them into evasive maneuvers, and disorganizing the Japanese formation.
Despite all these heroic efforts the escort carrier Gambier Bay was eventually hit repeatedly by 8-inch gunfire, was crippled, and sank at 0907.
But then, entirely unexpectedly, and although his cruisers and destroyers were now on the verge of annihilating Taffy Three, Kurita at 0911 ordered his ships to break off action.
If Kurita had got among the American invasion fleet, transports, amphibious ships, and thousands of troops - disaster is too weak a word.
I honestly would be surprised and disappointed if there has been a Navy man since who does not know this story.
If I ever become a motion picture producer/director...I will do my utmost to bring to the big-screen, in a very historically-accurate way, the Story of TAFFY 3 vs. Admiral Kurit'as Battleship & Cruiser Fleet.