One lucky day

摘要

On 25 October 1944, fear ruled the day for J.J. Maes and his shipmates - and with good reason. A large flotilla of Japanese cruisers and battleships, including the super-sized battleship Yamato, was bearing down quickly on an American task force codenamed Taffy 3. It was a collection of destroyers, destroyer escorts and thinly-hulled, lightly-protected escort aircraft carriers, or baby flattops, perched off Samar Island in Leyte Gulf of the Philippine Sea. There they waited as their airplanes came and went attacking enemy positions as Gen. Douglas MacArthur's grand return to the Philippines was underway.