The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour
By: James D. Hornfischer / Narrated By: Barrett Whitener
Length: 16 hrs and 31 mins
I. Am. GUTTED…
Ho-hum, I mused to myself as I started The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors. I’ve plenty of James D. Hornfischer’s works in my Library, but it was only for a Listen honoring my Dad and Memorial Day 2021 that I got down to listening to this. It starts off slowly, leisurely, and tho’ so casually paced, I wasn’t bored exactly. After all, to me, in Military History, I wanna know about the people in the wars I’m listening to. I want their stories, their dreams and wishes, so that I know deeply and truly about what’s at stake for them when it all hits the fan. And so, things were rather done calmly, introductions of the DEs (Destroyer Escorts) involved in the upcoming Battle off Samar were made, the crew and their leaders were stated, and we got to know them a little bit. It’s sweet, it’s calming…
…And then it all hits the fan. In Ernie Pyle’s Brave Men, sailors are interviewed, but it’s only to show how they respected the grunts on the ground, etc. etc. Here?
Oh holy crud.
We see just what it’s like to be stuck on a ship being targeted by heavy guns, nowhere to go, nowhere to hide, men rushing to their stations, manning them, fighting back. From the get-go, two sailors are rushing to their stations, calling to each other as they run until… silence. The man in front turns to look at his buddy only to find a headless body still running forward, the head blown clean off.
That stays with a person, and by the end we find out that that image was forever emblazoned in the mind of a very old man, yeeeeears later. And such images were only added to when all was said and done off the coast of Samar that October 25, 1944.
The story chronicles Admiral Clifton “Ziggy” Sprague’s unit known as Taffy 3, the destroyer escorts who stood against the vastly superior force of Japanese Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita. Admiral Halsey had deviated his fleet from their path due to diversionary tactics employed by the Japanese and which he fell hook, line, and sinker for, thus leaving Sprague’s fleet exposed and compromised. As nary a Naval carrier had been sunk up till that point in the war, the destroyer escorts known as tin cans were sure as hellfire going to see that it didn’t happen on their watch. Knowing they were supremely over-powered, knowing theirs was a suicide mission, the four tin cans, the USS Samuel B. Roberts, the USS Hoel, the USS Johnston, and the USS Gambier Bay, threw themselves forward, shooting for all they were worth.
They were destroyed within hours, but they inflicted such damage, appeared to be so powerful (After all, who would think that mere tin cans could be all alone, acting like that?), that a befuddled Kurita (Who also hadn’t slept for three days) ultimately made the decision to turn around. The men of the tin cans who survived the bombardment and heavy destruction and sinking of their ships then spent three days and two nights in shark-infested waters before being picked up by other Navy ships.
Please believe me when I say that this is a DEVastating Listen. The running headless corpse was seared into my brain early on, but the utter chaos of war, the valiant efforts of men who simply would NOT give up (One individual, Paul H.Carr, even while dying, his ship tilting and sinking into the sea, his body scorched and mutilated, kept picking himself up, kept trying to load his already destroyed gun) is depicted with graphic urgency. The action is non-stop, and the fog of war is complete and hard to manage even as a mere bystander, listening comfortably at home.
Men from the boiler room were scalded by steam, their flesh falling away in chunks and clumps, their deaths, after being alive and cooked for so long, were mercifully short compared to those whose guts were blasted out, whose limbs were torn off by flying shrapnel. When their ships were sinking, abandoning them wasn’t quite so easy as passageways were clogged with corpses of the dead, the bodies of the mortally wounded; the decks were too slippery to run quickly on, being covered in blood and body parts. THIS is what I mean when I say there’s a sense of being completely and unutterably trapped on what has been a floating target.
And then the men suffered their ordeals in the sea. Airmen had seen them, waggled their wings as tho’ to tell the men to stay brave, help would be on the way. But only a few reports were made, the wrong coordinates given so that rescue crews were way off the mark, leaving men to die, whether from their grievous wounds, by shark, by following hallucinations that promised food and fresh water if they’d just let go of the survival net they’d been holding onto, or whether insanity just finally took them. And there was one instance of a man in SUCH agony after inhaling bursts of flame and toxic gasses that his lungs were scorched, leaving him clinging to life, shrieking endlessly, begging for death, that his throat was cut in a final act of the only mercy available.
At first, I wasn’t too sure about Barrett Whitener as a narrator. He speaks reeeeally quickly so that words and sentences rapidly flow from one straight into the next. Plus there’s not much inflection except when he’s using the words from the crews themselves. But then I got over my perpetual urge to visualize the person telling the story and settled for auditory only, as in: This is a verrrry serious radio documentary person, and I went by his voice solely. Then too, after the leisurely introduction of all involved, Whitener’s pacing is impeccable. This is action, action, action.
And desperate bravery, such heroism. I was soooo glad that some were made heroes, even tho’ Admiral Halsey conveniently forgot that he left his post on the sea and then went on to claim the credit for damages done to Kurita’s fleet (Boooooo!!!). I liked that the Samuel B. Roberts Captain Copeland and Carr had frigates named after them and that many survivors remained to live long enough for reunions after the war was done. Many died young, mid-50s, early 60s, and as this came out in 2004, one has to wonder how few, if any, men are left to gather. Dunno, just know that generation doesn’t talk about it.
But James D. Hornfischer has, right here. And Barrett Whitener narrates it for us. And?
I. Am. GUTTED…
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.