The crew, not wanting to miss perhaps their only chance to see the enemy before the war was over, peeked out through every hatch and doorway to get a glimpse of the Japanese cruiser. It wasn’t long before the crew noticed that the cruiser was not getting smaller – it appeared to grow larger with each passing moment. And when the first shells rained down upon the Roberts, a crewman was heard to exclaim, "Fleeing my ass!" With the cruiser closing at a speed of nearly thirty knots, the Battle off Samar had been joined.

The fight would hardly be fought between equal adversaries. Taffy 3 consisted of three types of ships – destroyers, destroyer escorts and escort carriers. Destroyers were the workhorses of the fleet. They were small, they were fast, and they had to serve in a variety of roles throughout the war – none as difficult as the task that they were to be asked to do this morning. Armed only with very small guns in single mounts and torpedoes, they were capable of engaging a submarine or an unarmed merchantman, but hardly capable of taking on a cruiser or battleship in a head-to-head fight, for they carried no armor at all. Destroyer escorts were similar to destroyers, except they were smaller, slower, and equipped with fewer guns and even lighter protection, if that was possible. And finally, the escort carriers were perhaps the most vulnerable of all. The big fleet carriers had been designed from the keel up as swift and powerful fighting ships and carried the designation "CV". Many swift cruiser hulls were modified during construction to bear flight decks instead of guns, and these "light fleet carriers" bore the designation "CVL." But even though they were smaller than the big fleet carriers, even the CVLs were considered overkill for protecting a convoy of merchantmen chugging across the Atlantic from the menace of the German U-Boats. So, while the CVLs were built on the sleek, armored and powerfully fast hulls of heavy cruisers, a new type of carrier, named an "escort carrier" and bearing the designation CVE was built on the hull of one of the slow chugging merchantmen built by the Kaiser shipyards.

These CVEs bore many names, few of them flattering. Perhaps "jeep carrier" and "baby flattop" were the most favorable. But others, such as "Kaiser coffins," "tomato cans" and "wind wagons" were less than inspiring to their crews. When new crewman asked what "CVE" stood for, they were often told "combustible, vulnerable and expendable." And yet, they did serve with distinction in a very useful role. Their top speed of 18 knots (on a very good day) was more than adequate to keep up with the transport fleets and invasion armadas waging war in the Pacific. And while the big fleet carriers were off chasing the Japanese Navy, it was the CVE that carried the pilots specifically trained in ground support missions. Armed with anti-personnel bombs and ammunition for strafing attacks, the aircraft flying off of the CVEs were a godsend to the marines ashore. A few CVEs had planes capable of dropping depth charges on nosey enemy submarines, but attacking enemy surface forces was considered quite out of the question.  That was a job best left to the big boys in the Third Fleet.

But a strong Japanese surface force is what they faced this morning. The struggles of the submarine attack in Palawan passage and the air attacks in the Sibuyan Sea were about to be rewarded, for Kurita still had a formidable fighting force. Eleven destroyers remained, led by the light cruisers Yahagi and Noshiro. And although his heavy cruisers were hit particularly hard, ready to avenge the loss of their sisters this morning were the Chokai, Chikuma, Tone, Kumano, Suzya and Haguro. And while the mighty Musashi had been sunk, four Japanese battleships, the Nagato, Kongo, Haruna and the giant Yamato still remained.

To stop them were the three Taffy units. Taffy 1 and Taffy 2 were to the South – safe for now at least – and able to lend a hand in terms of limited air support with anti-personnell bombs and strafing aircraft. The fighting on the surface would fall on Taffy 3 alone. Against Kurita’s four battleships, eight cruisers, and eleven destroyers, Ziggy Sprague could send seven destroyers and destroyer escorts, the Hoel, Heerman, Johnston, Dennis, Butler, Raymond and Roberts. At risk were the six CVEs of Taffy 3, the Fanshaw Bay, Saint-Lo, White Plains, Kalinin Bay, Kitkun Bay and Gambier Bay.

Aboard the flagship Fanshaw Bay, Admiral Sprague was annoyed. A pilot had just reported an enemy force consisting of four battleships, seven cruisers, and eleven destroyers. Sprague barked out and told the pilot to re-check his identification, because that many ships could only be elements of Halsey’s Third Fleet. Unfortunately for Sprague, Halsey was now hundreds of miles away to the North, and the pilot confirmed that these ships had Japanese-style pagoda masts. The enemy was now steaming directly towards Taffy 3 at 30 knots - nearly twice his top speed. Sprague ordered all ships of Taffy 3 move at flank speed to the east to launch all their aircraft in an attempt to slow down the Japanese. The pilot who reported the contact then dropped his depth charges on a Japanese cruiser, which had little chance of doing any damage at all – but they were all that he had.

His actions were not alone. Nearly every aircraft from the Seventh Fleet was sent out to attack the Japanese. Those that had high explosive bombs dropped them and hoped for the best - armor piercing bombs would have had a better chance of success, but there were simply none available in the Seventh Fleet. Those aircraft that had anti-personnel bombs dropped those, too, just to keep up the attack. The fighters, armed only with machine guns, strafed the Japanese ships. And those fighters that had expended all of their machine gun ammunition made repeated dry runs on the Japanese formation just to draw the fire of the anti-aircraft guns away from the planes that were still armed. All in all it was a heroic attack, and it paid off. Mounting such a ferocious attack, these pilots convinced Kurita that he must have stumbled upon Halsey’s powerful Third Fleet with its elite pilots.

The tiny little destroyers did their part, too, in equally heroic fashion. Laying smoke, firing their guns, and launching torpedoes, they too harry the Japanese. In a similar style, destroyers without torpedoes continue to make runs to draw the fire of the Japanese away from the CVEs. In the end, Hoel, Johnston and Roberts would be blown from the water and sunk. The other four destroyers would all be badly damaged. But between the aircraft and the destroyer attacks, Kurita is made to pay a price. Sunk are the heavy cruisers Suzya, Chikuma and Chokai and the Kumano is forced to retire badly damaged. And, perhaps more importantly, the Yamato and the other battleships are forced to turn away to avoid torpedoes, buying valuable time that the CVEs need so desperately.  At the heght of the battle, the Yamato spots the trails of several torpedoes approaching her from the South, and so  she turns   North and speeds away to allow the torpedoes to pass her on either side.  By an amazing coincidence, the torpedoes are set to run at exactly the Yamato's top speed, and so she must continue a straight course to the North - for a turn to either side will put her directly in the path of an approaching torpedo.  For a critical ten minutes, the mightiest battleship in the world races away at maximum speed from the best targets that she has yet seen in this war.

As the CVEs turn to the east to launch their planes, they find in their path a rain squall. Sprague orders his ships to duck inside, obscured from Japanese view not only by the smoke that the destroyers lay, but also by some friendly weather. But the sanctuary is not to last, as the destroyers are crippled and sunk, and the rain squall is moving too swiftly for the CVEs to keep up. And so the little CVEs of Taffy 3 make a run to the South. The first ship to draw the attention of the Japanese is the White Plains. Virtually the entire Japanese force concentrates on her, and huge columns of water spout on all sides. A near miss knocks out her steering. Belching smoke as the little CVE's engines are pushed to the limit, and careening wildly, the Japanese assume that they had made their first kill and move on to other targets. The White Plains was very lucky indeed, and she has suffered no serious damage. The Fanshaw Bay was hit several times. The Saint-Lo was hit no less than six times, and Kalinin Bay at least twice that. Kitkun Bay was straddled but remained unhit, and White Plains was continually surrounded by splashes, but her luck was holding, as she remained miraculously unhit. The Gambier Bay had the great misfortune of bringing up the rear, and she paid the price of being the closest target. Her hull was badly ruptured, and she slowed to 11 knots, drawing even more attention from the Japanese who thought she was an Enterprise Class fleet carrier.

As the Japanese continued to close on the CVEs, all that could be fired at them were lone five inch guns on each ship. They had little chance of doing any damage, but they did allow the crew the comfort of knowing that they were fighting back, at least a little, and it did give them something to do. Meanwhile, the anti-aircraft gunners felt totally helpless, until an officer exclaimed, "just wait a little longer, boys, we’re sucking them into 40-mm range."

There was little chance of the remnants of Taffy 3 getting away, and as Taffy 2 (the next unit to the South) appeared over the horizon, Kurita did the unthinkable. He disengaged. The Yamato, Haruna, Kongo and Nagato turned and fled to the North, followed by the surviving cruisers and destroyers. Some Americans cheered, while others just stood and watched them turn and go, scarcely believing their eyes. A signalman on Sprague’s flagship broke the tension by yelling "damn it, they’re getting away!"

And that’s just what they did. Kurita had victory in has grasp, but he let it go, and he sailed west through the San Bernardino Straight and the Sibuyan Sea the way he came. It’s impossible to know exactly why he chose to disengage. Clearly his force had taken a beating. Losing the cruisers and being fished from the sea off Palawan had to bear heavily on his mind. Losing the mighty Musashi in the Sibuyan Sea had to be a painful defeat. And even now, at his moment of triumph, he was losing still more ships, and doing little other than sinking a few annoying destroyers. Kurita must have known that Nishimura, the other arm of this pincer attack was destroyed, or at the very least he would have heard nothing from him and that could have been equally discomforting. By the time Taffy 2 appeared over the horizon, Kurita may have become convinced that Halsey’s Third Fleet had not taken Ozawa’s bait, and that even more destructive air attacks were sure to follow any minute in a repeat of the engagement of the Sibuyan Sea. But Admiral Ziggy Sprague summed it up best when he wrote in his after-action report, "the failure of the enemy … to wipe out all vessels of this task unit can be attributed to our successful smoke-screen, our torpedo counter-attack, continuous harassment of the enemy by bomb, torpedo, and strafing air attacks, timely maneuvers, and the definite partiality of Almighty God."