Dec 26 , 2025
Ernest E. Evans and the Last Stand of USS Samuel B. Roberts
Smoke choked the deck. Explosions rent the sea and sky. The USS Samuel B. Roberts burned like a torchboat amid a storm of steel and fire. Captain Ernest E. Evans stood firm, eyes cold and hard, commanding a crippled destroyer against the Japanese navy’s fiercest armada.
He did not flinch. He would not yield.
A Son of the Heartland Raised for War
Ernest Edwin Evans wasn’t born into glory. Born January 13, 1908, in Pawnee, Oklahoma, he grew under simple Midwestern skies. A quiet boy shaped by church and hard work. A Midwestern grit tempered by faith—that was his backbone.
Faith wasn’t a shield from reality but a compass through it. Evans carried a rugged code of honor, born from the Psalms and the stories of sacrifice that filled his home. “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want,” he’d silently repeat, steeling his nerves before battle. This wasn’t about glory or medals—it was about duty and the lives of men under his command.
Appointed to the U.S. Naval Academy in 1927, Evans climbed the ranks by merit and tenacity. By 1944, he was captain of the Samuel B. Roberts, a destroyer escort tasked with protecting convoys in the Pacific Theater. But the war demanded more than guarding—it demanded warriors.
Into the Maelstrom: The Battle Off Samar
October 25, 1944—Leyte Gulf. The war’s largest naval battle hit its bloody climax. Evans found himself mercilessly outgunned.
Facing Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita’s Center Force—a fleet of battleships, cruisers, and destroyers—the Samuel B. Roberts was a nail in a tire. A 1,200-ton destroyer escort against hulking monsters like the Yamato, the largest battleship ever built.
But Evans had no intention of running.
At the head of “Taffy 3,” a squadron of mostly escort carriers and destroyers, he charged the enemy. Guns blazing, he closed the distance, weaving through fire. At one point, Evans pressed so close that he attempted a torpedo attack on Japanese heavy cruisers, a near-suicide slam into the jaws of death.
One eye on the enemy, one mind on his men.
The Samuel B. Roberts took pounding hits. The ship listing, burning, but still shooting. Evans directed every volley, every maneuver. His flagship fought like a shark wounded but undeterred.
His last message epitomized defiance:
“Scratch one flat top.”
He had scored a direct hit on the Japanese carrier Chiyoda, sinking the warship and disrupting the enemy’s plans.
The Roberts didn’t survive—she was crippled beyond repair and scuttled. Evans was last seen moving among his crew, urging them to man their stations until the very end.
Medal of Honor: A Testament to Unyielding Courage
Posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor, Evans’ citation reads like the epitaph of a warrior forged in pain:
“For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty... he gallantly fought his ship in the face of overwhelming odds... inflicting severe damage on the enemy.”
His actions helped break the Japanese assault. Taffy 3’s unexpected resistance saved the entire Leyte invasion force and changed the course of the Pacific War.
William H. Buracker, one of the Roberts’ survivors, said:
“Ernest Evans was the bravest man I ever saw in combat. He was the soul of the ship.”
The Navy named a destroyer after him, the USS Ernest E. Evans (DD-754), a living memorial to his sacrifice.[1]
Blood, Honor, and the Legacy That Endures
Evans’ fight was never clean or easy. It was chaos, death, and hope braided into every breath aboard a sinking ship. His story is a reminder that courage never depends on numbers but on the will to face the darkness squarely.
From the scorched decks of the Samuel B. Roberts, we learn that leadership means sharing danger with your men—the final footsteps of a captain are not from escaping but from standing tall until the bitter end.
“Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (John 15:13)
Evans lived this truth. His scarred legacy calls us to reckon with sacrifice—not to forget it behind parades or medals, but to carry it solemnly in our hearts.
Veterans know this: the battlefield isn’t just a place of blood—it’s a forge of redemption. Evans’ story, soaked in sweat and steel, invites us beyond the clamor of war toward a deeper understanding of sacrifice. A price paid so freedom might breathe.
Ernest E. Evans didn’t just fight the enemy—he fought on behalf of every man who ever stood with him in the storm.
Sources
[1] Naval History and Heritage Command, USS Ernest E. Evans (DD-754) [published unit history and Medal of Honor citation]. [2] Morison, Samuel Eliot, History of United States Naval Operations in World War II: Leyte, June 1944–January 1945, Little, Brown and Company, 1958. [3] Toll, Ian W., Pacific Crucible: War at Sea in the Pacific, 1941–1942, W.W. Norton & Company, 2011.
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