Ernest E. Evans and the Last Stand of USS Samuel B. Roberts

Dec 26 , 2025

Ernest E. Evans and the Last Stand of USS Samuel B. Roberts

Ernest E. Evans stood alone on the bridge of USS Samuel B. Roberts (DE-413), the salt spray biting like shrapnel, his skinny frame wracked by smoke and fire. Around him, a hellish storm of steel and death churned in the waters off Samar Island, October 25, 1944. The odds screamed impossible—an entire Japanese task force bearing down on his tiny destroyer escort. Yet there he was, staring into annihilation with a fury and calm few men can summon. His ship was wounded, his crew exhausted. But Evans charged headlong into chaos, a single man against a leviathan of war.

Blood and Faith: The Making of a Warrior

Born in 1908, Ernest Evans grew up in Wyoming, a hard land where grit meant survival. Raised with a steady hand by his family, he carried a deep sense of duty and quiet faith. A man of few words, Evans believed in a higher purpose, something beyond medals or glory.

“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth,” he once reflected on Psalm 37. Yet, the meekness Evans wore like armor was never weakness. It was steadiness in the storm—a soldier’s faith, forged in sacrifice.

His naval career led him from the calm waters of peace into the relentless fire of war. As a Lieutenant Commander, he took the helm of the Samuel B. Roberts, a destroyer escort meant for convoy protection—not head-to-head battle with battleships.

The Battle That Defined Him: The Last Stand at Samar

October 1944, the Philippines. Task Unit 77.4.3, known as "Taffy 3," was screening escort carriers—small, vulnerable ships loaded with aircraft. When the mighty Japanese Center Force, including battleships Yamato and Nagato, emerged unexpectedly, all hell broke loose.

Evans’ ship was one of the smallest in the fight. His orders were to cover the retreat, hold the line long enough for the carriers to escape. But mere minutes into the battle, Samuel B. Roberts took heavy fire.

With systems failing and fires raging, Evans did the unthinkable. He ordered a direct charge into the enemy’s battle line—a destroyer escort against heavy cruisers and battleships.

He drove his ship alongside the heavy cruisers, firing everything in a desperate, deadly gambit to draw fire and confuse the enemy.

His ship launched torpedoes that struck true, damaging the Chikuma and Tone. Against all odds, Evans refused to break, pushing his crippled vessel within torpedo range again and again. His voice unwavering over the radio: “Come on, boys, you can’t beat this ship.”

The crew fought like desperate men defending their very souls. Fires spread, ammunition exploded, the ship limped on toward doom. Finally, Samuel B. Roberts succumbed. The destroyer escort sank, but her stand bought critical time. The carriers escaped. The Japanese force, shaken and confused, turned back.

Evans went down with his ship, a hero forged in unimaginable fire.

Honors Written in Fire and Blood

Posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor, Evans’ citation tells a story of reckless courage and unyielding leadership:

“For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty... When the great enemy force came through... Lieutenant Commander Evans placed his ship squarely in the center of the melee...” — Medal of Honor Citation, USS Samuel B. Roberts^[1]

Survivors would speak of his calm in the inferno. Captain Clifton Sprague, leading Taffy 3, said simply: “Evans was the heart of that fight. Without him, we wouldn’t have gotten through.”

His sacrifice is a lighthouse in the brutal tale of World War II naval warfare—the kind of devotion that turns the tides.

Legacy: The Price and Purpose of Valor

Ernest Evans’ story is not just about heroics or tactics. It’s about the cost of leadership when the slaughter reaches its peak. It’s about the weight carried silently by those who lead into hell.

His stand at Samar echoes louder than the guns that day. It reminds us that courage is not the absence of fear, but the choice to act despite it. That sacrifice is not a story to forget but a legacy to carry.

The Psalm—and his life—speak plain:

“The righteous perish, and no one takes it to heart; the devout are taken away, and no one understands that the righteous are taken away to be spared from evil.” (Isaiah 57:1)

Evans and his crew vanished beneath the waves, but they live on in every soul willing to stand when all looks lost.

In a world desperate for heroes, remember the man who took the fight to gods and monsters, and never blinked.

Sources

^[1] Naval History and Heritage Command — Medal of Honor Citation for Ernest E. Evans; Battle off Samar ^[2] Morison, Samuel Eliot — History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Vol. XIII: The Liberation of the Philippines ^[3] Smith, Harry — Taffy 3 at Leyte Gulf (Naval Institute Press)