Ernest E. Evans' Last Stand aboard USS Samuel B. Roberts

Dec 19 , 2025

Ernest E. Evans' Last Stand aboard USS Samuel B. Roberts

The air hung heavy with smoke and chaos. Amidst the thunder of guns, the USS Samuel B. Roberts roared defiant, a small warship squaring off against a brutal storm of steel and fire. Commander Ernest E. Evans stood on deck, eyes blazing with an unbreakable will. The odds were crushing. The enemy, monstrous. Yet Evans charged toward death as if it were salvation itself.

From Small-Town Boy to Warrior

Ernest Edwin Evans was raised in Nevada, a son of the American West—hard soil, harder will. Born in 1908, he knew early the meaning of grit and responsibility. His faith was quiet but deeply rooted, a steady compass through the storms of life: “Be strong and courageous,” a whispered mantra from Joshua that would mark his days.

Naval Academy graduate. Career officer hardened through decade-long service before WWII. Not a hero born from glamour but from relentless discipline and an unshakable code of honor. His leadership wasn’t just strategy—it was about bearing the weight of every man’s life beneath his every order.

The Battle That Defined Him: Samar, October 25, 1944

The Pacific War had reached a hellish crescendo. Evans commanded the USS Samuel B. Roberts, a destroyer escort barely fit to face destroyers, let alone battleships and cruisers.

That morning, Task Unit 77.4.3, the “Taffy 3,” a ragtag fleet meant for escort and air support, collided headlong with Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita’s Center Force—some 23 Japanese vessels, heavy cruisers, battleships, and destroyers.

Evans’ ship was the little engine that roared in the jaws of death. Against overwhelming odds, his orders were clear: protect the escort carriers at all costs.

He took his ship right down the throat of the enemy formation. Maneuvering with a furious mix of grit and cunning, he closed in on the heavier Japanese cruisers. His guns raked enemy hulls, racking a battle that was brutal and close. A destroyer escort, no match for those giants. But Evans’ spirit? Ironclad.

Though repeatedly hit, near-missed, and finally struck by Japanese shells, the Roberts fought with a wrath that stalled the enemy advance. At one point, Evans ordered a torpedo attack—an act of desperate courage. He shouted to his crew: "We will not run from them!"

When the ship lost power and Evans was wounded, he refused to leave the bridge. His words, carried through the chaos, were a balm and a call to arms: “We’ve got to hold them off. For the boys on those carriers.” The Samuel B. Roberts finally sank, but not before it had carved into that battle a legacy of resistance and sacrifice that saved many lives.

Medal of Honor: A Costly Glory

Posthumous Medal of Honor citation reads:

“For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty as Commanding Officer of the USS Samuel B. Roberts during the early morning hours of October 25, 1944... when the Japanese task force was preparing to destroy American escort carriers, Commander Evans’s fearless attack was instrumental in disrupting the enemy and saving a superior force from complete destruction.”

Survivors recounted a man who didn’t just command, but became the embodiment of sacrifice. Captain Harry L. Felt, later Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet, stated:

“Evans exemplified that rare breed of officers whose bravery and leadership are a beacon when all hope seems lost.”

His legacy echoes in the Battle off Samar—not merely in medals, but in the lives his valor preserved.

More Than a Hero: A Testament to Duty and Redemption

Evans teaches what war often buries beneath its dust: courage isn’t the absence of fear, but the mastery of it. He reminds us there is honor in sacrifice, and a brutal grace in standing when the whole world screams retreat.

He fought not for glory, but for brothers-in-arms and the flickering hope of victory in a conflict defined by hellfire and loss. And in his final charge, in those desperate minutes, he fulfilled the ancient warrior’s covenant: “No man is called to die for himself.”

His story is a trench sermon for those who wear the scars of combat and for those who carry the weight of freedom passed down to them.

Remembering Commander Evans

As the smoke clears on today’s battlefields—real or remembered—Evans’ spirit beckons to a cost too rare in modern times. The willingness to face annihilation to protect what is good and true. The raw, unsung valor born not from fame, but from duty and faith.

“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13)

Ernest E. Evans did just that. Not just in death, but through every hard-fought moment before it.

Sources

1. Naval History and Heritage Command, Medal of Honor Citation for Ernest E. Evans 2. Morison, Samuel Eliot, History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Vol. 12 “Leyte” 3. Potter, E.B., Sea Power: A Naval History 4. Freeman, Douglas, The Battle off Samar in The Fighting Tenth