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

The vessels that rescued them were part of a seven-ship task group organized by the commander of the Leyte amphibious landing force, Rear Adm. Daniel E. Barbey. Under Lt. Cdr. James A. Baxter, skipper of PC-623, the group had left Leyte’s San Pedro Bay at 4:06 P.M. on the day of the battle. Picking their way through the sea at ten knots, aligned in a sweeping, mile-wide search formation that Baxter led west from a designated starting point, moving with the current, toward the island of Samar, Baxter’s ships had only empty oil slicks and a single Japanese survivor to show for their efforts when, at 10:29 P.M., Lt. Allison M. Levy, PC-623’s officer of the deck, saw red, white, and green Very flares about twenty miles ahead to port. Risking shelling from a nearby Japanese-held island, which was said to boast eight-inch shore batteries, Levy ordered Captain Baxter awakened and asked his skipper for permission to break formation and investigate the contact. Twice denied, Levy took matters into his own hands, turning to the helmsman and ordering “All ahead flank” and “Left full rudder.” Baxter ran topside, hollered at Levy that he had disobeyed orders, and ordered the helmsman to resume the original course. “I informed the skipper and the helmsman that I had not been properly relieved of the deck,” Levy wrote, “and that I would not accept Captain Baxter’s order to relieve me for another fifteen minutes so that his eyes could become adjusted to the total darkness.” As the ship co...