For crew, and for country

There is a book out called "For Crew and Country." It is a World War II story about a destroyer escort ship named the USS Samuel B. Roberts.

The American forces were preparing to re-take the Philippine Islands. They had a great plan, but Admiral Halsey fell for a Japanese decoy and left his area of assignment to pursue the decoy.

When the Japanese came through the straits, Halsey’s ships weren’t there to defend, thus four small destroyer escorts had to take on big battleships. While some of the ships held back, the captain of the USS Samuel B. Roberts directly attacked the oncoming Japanese battleships, firing what cannons they had, and what torpedos that they had.

However they were no match for the Japanese battleships. They were hit by shelling and sank. The last man off the sinking ship was the captain, Copeland.

There were many heroes on the sinking ship, severely wounded people who kept on firing. They got as many of the wounded off the ship as they could, but some went down with the ship. There were 210 sailors on board the USS Samuel B. Roberts, 90 of them died, 120 of them survived. However, due to mess-ups, the sailors were in the water for 50 hours before being rescued. Many were wounded died during this ordeal and many were attacked and killed by shark.