USS Samuel B. Roberts (DE-413)

History

USS Samuel B. Roberts (DE-413) was a John C. Butler-class destroyer escort of the United States Navy, which served in World War II, the first of three U.S. Navy ships to bear the name.

Samuel B. Roberts was named after Coxswain Samuel Booker Roberts Jr., a Navy Cross recipient, who had been commended for voluntarily steering a Higgins boat towards enemy forces at Guadalcanal to divert fire from evacuation efforts being undertaken by other friendly vessels. The ship was nicknamed the "Sammy B".

Samuel B. Roberts was sunk in the Battle off Samar, in which a small force of U.S. warships prevented a vastly superior Imperial Japanese Navy force from attacking the amphibious invasion fleet off the Philippine island of Leyte. The battle formed part of the larger Battle of Leyte Gulf of October 1944. The ship was part of Task Unit 77.4.3 (Taffy 3), escort carriers only protected by relatively few destroyers and destroyer escorts. Taffy 3 was inadvertently left to fend off a fleet of heavily armed Japanese battleships, cruisers, and destroyers off the island of Samar.

Steaming through incoming shells, Samuel B. Roberts joined Heermann in crippling the heavy cruiser Chikuma with gunfire, depleting almost all of her ammunition. As she withdrew, she was taken under fire by several battleships, with Kongō landing the killing blow. After the battle, Samuel B. Roberts received the appellation "the destroyer escort that fought like a battleship". As of June 2022, she is the deepest shipwreck ever discovered. Her last known survivor died on 20 March 2022.

Text from Wikipedia: USS Samuel B. Roberts (DE-413), CC BY-SA 4.0, lightly trimmed.

Wars and campaigns

From Wikidata (CC0).

Key dates

1. 1943
   Samuel B. Roberts was laid down on 6 December 1943, by the Brown Shipbuilding Company of Houston, Texas.
2. 1944
   Samuel B. Roberts had a shakedown cruise off Bermuda from 21 May to 19 June 1944.
3. 1946
   The second Samuel B. Roberts (DD-823) was a Gearing-class destroyer commissioned in 1946 and struck in 1970.
4. 1986
   The third Samuel B. Roberts (FFG-58) is an Oliver Hazard Perry-class guided-missile frigate commissioned in 1986 and decommissioned on 22 May 2015.
5. 1995
   Within Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery federal military cemetery in the city of San Diego, California, a large granite memorial was dedicated in 1995 to Samuel B. Roberts, and to the two U.S. destroyers also sunk in the action, Hoel and Johnston.
6. 2022
   The team found, identified, and surveyed the wreck during a series of six dives conducted from 17 to 24 June 2022.

Dates and events quoted from the same Wikipedia article (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Records that place someone aboard this ship

A ship history doesn't name everyone who served. These records do:

• Navy muster rolls, 1939–1949 (National Archives guide)
• Deck logs: how to get them (Naval History and Heritage Command)
• Crew lists research guide (NHHC)
• Search the National Archives Catalog for “USS Samuel B. Roberts (DE-413)”

More history

• Naval History and Heritage Command (DANFS)
• HyperWar (official histories)
• Wikipedia: USS Samuel B. Roberts (DE-413)