Standing bare-chested on a shattered bridge, bleeding and missing fingers, Commander Ernest E. Evans ordered his crippled destroyer to turn back toward the most powerful battleships on Earth. This episode draws on declassified naval logs, survivor memoirs and 2021 deep-sea scan data to tell the story of the USS Johnston and the man who commanded her at the Battle off Samar on October 25, 1944, one of the most astonishing underdog stands in naval history.

We explain the engineering of the Fletcher-class destroyer, a 38-knot glass cannon with bridge armor a quarter inch thick, and the lesson Evans learned watching Allied ships die from hesitation at the Battle of the Java Sea. We follow the Johnston through shore bombardment, a jellyfish bloom that paralyzed her engines, and a submarine kill, and then into the morning when Admiral Kurita’s fleet, led by the Yamato, surprised the escort carriers of Taffy 3 and Evans charged alone.

• How ten torpedoes fired at point-blank range severed the bow of the heavy cruiser Kumano
• Why 18.1-inch armor-piercing shells passed straight through the Johnston without exploding
• How crossing the T forced a Japanese destroyer squadron to launch its torpedoes early and miss the carriers
• The Japanese captain who saluted the sinking American ship from the deck of the Yukikaze
• The wreck found four miles down in the Philippine Trench with her guns still trained on the enemy