Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors (2005)

The story of a courageous battle between U.S. Navy "Tin Can" ships and two of the most powerful Japanese ships in the fleet. The Tin Can sailors fought bravely to secure a victory for the U.S Navy and save MacArthur's invasion force.

Writer:

Norman Stahl

Storyline

The story of a courageous battle between U.S. Navy "Tin Can" ships and two of the most powerful Japanese ships in the fleet. The Tin Can sailors fought bravely to secure a victory for the U.S Navy and save MacArthur's invasion force.

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Genres:

Documentary

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Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

2005 (USA)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Lou Reda Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

60 min

Color:

Color

User Reviews

Great story of amazing battle of little guys against battleship Yamato

Most complete TV treatment of the obscure but remarkable story of "Taffy 3", the tiny toy fleet left behind by Bull Halsey's mighty task force when it fell for a decoy. They left nothing but tiny destroyers and even tinier destroyer escorts to slug it out to defend their defenseless escort carriers from annihilation from the largest Japanese fleet since Midway led by the formidable Yamato, the most powerful battleship in the world. Destroyer Johnston fearlessly and recklessly charged headfirst to launch a suicidal torpedo salvo against cruisers. The Samuel B Roberts went down as the destroyer escort that fought like a battleship slugging it out with a much larger cruiser for over an hour before being sunk by other cruisers. The Dogfights Death of the Japanese Navy has better effects but is a much shorter less complete account and both don't spend as much time on the pilots who probably contributed as much as the surface ships in harassing and driving off the superior force which in theory should have been able to steam right through them to destroy American landing forces instead of being driven off with serious wounds and leaving behind a number of sunk or damaged capital ships.

History asks how Yamato would have fared against American battleships, but it was effectively defeated by a light escort task force meant to defend cargo ships against aircraft and submarines, and demonstrated the difference between the philisophy of making a few very big ships and highly skilled pilots, and cranking out lots of inexpensive ships with inexpensive aircraft and lots of moderately trained pilots and sailors.