Taffy 3

[Brass Rat]

I have always thought that this was the battle that Otto Preminger was trying to portray in the 2nd half of his movie In Harms Way.

http://www.ericmargolis.com/archives/19 ... _study.php

This is a story of sacrifice and heroism that every American child needs to be told about.

As those sailors and airman watched the pagoda style superstructure of the Japanese Battleships and cruisers appear on the horizon and then slowly become larger and larger as the closed the range, every man there would have given you very good odds that none of them would survive to see the sunrise.

While knowing full well that to fight was suicide they were also well aware that to let the Japanese fleet pounce on the invasion beaches would mean the lives of tens of thousands of Marines and Sailors who would be then cought in the cross fire of the Japanese island defenders and the 18" guns of the Yamato and the 14" guns of the other Battleships.

At this point I am reminded of a line from the movie Zulu, when one of the young troopers asks Color Sargent Bourne "why is it us?" and the sargent answers back "Because we are here, no one else."

The men of Taffy3 threw themselves at the enemy with such a ferocity that they planted a seed of doubt in the mind of the enemy commander who now began to wonder if maybe he was the one who had stumbled into a trap. As the Battleships and cruisers spent precious time steaming in the wrong direction to avoid torpedo's the ground attack planes of Taffy2 joined the frey. As new groups of aircraft joined the fight that seed of doubt began to grow to the point that the Japanese commander was beginning to believe the Halsey's fleet was about to drasticly change the order of battle.

As in many battles the looser is the one who looses his nerve first.

And altho they lost hundreds of men, 3 of 6 tin cans, and 2 of their jeep carriers the men of Taffy3 did never lost their nerve.

This is the sort of thing that just cannot be factored into the plan of battle. Like the 101st at Bastone, the 8th army at Tobruk, and the Finn's during the Winter War.

http://www.desausa.org/taffy_3_citation.htm