USS HEERMANN (DD 532) lays smoke off Samar

U.S. Navy Photograph

FLETCHER Class destroyer USS HEERMANN (DD 532), commanded by Commander Amos T. Hathaway, USN, was hit by 8-inch gunfire by the Japanese heavy cruisers.... she survived....  Commander Hathaway later remarked, "We were under fire from four of the enemy ships . . . . I realized that it was four ships by the fact that there were several colors of splashes.  There were red, yellow, green, and no color splashes around us.  It looked like a rainbow . . . . All they hit us was - they had one 8-inch hit in the uptakes and one down on the keel, one about the waterline forward of gun mount No. 1 and one hit our sound dome..."  The hits on HEERMANN were from the heavy cruiser HIJMS CHIKUMA.

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Honor the Missing in Action and Killed in Action of Taffy III

We do remember.  We won't forget.