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Fascinating and Lesser Known People Who Changed American History

Khalid Elhassan May 5, 2020 33 min

Normandy landings - Operation Overlord — Men of the 320th in Normandy. YouTube

18. Sprague and T-a-f-f-y 3 Save the Day

T-a-f-f-y 3 destroyers laying smoke while under fire during the Battle Off Samar. Wikimedia

T-a-f-f-y 3’s attacks were so sublimely courageous, daring to the point of recklessness and beyond, and incessant, that Japanese admiral Kurita lost his nerve. He convinced himself that he faced opposition far stronger than it actually was and that it must be the first outer layer of a powerful US naval presence.

Kurita, who had an overwhelming victory in his grasp if had kept his cool for just a little longer, and steamed on for another hour to bring his heavy guns within range of Leyte, turned his ships around and sailed away. In so doing, he gifted the Americans in Leyte Gulf with a seemingly miraculous reprieve.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.