USS Samuel B. Roberts (DE-413)
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Samuel B. Roberts at sea.
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| History | |
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 United States
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| Name: | USS Samuel B. Roberts |
| Namesake: | Samuel Booker Roberts, Jr. |
| Builder: | Brown Shipbuilding, Houston, Texas |
| Laid down: | 6 December 1943 |
| Launched: | 20 January 1944 |
| Commissioned: | 28 April 1944 |
| Honors and awards: |
1 Battle Star; Presidential Unit Citation |
| Fate: | Sunk during the Battle off Samar, 25 October 1944 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | John C. Butler-class destroyer escort |
| Displacement: | 1,350 long tons (1,370 t) |
| Length: | 306 ft (93 m) |
| Beam: | 36 ft 8 in (11.18 m) |
| Draft: | 9 ft 5 in (2.87 m) |
| Installed power: | 12,000 shp (8,900 kW) |
| Propulsion: |
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| Speed: | |
| Range: | 6,000 nmi (11,000 km; 6,900 mi) @ 12 kn (22 km/h; 14 mph) |
| Complement: | 14 officers, 201 enlisted |
| Sensors and processing systems: |
SF multi-purpose radar |
| Armament: |
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USS Samuel B. Roberts (DE-413) was a John C. Butler-class destroyer escort of the United States Navy.
Samuel B. Roberts participated in the Battle off Samar, an unlikely victory in which relatively light U.S. warships prevented a vastly superior Japanese force from attacking the amphibious invasion fleet off the large Philippine island of Leyte. This destroyer escort, along with the handful of destroyers, destroyer escorts, and escort carriers of the unit called "Taffy 3", was inadvertently left alone to fend off a fleet of heavily armed Japanese battleships, cruisers, and destroyers in this crucial action off the Island of Samar, during the Battle of Leyte Gulf of October 1944. Steaming aggressively through a gauntlet of incoming shells, Samuel B. Roberts scored one torpedo hit and numerous gunfire hits as she slugged it out with larger enemy warships before finally being sunk. After the battle, Samuel B. Roberts received the appellation "the destroyer escort that fought like a battleship."
The ship was named for Coxswain Samuel Booker Roberts, Jr., a Navy Cross recipient, who had been commended for voluntarily steering a Higgins boat towards enemy forces, in order to divert fire from evacuation efforts being undertaken by other friendly vessels. Samuel B. Roberts was laid down on 6 December 1943, at the Brown Shipbuilding Company of Houston, Texas. She was launched on 20 January 1944, sponsored by Mrs. Roberts, and was commissioned on 28 April 1944, commanded by Lieutenant Commander Robert W. Copeland, USNR. She was the first of three U.S. Navy ships to bear her name.
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