When the U.S. aircraft carrier fleet was chased and killed by the Japanese fleet led by the battleship Yamato, the U.S. commander Sprague ordered all the aircraft on the deck to take off immediately, whether or not they were loaded with anti-ship ammunition, the destroyer broke to cover the carrier's retreat, and to do zigzag navigation in the rear, use the chimney to cast a smoke screen, the more the better, and at the same time send a telegram to the commander of the US 7th Fleet requesting assistance.
The entire aircraft carrier formation has 16 escort aircraft carriers, most of which do not exceed 18 knots, have a displacement of about 10,000 tons, and can only carry 25 to 30 aircraft; The original escort aircraft carrier was built directly on the cargo ship or oil tanker with a flight deck, and the later aircraft carrier was specially built by Kaiser at the Vancouver Shipyard, which was scornfully called "Kaiser's coffin" by the US military, and 13 of the aircraft carriers were built by Kaiser. Their steel plates were too thin, vulnerable to bombs or torpedoes, and their defenses were poor, while the Japanese fleet under The command of Kento Kurita was less than 20 miles away from the American aircraft carriers, and the distance was still shrinking.
Dozens of aircraft taking off from the US aircraft carrier quickly came to the skies over the Japanese fleet to strafe, bomb and torpedo attack the Kurita fleet; The aircraft, which did not have the right weapons, also pretended to attack, and the pilots hoped that this would scare the Japanese, let the pursuing warships do evasive maneuvers, and buy time for the fleeing aircraft carriers. 
The US aircraft hit the Japanese battleship "Kongo", the heavy cruisers "Haguro", "Torikai" and "Chikuma" in the upper parts, and some near-missing bullets also injured the Japanese warships. The anti-aircraft fire of the Japanese fleet was very fierce, many U.S. aircraft were injured by anti-aircraft artillery, but did not shoot down several aircraft, a Japanese captain complained that the Japanese anti-aircraft gunners were at a level like "aiming masters", even if the anti-aircraft guns directly "barrage blind shooting" will not be worse than their aiming and shooting effect.
At 7:15 a.m. on October 25, 1944, the six aircraft carriers of the US aircraft carrier detachment turned south to seek cover for passing through the rainstorm area, and the other two aircraft carrier detachments that were not pursued by the Japanese army continued to take off and land aircraft, and more and more American aircraft gathered around the Japanese fleet, although many aircraft did not have suitable attack weapons, but still tried their best to delay the enemy's pursuit.
The sea was overcast at this time, the rainy weather worsened visibility, and low-hanging clouds, torrential rain, and large amounts of black and dark yellow chemical smoke from the destroyer's chimney obscured the distant horizon. The Japanese watchtowers could not accurately observe the enemy, and they exaggerated the size of the American warships, mistaking the American destroyers for cruisers and the escort aircraft carriers for Essex-class aircraft carriers. American ships loomed between smoke screens and rain and fog, and the firing windows were fleeting, making it difficult for Japanese gunners to see their impact points and correct for subsequent salvos.
The American destroyers, which were covering the smoke behind the aircraft carrier, were fiercely fired by the Japanese, and the American destroyer "Johnston" fell at the back of the formation, received special attention from the Japanese, and was repeatedly crossed by salvos of 14-inch and 8-inch guns. At 7:16 a.m., Sprague ordered the destroyers to turn around and launch a torpedo attack on the Japanese, blocking their pursuit. Lieutenant Colonel Evans, the captain of the Johnston, was ready to do so before he was ordered to do so, and he ordered the 2,700-ton destroyer to turn around and single-handedly charge the pursuing Japanese battleships and cruisers.
Evans was not tall, and he stood on the bridge, his hands crossed behind his waist, and issued a series of commands in a thick voice. The small double-chimney ship tilted violently toward the enemy, reaching a maximum speed of 30 knots, and pounced on it like a hound. As the colored water column from the Japanese shells rose near it, Evans ordered the course adjustment to "chase the impact point", that is, the warship was to drive toward the position where each group of bullets entered the water, in order to circumvent the calibration of the Japanese gunners. The destroyer's 5-inch guns also returned fire, firing more than 200 shells, which began to hit constantly as they approached the enemy.
At 7.20 a.m., when the Johnston was 9,000 yards away from the leading Japanese cruiser Kumano, it fired 10 torpedoes in unison. Evans then ordered a sharp turn to the right, and the warship immediately tilted to a large angle to the left, hiding in the smoke screen cover he had cast. A torpedo fired by the U.S. army hit the Kumano head-on, blowing a large opening in the bow of the ship, forcing it to withdraw from the battle.
At 07:25, the Johnston briefly appeared from the smoke screen, and the gunners of the battleship Yamato fired a salvo with their main and secondary guns. At this time the range was 20 313 yards, the Gunners of the Yamato did not lose fire, 3 18-inch shells hit the middle left side of the main deck of the Johnston, a huge explosion pushed the small warship straight to the right, the shell penetrated the lower deck, destroyed the left engine room, and a boiler in the boiler cabin exploded.
A few seconds later, a salvo of yamato's 6-inch secondary guns hit the front chimney of the Johnston and the left side of the bridge, killing and wounding many of the senior officers on the bridge. Captain Evans fell on the deck, bare-chested, his shirt torn from his body by the shock wave of the explosion, his hair charred, his face blackened and bleeding, and two fingers of his left hand blown off. He stood up with his wounds on his face, continued to give orders as if nothing had happened, bandaged the base of his severed finger with a handkerchief, and refused the doctor's help, telling him not to disturb himself to continue fighting.
The U.S. fleet was already in danger, and just when a rainstorm cloud came in time to drift from the east, the warship was soon enveloped. The American ships rushed directly into it, and the Japanese cruisers that were quickly chasing behind them found that the American ships seemed to have disappeared, and the Americans were given a rare opportunity to breathe. Visibility in the rainstorm area dropped to several hundred feet, but the Japanese continued to fire blindly, and the Johnston returned fire on an invisible enemy, relying on improved fire control radar.
Heavy rains will soon drift away, and U.S. warships will be exposed again, with Japanese cruisers and destroyers reaching a top speed of more than 25 knots, while U.S. escort carriers can only reach 17 knots. Thinking of this, Sprague ordered the course to turn to the southwest, hoping to lure the enemy away from the San Bernardino Strait, so that the Japanese would have a hard time escaping the counterattack of other American naval and air forces, and his own squad seemed to have only one outcome, that is, complete destruction.
