Standing bare-chested on a shattered bridge, bleeding and missing fingers, Commander Ernest E. Evans ordered his crippled destroyer to turn back toward the most powerful battleships on Earth. This episode draws on declassified naval logs, survivor memoirs and 2021 deep-sea scan data to tell the story of the USS Johnston and the man who commanded her at the Battle off Samar on October 25, 1944, one of the most astonishing underdog stands in naval history.

We explain the engineering of the Fletcher-class destroyer, a 38-knot glass cannon with bridge armor a quarter inch thick, and the lesson Evans learned watching Allied ships die from hesitation at the Battle of the Java Sea. We follow the Johnston through shore bombardment, a jellyfish bloom that paralyzed her engines, and a submarine kill, and then into the morning when Admiral Kurita's fl ...