Give Me a Fast Ship: Ernest Evans and USS Johnston

There have been many books about the World War II Battle of Leyte Gulf, but this one is unique by focusing on the crew of one destroyer and her Medal of Honor winning captain, Ernest E. Evans. The courage and the sacrifice of the men of the USS Johnston (DD 557) may be equaled but never surpassed in the annals of American naval history.

Going beyond the customary documentary research, award-winning author Thomas Cutler relies heavily on interviews he conducted with surviving crew members as well as his own experiences while serving as an enlisted man in a similar destroyer. The result is a "you are there" account of Johnston's year of service from her commissioning to her sinking at the Battle Off Samar in October 1944. Often reading like a novel, this is impressively accurate history, not only of the ship and her crew but the full career of her Native American skipper who--forced to retreat in the early days of the war--fulfilled his commissioning day promise to "never again run from the enemy."

Evans was a 1935 Naval Academy graduate serving as executive officer in an aging destroyer in the far off Asiatic Fleet when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Left virtually behind the lines as the Japanese rampaged their way around the Western Pacific, Evans' ship was among only four U.S. warships to escape in the aftermath of the Battle of the Java Sea in February 1942.

Spending the next year in frustratingly mundane operations until given command of the newly built Fletcher-class destroyer Johnston, Evans then led his ship in gunfire missions during island-hopping assaults in the Marshalls, Carolines, and Marianas before Johnston faced her ultimate challenges in the Philippines.

In these pages, readers will vicariously relive the tedium and the terror of life at sea, the unique challenges of naval combat, and the horrors of trying to survive while adrift on a hostile sea. They will know the terrible waste and the agonies of war but will be awed by what human beings can do in the face of great travails and in the presence of inspirational leadership.

This is a story for the ages. The causes for which these men fought and sacrificed have faded with time, the machines they used to carry out their deadly business are now rusted relics of another era, and the waters show no trace of their wakes. But the glory of their deeds will never be tarnished by time.