If You Must Die, Do It With Honor

 WWII, Pacific theater, (Leyte) very small USN group sees very large Japanese flotilla.

 ...The battle began with one of the US Navy’s most famous moments. Before Sprague had time to order anyone to do anything, the captain of the Johnston, one of Taffy 3’s few destroyers, turned to attack the Japanese fleet. We have confused and contradictory accounts of the orders given by Cmdr. Ernest Evans, because the man who gave them, and most of the men who heard them, died soon afterward, but he is supposed to have said something like this:

1.) We’re under the guns of a much larger Japanese fleet.

2.) Survival is not to be expected.

3.) Hard left rudder, all ahead flank.

We’re all going to die; attack. The Johnston sank, and Evans died, but his first torpedo run blew the bow off a Japanese cruiser — setting the tone of the fight....

Damn.