Admiral Barbey, commanding the Seventh Fleet's Amphibious Forces. Invasion of the Philippines On 21 August 1944, the ship was named Achilles and reclassified officially as a landing craft repair ship, ARL-41. Soon thereafter, she proceeded north to participate in the reconquest of the Philippine Islands. As the invasion proceeded, all Service Force ships were shifted to anchorages off Samar, in San Pedro Bay. There Achilles saw daily evidence of a new weapon unveiled by the Japanese in their relentless attempt to disrupt the American offensive: the kamikaze ("Divine Wind"), planes flown by Japanese pilots on one-way missions of destruction. During the first four days of November, the weather provided a respite from the kamikaze, although it came in the form of a typhoon which buffeted the ship. When the clouds finally cleared, the kamikaze returned. Around 13:00 on 12 November 1944, after sporadic alerts during the morning, Achilles received a warning that bogeys were in the vicinity. The ship immediately went to general quarters to watch and wait as before. Lookouts soon pinpointed three "Zeros" heading on a course that would take them across Achilles bow. As the landing craft repair ship's forward guns commenced firing, one plane passed ahead; the second, however, turned tightly and commenced a dive straight at Achilles as she and the four LCIs moored to her lay immobile. The repair ship's gunners scored hits on the diving aircraft, but could not stop it. The aircraft crashed into the ship forward, its motor tearing through the main deck. The aircraft itself hit the forward deckhouse in the carpenter shop, where number one repair party had gathered at its battle station. After the deafening explosion that wiped out the repair party, orange-red flames (caused by gasoline from the burning aircraft) swept across the weather deck, while parts of the "Zero" tumbled through the air, some landing astern. Fires immediately spread, their progress unchecked due to the disruption of the forward fire mains upon impact of the aircraft. The kamikaze crash had killed 19 men and wounded an additional 28; 14 men were unaccounted for, many of these literally blown to bits in the explosion that followed the suicider's impacting the ship. Yet, as the ship's chronicler wrote later: "The bravery and coolness of the men battling the fires and helping the wounded makes one proud of the Achilles crew . . ." Exemplifying this bravery was Ray