USS Samuel B. Roberts (DE-413) was a destroyer escort of the United States Navy that served in World War II , the first of three U.S. Navy ships to bear the name. Samuel B. Roberts was named after Coxswain Samuel Booker Roberts, Jr., a Navy Cross recipient, who had been commended for voluntarily steering a Higgins boat towards enemy forces at Guadalcanal, in order to divert fire from evacuation efforts being undertaken by other friendly vessels. She was nicknamed the "Sammy B" or "Sam Buca" (after the popular Italian spirit). Samuel B. Roberts was sunk in the Battle off Samar, in which a small force of U.S. warships prevented a superior Imperial Japanese Navy force from attacking the amphibious invasion fleet off the Philippine island of Leyte. The ship was part of a relatively light flotilla of destroyers, destroyer escorts, and escort carriers called "Taffy 3" which was inadvertently left to fend off a fleet of heavily armed Japanese battleships, cruisers, and destroyers off the island of Samar during the Battle off Samar, one of the engagements making up the larger Battle of Leyte Gulf of October 1944. Steaming through incoming shells, Samuel B. Roberts scored one torpedo hit and several shell hits on larger enemy warships before she was sunk. After the battle, Samuel B. Roberts received the appellation "the destroyer escort that fought like a battleship." As of June 2022, she is the deepest shipwreck discovered. Her last known survivor died on 20 March 2022. Construction and commissioning Samuel B. Roberts was laid down on 6 December 1943, by the Brown Shipbuilding Company of Houston, Texas. She was launched on 20 January 1944, sponsored by the namesake's mother, Mrs. Anna Roberts. She was commissioned on 28 April 1944, commanded by Lieutenant Commander Robert W. Copeland, USNR Service history Samuel B. Roberts had a shakedown cruise off Bermuda from 21 May to 19 June 1944. After spending time at the Boston Navy Yard, Roberts departed for Norfolk, Virginia, on 7 July. Later that day, the ship presumably struck a whale, which bent her starboard propeller. Repairs were completed by 11 July. Roberts departed Norfolk on 22 July, going through the Panama Canal on 27 July. She joined the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor on 10 August. She conducted training exercises around the Hawaiian Islands then steamed out on 21 August with a convoy reaching Eniwetok Atoll on 30 August.