Samuel B. Roberts

"Samuel B. Roberts sortieing! So, today as well, let's protect with the best of our best!"

USS Samuel B. Roberts (DE-413) was a John C. Butler-class destroyer escort of the United States Navy.

Samuel B. Roberts participated in the Battle off Samar, an unlikely victory in which a relatively small force of U.S. warships prevented a vastly superior Japanese force from attacking the amphibious invasion fleet off the large Philippine island of Leyte. This destroyer escort, along with the handful of destroyers, destroyer escorts, and escort carriers of the unit called "Taffy 3", was inadvertently left alone to fend off a fleet of heavily armed Japanese battleships, cruisers, and destroyers in this crucial action off the Island of Samar, during the Battle of Leyte Gulf of October 1944. Steaming aggressively through a gauntlet of incoming shells, Samuel B. Roberts scored one torpedo hit and numerous gunfire hits as she slugged it out with larger enemy warships before finally being sunk. After the battle, Samuel B. Roberts received the appellation "the destroyer escort that fought like a battleship."

Appearance

 * She has short, light-blue hair with double buns and yellow eyes, wears a sailor's hat with a star ribbon decoration. The star decoration is a reference to her earning one battle star for her World War II service.
 * She appears to be carrying a SMG with several empty magazines. The empty magazines could be a reference to her firing more than six hundred 5 inch (127.0 mm) shells to keep the Japanese ships at bay, nearly running out of ammo before she was sank by Kongou.
 * Her left sleeve bears a Navy Cross medal, in reference to her namesake Coxswain Samuel B. Roberts, who was awarded a posthumous Navy Cross for his actions at the Battle of Guadalcanal, where he voluntarily drove a Higgins boat directly in front of Japanese forces to draw their fire away from boats evacuating surrounded Marines from the beach.
 * A small whale can be seen in the rigging of Samuel B. Roberts. The whale with her is a reference to when she encountered a problem on her first day of service. After spending time at Boston Navy Yard, her port propeller shaft struck a large whale 150 NMI (280 km; 170 mi) off the coast of Maine.
 * The ends of the ribbon on her hat bear signal flags that spell out the letters NTIK (November, Tango, India, Kilo). This refers to her historical radio callsign during World War II.