The Night the Old Bastards Sank the Navy: The Forgotten Battle of Ormoc Bay

Chapter 1: The Men Behind the Wall

At 2300 hours on December 11th, 1944, Corporal James McKenzie pressed his back against a shattered concrete wall, eyes straining against the blackness of Ormoc Bay. The air was thick with salt and tension; every sound was magnified in the silence between artillery barrages. McKenzie was 32 years old, a taxi driver from New Jersey before the war. He’d been in combat for two months, but what lay before him was unlike anything he’d faced.

Three dark shapes crept across the water, barely visible against the moonless sky. They moved with purpose—Japanese warships, bringing at least 750 fresh troops to shore in a desperate attempt to reinforce the crumbling defensive line. The enemy was supposed to slip past American naval patrols. Tonight, though, the rules had changed.

The 77th Infantry Division was not supposed to be fighting the Imperial Japanese Navy. Infantry divisions didn’t have coastal artillery. They didn’t hunt ships. But the men of the 77th had stopped following the manual the day they landed on Guam six months earlier.

They were the oldest division in the United States Army. The other units called them “the old bastards”—a nickname worn with pride. The Japanese used a word that translated roughly to “demons who take no prisoners.” The statistics supported both names. Across the Pacific, American forces killed roughly 2.2 million enemy soldiers and captured 50,000 prisoners—a rate of 2.2%. The 77th had killed 43,385 and taken just 358 prisoners, a capture rate of 0.8%. On Leyte alone, they’d killed 19,456 in six weeks, with only 124 prisoners—a kill-to-capture ratio of 157 to 1.

Major General Andrew D. Bruce led this division of accountants, taxi drivers, and factory workers. At 49, Bruce was a career artillery officer who believed in mathematics and firepower above all else. He landed his division at Deposito, three and a half miles south of Ormoc, on December 7th. The Japanese expected an American assault through the mountains, not an amphibious landing on the western coast. Bruce gave them 72 hours to realize their mistake.

By December 10th, the 77th had fought through 23 miles of enemy positions and captured Ormoc. The town was nothing but rubble. Camp Downs was ash. The Antilow River ran red for three days. Still, the Japanese kept coming—barges and landing craft slipping through the darkness, trying to reinforce their dwindling numbers in the mountains.

General Tomoyuki Yamashita, determined to make Leyte the decisive battle of the Philippines, needed those reinforcements. The Americans needed to stop them. That was supposed to be the Navy’s job. Destroyers patrolled the bay’s approaches. PT boats hunted in the shallows. But tonight, the job fell to infantry.

Chapter 2: Weapons Not in the Manual

Among the gear brought to Leyte were the M10 tank destroyers—three-inch gun motor carriages designed to kill German tanks in Europe. Each carried a three-inch gun mounted in an open-top turret on a modified Sherman chassis. Maximum effective range against armor: 1,000 yards. Maximum range against ships: unknown. No one had ever tried.

The M10s were positioned along the Ormoc waterfront with the 307th Infantry Regiment. Their job was to destroy fortified positions and machine gun nests, not warships. But tonight, the manual didn’t matter.

McKenzie and the other M10 crews received their orders: track the vessels, wait for illumination, fire on command. Nobody knew if their rounds would penetrate a ship’s hull. Nobody knew if the Japanese would return fire. Nobody knew if any of this would work.

At 2355, McKenzie checked his watch. Five minutes to midnight. The enemy ships were less than 1,000 yards from shore. The Americans waited for someone to light up the night.

Chapter 3: Night Turns to Day

At midnight, the first flare went up—a 60mm illumination round fired from an infantry mortar 200 yards inland. The shell climbed 300 feet and burst into white phosphorous light, turning Ormoc Bay into a stage lit for execution.

The lead Japanese vessel, designation transport number 159, appeared in perfect silhouette. Two hundred feet long, 800 tons displacement, already beached northwest of Ormoc and unloading troops and tanks down ramps at bow and stern. Dark figures moved against the white sand.

The American gun crews had 30 seconds of illumination before the flare burned out. Thirty seconds to acquire target, calculate range, load, and fire. Everything they’d learned—destroying tanks, demolishing bunkers, calculating deflection and elevation for moving targets—now applied to a ship.

The lead M10 fired first. A three-inch armor-piercing round, muzzle velocity 2,600 feet per second, range to target 970 yards. The gun’s recoil pushed the 17-ton chassis back six inches. The shell crossed the bay in 1.2 seconds and hit home.

It punched through the ship’s starboard side just above the waterline. Designed to penetrate three inches of steel at 1,000 yards, the shell had no trouble with the transport’s thin hull. It tore through the cargo hold and detonated against the port bulkhead, blowing a hole the size of a truck. Water poured into the hold at 2,000 gallons per minute. The vessel listed seven degrees to starboard.

Japanese troops on the ramps froze. Those inside scrambled for the exits. The ship’s crew tried to assess damage as American artillery began ranging in on the beached vessel.

Chapter 4: The Killing Zone

Seconds after the first flare faded, a second burst overhead. The bay was once again illuminated, revealing transport number 159 settling deeper into the sand. The stern had dropped three feet. Japanese troops were abandoning the vessel, wading through chest-deep water toward the shore. In the hills, Japanese defenders fired mortars at the American positions.

The M10 that had scored the first hit fired again. The crew adjusted for the ship’s changing position. This time, the round struck below the waterline aft, opening another breach in the hull. Water flooded in from two separate holes; the rate of flooding now outpaced any hope of pumping it out. The ship was doomed.

Yet, four more vessels were still approaching from the north—three barges and one larger transport. Under the flare’s harsh light, the Americans could see them clearly. The Japanese captains watched transport number 159 sink, calculating their odds. They had 700 troops to deliver and orders from General Yamashita himself. Retreat was not an option in the Imperial Japanese Army.

The M10 crews reloaded. Mortar teams prepared more illumination rounds. The 7th AAA Anti-Aircraft Battalion moved their 40mm guns into position along the waterfront. The 77th Infantry Division was about to fight the only ship-to-shore artillery duel of the Pacific War.

Chapter 5: All Guns, Fire at Will

The third flare climbed into the sky. The second Japanese vessel was now just 600 yards from shore. Every gun along the Ormoc waterfront found a target. General Bruce watched from his command post, 300 yards inland. This was not in any tactical manual he’d studied at Fort Sill, but the old bastards had stopped following the manual the day they landed on Guam.

At 0015, the order came down: “All guns, fire at will.”

The waterfront erupted. 40mm anti-aircraft guns fired at surface targets. .50 caliber machine guns raked the Japanese barges. Self-propelled howitzers from the 307th Infantry Regiment pumped high-explosive shells into the approaching vessels. Three M10 tank destroyers fired armor-piercing rounds designed to kill Tigers and Panthers—now aimed at ships carrying troops.

The mathematics favored the Americans overwhelmingly. The Japanese vessels had no armor, no meaningful defensive weapons, no ability to maneuver in the shallow water. They were cargo carriers, trying to land troops while being hit by concentrated artillery fire from prepared positions.

Chapter 6: The Second Transport

The second Japanese transport took its first hit at 0016—a M10 round through the bow. The shell penetrated the forward hold and detonated among troops packed for landing. The explosion killed an estimated forty soldiers instantly. Still, the vessel kept coming. Japanese discipline held even under fire; the captain maintained course.

The self-propelled howitzers fired next. 105mm high-explosive shells, designed to destroy everything in a fifteen-yard radius. The first shell hit the superstructure, the second struck the deck, the third tore open the hull at the waterline. The transport made it another 200 yards before flooding became critical. The captain ran it aground, 400 yards from shore—too far for the troops to wade, too shallow for the vessel to float.

Japanese soldiers leapt into water over their heads. Many drowned immediately. Those who could swim struck out for shore, tracked by American machine guns. Transport number 159 was completely submerged by 0020, only the superstructure remaining above water. Roughly 150 troops made it ashore before the ship sank. Another 200 were in the water; the rest went down with the vessel. The Americans estimated 300 casualties from that ship alone.

Chapter 7: The Barges

The three barges were smaller and faster, drawing less water and able to operate closer to shore. Each carried about fifty troops. The Japanese captains scattered them, hoping to split American fire—a reasonable tactical decision that failed completely.

The 7th AAA Battalion had positioned six 40mm guns along the waterfront, each capable of firing 120 rounds per minute and effective against surface targets up to 2,000 yards. The Japanese barges were well inside that range.

At 0022, the 40mm crews opened fire. The first barge disintegrated under a hail of explosive rounds. Fifty shells hit the wooden hull in twelve seconds, turning it into floating wreckage. Fewer than ten survivors made it into the water.

The second barge tried to turn away, the helmsman putting the rudder hard over in a desperate attempt to retreat. The lead M10 tracked its movement and fired at 0024. The round hit amidships, breaking the barge in half. Both sections sank in less than thirty seconds. Japanese troops thrashed in the oil-slicked water; machine gun fire found them there.

The third barge made it closest to shore. The captain drove it straight at the beach at maximum speed, ignoring fire from American positions. .50 caliber rounds punched through the hull, mortar shells detonated in the water around it. The barge grounded in three feet of water, seventy yards from shore. Japanese troops poured over the sides and waded toward the beach, but they made it only fifteen yards before the machine guns cut them down.

The 77th had positioned interlocking fields of fire across every approach to the waterfront. The Japanese troops waded into a killing zone with no cover and no supporting fire. All fifty died in the water.

Chapter 8: Aftermath

The engagement lasted eighteen minutes. Five Japanese vessels attacked; five were destroyed. Estimated enemy casualties: 750 troops. American casualties: zero.

But the night was not over. Radio intercept teams reported more vessels approaching from the north. General Bruce received the after-action report at 0040: five enemy vessels destroyed, 750 enemy casualties, zero American losses. The M10s had fired fifteen rounds. The self-propelled howitzers had expended forty-two. The 40mm guns had fired about 600 rounds.

The mathematics told Bruce everything he needed to know. The Japanese could not reinforce Ormoc by sea as long as the 77th held the waterfront. Every vessel that attempted landing would face the same concentrated fire. Every Japanese soldier who tried to wade ashore would die in the water.

The Imperial Japanese Navy had just lost an engagement to an infantry division that had no business fighting ships.

Chapter 9: The Strategic Ripple

General Bruce’s report to 24th Corps headquarters was characteristically brief. Enemy attempted reinforcement Ormoc Bay. Five vessels destroyed. Request air reconnaissance at first light to confirm kills. The Corps commander read the report twice before he believed it.

Ormoc was the last major port on the western coast of Leyte, still accessible to Japanese reinforcement convoys. General Yamashita had been running supplies and troops through Ormoc Bay since late October, despite devastating losses to American air and naval attacks. Between November 9th and December 11th, the Japanese had attempted nine major convoy operations to Leyte, landing approximately 34,000 troops. They had lost twenty transports, six destroyers, one submarine, three escort vessels, and one patrol boat. The Americans lost three destroyers, one high-speed transport, and two LSMs.

Naval historians would later call the Battle of Ormoc Bay one of the most brutal series of engagements in the Pacific War. Admiral Halsey committed Task Force 38. The Fifth Air Force flew continuous interdiction missions. PT boats prowled the shallows every night. And now, the 77th Infantry Division had turned the Ormoc waterfront into a killing zone that even the Imperial Japanese Navy could not penetrate.

Chapter 10: The Enemy Tries Again

The Japanese tried again on the night of December 12th. Two barges approached from the north at 2200 hours. American illumination rounds lit them up at 800 yards. The M10 crews destroyed both before they came within 500 yards of shore. Estimated casualties: 100 troops. American losses: zero.

On December 13th, another attempt—one transport and three escort barges. The transport was larger than number 159, possibly 900 tons displacement, carrying an estimated 400 troops and heavy equipment. The American guns sank it in twelve minutes. The escort barges never made it within 1,000 yards of shore. Estimated casualties: 550 troops. American losses: zero.

General Yamashita stopped sending reinforcements to Ormoc after December 13th. The mathematics had become untenable. He had lost approximately 1,300 troops in three nights, trying to reinforce positions that the 77th was systematically destroying during the day. The Americans owned Ormoc Valley. The remaining Japanese forces in the mountains were cut off from resupply and reinforcement. They would fight until they died, but they would not receive help.

Chapter 11: The Advance North

On December 14th, the 77th Infantry Division pushed north from Ormoc. The 307th Infantry Regiment took the lead, commanded by Colonel Aubrey Newman—43 years old, a career infantry officer and veteran of Guam. He had watched his regiment destroy Japanese vessels from shore. Now, he was taking them into the mountains to destroy what remained of the Japanese 35th Army.

The division moved through Kogan on December 15th, through Valencia on December 21st. The Japanese First Division tried to hold the Libonga road junction. The 77th went around them, through terrain the Japanese considered impassable. The division made contact with the First Cavalry Division coming south on December 25th—Christmas Day. Leyte was secure.

The official campaign statistics told the story: the 77th Infantry Division had killed 19,456 Japanese soldiers on Leyte, captured 124, and lost 543 men killed and 1,469 wounded. The kill ratio was 36 to 1. But those numbers did not include the ships sunk on the night of December 11th.

Chapter 12: Verification and Legacy

In January 1945, the United States Army conducted an official investigation. Had an infantry division actually sunk enemy naval vessels using tank destroyers? The answer required verification, because nothing like this had ever happened in modern warfare. Tanks had never engaged warships; tank destroyers had never fired at ships.

The investigation team examined the wrecks in Ormoc Bay at low tide. Transport number 159 was visible in fifteen feet of water. The hull showed two three-inch entry holes on the starboard side. The investigators measured the holes—three inches, consistent with M10 armor-piercing rounds. The holes were below the waterline. The flooding pattern matched the timeline from the after-action reports.

The second transport was in deeper water, but still accessible to Navy divers. They found three penetrations in the hull—two from three-inch rounds, one from a 105mm howitzer shell. The three-inch rounds had gone completely through the vessel, entry starboard side, exit port side. The divers recovered shell fragments from the seafloor. Metallurgy confirmed they were M10 armor-piercing rounds manufactured in 1944 at the Watervliet Arsenal in New York.

The investigation concluded that the 77th Infantry Division had indeed sunk multiple Japanese vessels using M10 tank destroyers firing from shore positions. The report noted this was the only confirmed instance in World War II of armored fighting vehicles engaging and destroying enemy warships—from the Pacific to the European theaters.

Chapter 13: Tactical Innovation

The tactical manual for the M10 was updated in March 1945. A new section was added: Employment Against Naval Targets. It was three paragraphs long. It noted that M10 rounds could penetrate unarmored vessels at ranges up to 1,000 yards. It recommended using armor-piercing rounds against waterline targets to maximize flooding. It cited the Ormoc engagement as the reference case.

The update was mostly theoretical. The opportunity to use tank destroyers against ships never arose again. The Japanese stopped attempting major amphibious reinforcement operations after Leyte. The island-hopping campaign moved to Iwo Jima and Okinawa, where Japanese defenders were already in place before American forces arrived.

The M10 crews who had fired on transport number 159 received no special recognition. No medals were awarded for sinking ships. The action was considered part of the normal defense of Ormoc. The crews went on to fight through the rest of the Leyte campaign and then shipped out for the invasion of Okinawa.

Chapter 14: The Old Bastards Move On

General Bruce mentioned the engagement exactly once in his official memoirs. He wrote that the 77th had demonstrated unusual flexibility in employing all available weapons against enemy forces, regardless of whether those weapons were designed for the task. He considered this adaptability the defining characteristic of the division. The old bastards didn’t care what the manual said. They cared about completing the mission, efficiently and relentlessly.

The M10 tank destroyers remained with the 77th through the Okinawa campaign. They destroyed Japanese fortifications, provided direct fire support for infantry assaults, and knocked out enemy artillery positions. They did everything tank destroyers were designed to do. But they never sank another ship. The opportunity never came again.

By the time the war ended, the night of December 11th had become a footnote in the division’s history. The 77th had fought through three major campaigns—Guam, Leyte, Okinawa. They had killed more than 43,000 enemy soldiers and lost more than 2,000 of their own. The sinking of five Japanese vessels in eighteen minutes was just another engagement in a year of continuous combat.

But for military historians, the Ormoc engagement remained unique. No other tank had ever sunk a ship. No other tank destroyer had ever engaged naval vessels. It happened once, on one night, at one place—and it never happened again.

Chapter 15: Ordinary Men, Extraordinary Deeds

The 77th Infantry Division was never supposed to be an elite unit. When it was reactivated in March 1942, the War Department expected it to be a standard infantry formation—nothing special, no unique capabilities, just another division for the Pacific meat grinder. The men who filled the ranks were civilians from New York and New Jersey. Average age: 32, too old for most infantry divisions. The Army called them reservists. Everyone else called them the old bastards.

They trained at Fort Jackson in South Carolina for fourteen months. Standard infantry training—nothing exotic. They practiced amphibious landings, learned jungle warfare, qualified on their weapons, and passed their physical fitness tests despite being a decade older than soldiers in other divisions.

General Bruce took command in May 1943. He was 47, an artillery officer with a reputation for aggressive tactics and minimal tolerance for incompetence. He looked at his division of middle-aged civilians and saw potential—not physical, but mental. These men would never outrun younger soldiers, but they had something the Marines did not: life experience, patience, the ability to think before they acted.

Bruce trained them differently. He emphasized fire discipline over speed, maneuver over frontal assault, conservation of force over heroic charges. The old bastards learned to let firepower do the work that young Marines did with bayonets. They learned to go around enemy strong points instead of through them. They learned to stay alive while killing the enemy efficiently.

Chapter 16: From Guam to Leyte to Okinawa

The division deployed to Hawaii in March 1944 for further training. By July, they landed on Guam as part of Operation Forager. The initial landings were light, but as the 77th pushed inland, they encountered fierce resistance—fortified positions in the jungle, machine gun nests in caves, artillery observers hidden in the trees.

Bruce’s training paid off immediately. The old bastards did not charge Japanese positions; they surrounded them, called in artillery, waited for bombardment to finish, then moved in and cleared what remained. The casualty ratio favored the Americans heavily. By August 8th, Guam was secure. The 77th had proven they could fight—and win—without unsustainable losses.

They were supposed to go to New Caledonia for rest and refitting, but Leyte was turning into a nightmare. The Sixth Army needed reinforcements. The 77th turned around and headed for the Philippines.

On November 23rd, 1944—Thanksgiving Day—they landed on Leyte. No rest, no refit, just straight back into combat. After two weeks of training and patrolling, Bruce got the order for the Ormoc operation: amphibious assault on the western coast, seize the port, cut off Japanese reinforcements.

The division hit the beaches at Deposito on December 7th, captured Ormoc on December 10th, and on the night of December 11th, sank five Japanese vessels trying to reinforce the garrison. The engagement lasted eighteen minutes, demonstrating everything Bruce had taught his division: use the right weapon for the target, overwhelm the enemy with concentrated fire, do not take unnecessary risks.

Chapter 17: The Final Campaigns

The 77th finished the Leyte campaign on February 5th, 1945. Final statistics: 19,456 enemy killed, 124 captured, 543 Americans dead, 1,469 wounded. The division had destroyed the Japanese 35th Army as an effective fighting force. General Yamashita abandoned his plan to make Leyte the decisive battle of the Philippines. The Americans owned the island.

The old bastards had sixty days before their next assignment. They used the time to absorb replacements and repair equipment. The M10 tank destroyers received maintenance—new barrels, new tracks. The crews trained new men on the basics: how to load, how to aim, how to fire without getting killed. Nobody trained them on how to sink ships. That lesson was already written in the division’s history.

Okinawa was going to be worse than Leyte. Everyone knew it. The Japanese would not surrender their home islands without extracting maximum American casualties. The 77th landed at Kerama Retto on March 26th, 1945, clearing suicide boat bases and securing the small islands west of Okinawa. On April 1st, the main Okinawa operation began. The 77th landed on Ie Shima on April 16th, fighting brutal hand-to-hand combat in tunnels and caves. Ernie Pyle, the famous war correspondent, was killed on Ie Shima while moving forward with a reconnaissance patrol. The division erected a monument at the spot: “On this spot, the 77th Division lost a buddy.”

The division moved to Okinawa proper on April 25th, relieving the 96th Division on the southern front. The Japanese defensive line stretched across the island—fortified caves, interlocking fields of fire, artillery in reverse slope positions. The 77th attacked on April 28th, taking the escarpment through sustained artillery bombardment and methodical infantry assault. No heroic charges, no desperate attacks—just firepower and patience.

The division drove to Shuri with the First Marine Division, occupied the ruins on May 31st, and continued attacking through June. By July, they moved to Cebu in the Philippines to prepare for the invasion of Japan. The atomic bombs fell in August. Japan surrendered on August 15th. The 77th never invaded the home islands. They occupied Hokkaido instead—peaceful occupation, no combat. The old bastards had fought their last battle on Okinawa.

The division was deactivated on March 15th, 1946 in Japan. Final statistics for World War II: approximately 44,000 enemy killed, 488 prisoners captured, 2,140 men killed in action, 7,000 wounded, 200 days of sustained combat across three campaigns. The capture rate remained 0.8%—the lowest in the Pacific War.

Chapter 18: Memory and Meaning

The men who turned tank destroyers into ship killers went home in 1946. Most returned to ordinary lives—driving taxis in Manhattan, keeping books in Brooklyn, working factory lines in Jersey City. They had families, jobs, lives to rebuild. The war was something they survived, not something they wanted to relive.

The division reunions happened every year in New York. The Old Bastards Club met at their headquarters on East 39th Street. They talked about Guam, Leyte, Okinawa in language their families never heard. They raised glasses to the 2,140 who never came home. But even at the reunions, nobody talked much about sinking ships. It was just another engagement in a year of continuous combat. Just another night when they used the weapons available to defeat the enemy.

The last surviving crew member of the M10 that sank transport number 159 died in 2003. His name was Robert Henderson. He never spoke publicly about the night of December 11th. When his family asked about the war, he simply said he had done his job and come home. That was all.

Henderson’s grandson found his service records after he died—Bronze Star, Purple Heart, campaign ribbons for Guam, Leyte, Okinawa, and a citation for exceptional performance during the defense of Ormoc. The citation mentioned engaging enemy naval vessels with tank destroyer fire. The grandson had never heard that story. Henderson had never told it.

Epilogue: The Forgotten Night

Military historians eventually noticed the Ormoc engagement. They realized it was unique—the only time in World War II that armored fighting vehicles engaged and destroyed enemy warships from shore positions. They wrote papers, analyzed tactics, and cited it as an example of flexibility under fire.

But the papers and analyses never captured what it meant to the men who were there—the cold mathematics of fifteen rounds destroying five ships, the illumination flares turning night into day, the certainty that this was the job and they would do it, regardless of what the manual said.

Eighty years later, that job is almost forgotten. The men who did it are gone. The M10s were scrapped decades ago. Transport number 159 is still on the bottom of Ormoc Bay, invisible under fifteen feet of water and eighty years of silt. The night of December 11th, 1944 exists only in after-action reports and declassified documents that almost nobody reads—but it happened.

American tank destroyers sank Japanese warships once, on one night, in one place. It never happened before. It never happened again. It was the only time in history.

And now you know the story.