History - Special The Last Stand Of The Tin Can Sailors

It was perhaps the most outrageously courageous action in the history of the US Navy. A small ramshackle fleet comprised of nothing heavier than destroyers (\"Tin Cans\" in Navy speak) found itself in a toe-to-toe slugfest with Japan's two most powerful battleships. The Yamata and Musashi pounded away with 18 inch guns against the Tin Cans, who had no bomb or shell that could penetrate the armor of her gigantic foes. With depth charges instead of aerial bombs, with machine gun bullets instead of rockets, with smokescreens instead of firepower, the Tin Cans charged the startled Japanese like a seaborne light brigade and incredibly, won the day--saving MacArthur's invasion force and becoming an American legend.