Comments by Ari Phoutrides
This message is also interesting. On December 10, 1944 the USS Hughes was on picket duty in the Surigao
Straits. She was bombed and hit by a suicide plane amidships, knocking out her boiler and engine rooms.
The Laffey was detached from our screening station on a small task group, went alongside her and removed
casualties (she was dead in the water) and took her in tow for 2 hours until a seagoing tug arrived and took over.
This was the first time our crew got a close up look on the damage a kamikaze could inflict.
On the bottom right hand of the msg, our skipper had written
"After she was hit by suicides at Leyte and we took her in tow".
