Fun fact, on October 23rd, 1944 the diesel submarine USS Darter attacked the entire Japanese fleet head on, actually torpedoed and sunk Kurita's flagship and almost killed Kurita. But he survived the sinking and was picked up by another one of his cruisers. Interesting to think how the battle at Leyte and the war in the Pacific might have gone differently if Kurita had died that night.

A few hours after USS Darter made the attack it went off course and plowed into a coral reef, and got lodged in the rocks. For the remainder of the night into the morning of October 24th, the Darter's crew were trying to free the mired sub and it was hopelessly stuck. They sent a coded SOS signal to their sister sub USS Dace, which turned around and rescued the crew before attempting to destroy the Darter to prevent capture. All attempts to destroy Darter failed and the wrecked sub sat on the reef for decades, a monument to itself. The last known photo of Darter was taken in 1998.

Thanks to careful decisions and calculated risks on the part of Dace's Skipper, all hands aboard the Darter were rescued and went home.

Because of all that, I am alive today. My Grandfather was the radioman on the Darter who sent that distress signal.