Shellfire in Surigao Strait
On 24 October, Albert W. Grant joined TG 77.2 and sailed to engage a Japanese task force reported steaming northward from the Sulu Sea toward Surigao Strait. That American battleship group met the Japanese force in the strait, and Albert W. Grant, alone with other destroyers in advance of the main battle line conducted a torpedo attack. During this attack, she was hit and severely damaged by gunfire. Albert W. Grant suffered 22 hits, many by six-inch shells. Fires broke out, and the ship lost steer- ing control and all power. Thirty-eight men were killed and 104 were wounded. Although their ship was down by the bow and listing heavily to port, the destroyer's crew got her engines working again and enabled her to retire to American-controlled waters in Leyte Gulf
