The son of Russian immigrants, Michael Bak Jr. was raised in New Jersey during the Depression. “I came home one time in my Boy Scout uniform,” he recalled in his Naval Institute oral history, “and one of our Russian relatives berated my parents for allowing me to join the Scouts. She felt that there was a war coming on soon, and I would be the first to be called up because of the uniform.”
In late 1942, Bak enlisted in the Navy, moved through boot camp to quartermaster school at Great Lakes, and then reported to the precommissioning crew of the Fletcher-class destroyer USS Franks (DD-554) fitting out in Bremerton. Following commissioning in July 1943, the Franks joined the war in the Pacific screening escort carriers, retrieving downed pilots, and patrolling against submarines. In late 1944, with the Philippine operations coming on, she joined Seventh Fleet.
The war came into sharp focus for Quartermaster Bak on the morning of 25 October, during the Battle of Leyte Gulf. The loudspeaker sounded general quarters.
We ran to our battle stations. I ran to the bridge and looked out, and I saw what looked like toothpicks on the horizon, right across the horizon—many, many ships.
Our carrier planes started taking off. We were protecting the jeep carriers at that point, the USS White Plains [CVE-66], St. Lo [CVE-63], and Gambier Bay [CVE-73]. When the Japanese fleet was coming at us, our job was to stay between the carriers and the Japanese ships.
We were going back and forth, sort of fishtailing, because our carriers couldn’t go too fast. The Japs were shooting at us and dropping shells around us, 150, 200 yards. We were going right full rudder, left full rudder, right full rudder, and the shells were coming all around us. We were told to go in for a torpedo run. Then, they decided it was crazy to go in. They found a couple of ships had been sunk. We were told to lay a smoke screen between the Jap fleet and the carriers—all the time fishtailing.
I was on the bridge at the quartermaster station, putting entries in the ship’s log. The shells were dropping around us. I went under the chart table, which was a ridiculous place to go. Then I was on a long glass, and I couldn’t believe you could see these ships so close. I couldn’t believe that that fleet had got so close to us without our admirals knowing about it in advance. It was Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita’s fleet, the Japanese commander involved.
From about 0715 to 1030, it was several hours of not knowing what was happening. We did see some burning out there. We got a report later that the burning was our ships being sunk. If we had held one course, they would have blown us out of the water that day. That’s what I liked about our skipper, Commander David Stephan. He was out there giving orders, right full rudder, left full rudder.
For some reason, later on the Japs turned around and went the other way. They left us when they could have had a kill. They didn’t realize what they had. I believe, reading back in history, they thought our destroyers were cruisers.
During all this, the planes were taking off and landing. I remember getting behind these carriers. We had sort of dual duty, fishtailing, trying to pick our pilots out of the water when they crashed or went overboard, and keeping between the Jap fleet and the escort carriers. I saw the smoke and the hit when the Gambier Bay went down. The jeep carriers didn’t have the maneuverability we had.
In a fight like that, when you’re quartermaster, you can see what’s going on, but the people below decks can’t. The captain would give the results later on to all hands, but never during the battle.