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William F. Cordner I jumped ship about 0900 and almost drowned before I could take off my heavy work shoes and swim to nearest raft. I hung onto flight deck debris lashed to the raft. Between that and my life jacket I managed to hang on for the duration. The wounded filled the raft to overflowing. A Jap BB plowed through us. As it bore down on us, we expected to get depth charged or at least strafed by machine gun. To my amazement all they did was set up tripod cameras and take pictures of us as they steamed full speed through us towards the rest of Taffy 3.This incident was the most memorable highlight of my two day swim! The one person I know who was in my raft group was Bob Kreida, Arresting Gear Officer. I think but am not sure Buzz Borries was also in that group. On the first afternoon we had a ringside seat to watch our TBMs make bombing runs on a Jap cruiser that was probably 2 miles away. It appeared dead in the water. It either sank or got underway during the night because next morning there was no trace of it. During the afternoon of October 26, native Philippinos came out in canoes from Samar. We tried to communicate, but got no response. After circling us they returned to Samar which was beginning to faintly appear on the distant horizon. By this time, some of the group had taken in salt water and began to hallucinate.A couple swam off only to be taken by sharks that had been in our midst all during the day. By nightfall of the 26th, I was starting to fade from lack of sleep. I had been awake since 0230 of the 25th when I received Captain Viewig's orders to load torpedoes. Somewhere during that second night my head kept dropping off into the water but my buddy, Bob Kreida, propped me up each time. I'm here to tell the story because of him! When I finally gathered strength to climb up the rope ladder a LCI had dropped over the side for us, I got to the deck and collapsed. There was no strength in my legs.
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