I've read and written of this particular typhoon, and it's effects many times in the past, but this article presents it in more graphic detail than I have seen before...
As the barometer fell rapidly, the wind velocity rose sharply to 73 knots while 70-foot waves battered the ships from all sides. Some destroyers heeled over on their beam ends with their funnels almost horizontal. Water surged into their intakes and ventilators, shorting circuits, killing power, and leaving them adrift.
Adm. Halsey reported he could not see the bow of his own flagship USS New Jersey at high noon from his position on the bridge...My Uncle was riding out the fringes of the storm on his 103 foot wooden warship, and not wanting to unduly alarm his sister (my Mom) who stayed in fear for her baby brother while he served his duty in the South Pacific of WWII, wrote her only that it was a stomach-churning experience...The top-heavy aircraft carriers lost lashed-down planes over the side as they were hit with 70 foot high walls of fast moving water...

I rode out Hurricane Alicia in my own home in 1983, but I can only imagine what it would have been like on some of the smaller ships in December 1944......Ben