 Complete the following phrase:  Blue Ridge led the San Fabian Attack Force from Aitape, New Guinea on 28 December 1944. An aerial snooper was driven off by gunfire on 2 January 1945 and covering escort carrier aircraft shot down a bomber twenty miles out from her formation the following day. The night of 4 January 1945 the command ship followed a covering group of cruisers and destroyers through Surigao Strait to enter the Mindanao Sea. On the afternoon of 5 January an enemy submarine fired on the covering group, ten miles ahead, and was forced to surface and rammed by destroyer . Enemy planes attacked the formation 7 January; two being shot down by pilots of the Combat Air Patrol, and three fell victims to combined anti-aircraft fire of the formation. That night four destroyers sank a Japanese destroyer eleven miles to the east of Blue Ridge. The command ship helped repel six enemy planes on 8 January 1945 and entered Lingayen Gulf before daybreak of 9 January. 