Battle of Vella Gulf
Until August 6, 1943, destroyer-against-destroyer engagements between Imperial Japanese Navy and United States Navy had resulted in U.S. defeats. The trend changed at this battle, when U.S. ships smashed a destroyer-escort reinforcement convoy to Kolombagara in the Solomon Islands.
Commanding U.S. forces was CDR Frederick Moosbrugger, who had succeeded Arleigh Burke in command of Task Group 31.2. Even the single surviving Japanese destroyer captain, Capt. Tameichi Hara, of IJN Shigure, called it “A perfect American victory”. Shigure, incidentally, survived more major naval battles than any other ship in the Japanese Navy, [1] finally being sunk, on January 24, 1945, by a submarine torpedo as she escorted cargo ships off Malaya. [2]
Moosbrugger had been ordered, by RADM Theodore Wilkinson, on Guadalcanal, to make a sweep of Vella Gulf with two destroyers and a number of motor torpedo boats. Wilkinson's chief objective was the destruction of logistics barges.[3]
Two subsequent U.S. Navy ships have been named to commemorate this engagement, the light aircraft carrier USS Vella Gulf (CVE-111) and the current Ticonderoga-class cruiser, USS Vella Gulf (CG-72).
References
- ↑ Battle of Vella Gulf, "A little classic of naval warfare", Destroyer History Foundation
- ↑ , Chapter VII: 1945, Official Chronology of the U.S. Navy in World War II, Hyperwar
- ↑ Excerpt from Combat Narrative, Solomons Islands Campaign XI, Kolombangara and Vella Lavella, Office of Naval Intelligence, 1944