USS Sterett (DD-407) - 1943

1943

On 6 August 1943, the Sterett was steaming in "Ironbottom Sound" in the second division of the six-destroyer task group under Commander Frederick Moosbrugger. At 12:00, air reconnaissance reported an enemy force of four destroyers delivering troops and supplies to Kolombangara via Vella Gulf. At dusk, the six Americans passed cautiously through Gizo Strait into Vella Gulf. By midnight, the two divisions were skirting the coast of Kolombangara about two miles (4 km) apart. Radar picked up the Japanese ships heading south at about 30 knots (55 km/h). One division launched eight torpedoes at the Japanese column's port side; then Sterett's division loosed their torpedoes and opened with their guns. Three of the four Japanese destroyers took torpedo hits and received fire from 5-inch guns. Shigure, the lone survivor, retreated at high speed to Buin. At Vella Gulf, Sterett and her comrades accounted for three destroyers, over 1,500 sailors and soldiers, and a large portion of the 50 tons of supplies.

For the rest of August and throughout September, Sterett occupied herself with patrols in the Solomons. On 8 October, she arrived in Sydney, Australia, escorting the light cruiser Cleveland. The two warships returned to Espiritu Santo on the 24th. At the beginning of November, she accompanied the assault forces to Bougainville, Solomon Islands; and between 5th and 11 November, she supported the carriers while their planes bombed Japanese ships at Rabaul. She screened the carriers that delivered the 9 December air raid on Nauru Island; then she withdrew to the New Hebrides until 27 December 1943. In the Solomons on the last three days of 1943, the Sterett escorted the Alabama to Pearl Harbor and on to the Ellice Islands, arriving at Funafuti on 21 January 1944. Two days afterward, she put to sea with the Bunker Hill and the Monterey.