The naval Battle of Vella Lavella

During the night of 6–7 October 1943, in the waters north of the island of Vella Lavella in the central Solomon Islands, the last of the series of night destroyer battles that had accompanied the fighting for the New Georgia group since the summer was fought. Nine Japanese destroyers under Matsuji Ijūin, sent from Rabaul, were covering a flotilla of small craft that was to take off the island the last 600 or so soldiers, cornered by the New Zealanders at Marquana Bay. Against them stood three American destroyers under Captain Frank R. Walker. In a short, violent clash the Japanese lost the destroyer Yūgumo and the Americans the destroyer Chevalier, while Walker’s two other ships were badly damaged. The most important events, however, took place away from the scene of the fighting: while the Americans’ attention was fixed on the survivors in the water, Japanese barges entered Marquana Bay and carried the garrison away to Buin on Bougainville.

In war chronologies the battle is sometimes described as the engagement that “ended the second phase of Operation Cartwheel”. The phrase needs qualifying. Operation Cartwheel was not divided into formally numbered phases but into a dozen or so subsidiary operations in New Guinea and the Solomon Islands; some studies speak of a “second phase”, meaning the fighting for the central Solomons that began with the landing on New Georgia in June. That stage did indeed end during the night of 6–7 October – but not because of the naval battle; rather because the Japanese withdrew their last garrison and the New Zealanders occupied the abandoned positions in the morning. The battle itself was a tactical success for the Japanese: they carried out the evacuation it was meant to prevent.

The central Solomons in September 1943

In the spring of 1943 the Allies began carrying out their plan to encircle the main Japanese base in the South-West Pacific, Rabaul on New Britain, which the Japanese had captured in January 1942. In the Solomon Islands the advance was led by Admiral William Halsey. The New Georgia campaign, begun on 30 June, dragged on into August; in night clashes between destroyers and cruisers both sides lost ships, and in the Battle of Vella Gulf on the night of 6–7 August American destroyers sank three Japanese ones without loss to themselves.

Instead of storming heavily garrisoned Kolombangara, Halsey ordered it to be bypassed. On 15 August American troops landed on Vella Lavella, a weakly defended island lying further to the north-west, and began building an airfield at Barakoma. The Japanese set up a barge base at Horaniu on the north coast, but made no attempt to retake the island. In September the command at Rabaul wrote off the central Solomons and decided to withdraw its troops. During the night of 20–21 September the Japanese abandoned Arundel, and over three nights between 28 September and 4 October they evacuated from Kolombangara – according to John Miller’s US official history – some 9,400 men.

About 600 Japanese soldiers still remained on Vella Lavella. From 18 September they were being pressed by the 14th New Zealand Brigade of the 3rd New Zealand Division, which advanced along both coasts, leapfrogging by barge from bay to bay. By the afternoon of 6 October the Japanese were squeezed into a small strip of coast around Marziana Point on Marquana Bay, at the north-western tip of the island. The New Zealanders planned an artillery preparation for the night and an assault for the morning.

Two flotillas and six destroyers

The Japanese organised the evacuation along tried and tested lines. On 6 October some twenty small craft – submarine chasers, barges and motor boats – left Buin in the south of Bougainville Island under Captain Shigoroku Nakayama. They were to enter Marquana Bay at night and pick up the troops. They were covered by Ijūin’s force, which had sailed from Rabaul: three older destroyers used as transports (Fumizuki, Matsukaze and Yūnagi) and six modern destroyers – Akigumo, Isokaze, Kazagumo, Yūgumo, Shigure and Samidare. In the evening Ijūin sent the transports, together with Shigure and Samidare, towards Marquana Bay, while he himself cruised north-west of the island with four destroyers.

The Americans knew the Japanese were coming. Rear Admiral Theodore S. Wilkinson, commander of Halsey’s amphibious forces, hurriedly sent two groups of three destroyers each against them. One, under Captain Harold O. Larson – Ralph Talbot, Taylor and La Vallette – was recalled from escorting a convoy further south and steamed along the west coast of Vella Lavella. Only the other arrived in time: Walker’s Selfridge, Chevalier and O’Bannon, approaching from the direction of Vella Gulf.

The clash

At about 10.30 p.m. the Japanese sighted Walker’s ships. Ijūin prepared for battle and called back Shigure and Samidare, while turning the transports back towards the Shortland Islands. Walker faced six destroyers with his three, but he did not wait for Larson – the reinforcements were still a quarter of an hour or so from the scene – and attacked at once.

At about 11 p.m. both sides fired torpedoes and opened fire. The Japanese commander made an error of manoeuvre: instead of exploiting their numerical superiority, his ships ended up at short range directly in the line of fire of the American guns. The leading ship, Yūgumo, a modern destroyer and name ship of her class, charged the Americans and fired torpedoes, but she was hit by numerous shells and lost steering. One of her torpedoes struck Chevalier. Her forward magazine blew up and the ship lost her bow. O’Bannon, following astern, could not turn away in time and rammed the crippled ship; for a while the two destroyers remained locked together. Selfridge fought Shigure and Samidare alone until, at 11.06 p.m., she too was hit by a torpedo and brought to a standstill. A few minutes later, at about 11.10 p.m., the crippled Yūgumo sank, finished off by a torpedo.

At that moment all three American ships were badly damaged, and the Japanese had five serviceable destroyers to hand. Ijūin, however, did not exploit his advantage. Japanese reconnaissance aircraft mistook Larson’s approaching ships for cruisers, and the commander, unwilling to risk battle with what he believed to be a stronger enemy, withdrew his force towards Rabaul. Nakayama’s small craft were left to complete the evacuation on their own.

Survivors and the evacuation

Larson arrived at about 11.35 p.m. He searched briefly for the departing Japanese and then turned to rescuing survivors. The wounded from Chevalier were transferred to other ships, and the wreck, which could not be towed, was sunk at about 3 a.m. by a torpedo and depth charges from La Vallette. Selfridge and O’Bannon stayed afloat and left for repairs. The Americans lost 67 killed – 54 on Chevalier and 13 on Selfridge – 47 wounded and 36 missing (all the missing were from Selfridge). On the Japanese side 138 men were killed, most of them from Yūgumo. Several dozen Japanese sailors were pulled from the water by boats from O’Bannon, and more by American PT boats; in all, according to American figures, about a hundred.

Meanwhile, while the Americans’ attention was taken up with the fighting and the survivors, Nakayama’s craft entered Marquana Bay at about 1.10 a.m. Within two hours they had taken off 589 soldiers and sailed for Buin. The New Zealand artillery, whose preparation had earlier been interrupted by the appearance of Japanese aircraft, did not hinder the evacuation. On the morning of 7 October the men of the 14th Brigade, moving in to attack, found abandoned positions, equipment and stores on Marziana Point. The fighting on Vella Lavella was over.

The last Japanese victory?

The outcome of the engagement was not favourable to the Americans. Walker’s three destroyers had been put out of action, one of them sunk, and the objective – stopping the evacuation – had not been achieved. The Japanese lost one ship but accomplished their mission. That is why the historian Ian Toll describes the naval Battle of Vella Lavella as the Japanese navy’s last victory in the Pacific War. It was, however, a tactical success in a campaign Japan had already lost. Walker, by attacking a superior enemy without waiting for reinforcements, had put his ships at risk; that he lost no more than one was due in large measure to Ijūin’s caution and the mistake made by the Japanese airmen.

The evacuations from Kolombangara and Vella Lavella showed that the Japanese had mastered the art of withdrawing troops at night under the enemy’s nose – just as they had earlier from Guadalcanal. Almost ten thousand soldiers taken off the central Solomons would go on to fight on Bougainville. At the same time the whole summer of fighting for the New Georgia group had cost the Japanese navy – according to figures cited in the literature – 17 warships against 6 Allied ones, as well as many aircraft and experienced airmen who could no longer be replaced.

Place in the war

The night of 6–7 October closed the fighting for the central Solomon Islands that had gone on since the end of June. The Allies now had airfields at Munda, on Ondonga and at Barakoma on Vella Lavella, several hundred kilometres closer to Rabaul than Guadalcanal. From Barakoma fighters could cover further landings and escort bombers attacking the Japanese airfields on Bougainville. At the same time in New Guinea the Australians, after taking Lae and Salamaua, were fighting for the Huon Peninsula. Both arms of Operation Cartwheel were closing in on Rabaul, and from 12 October General George Kenney’s air forces began massed raids on the base itself.

The next step in the Solomons came a few weeks later. On 27 October the New Zealanders landed on the Treasury Islands, and on 1 November US Marines came ashore at Empress Augusta Bay on Bougainville. That same night the Japanese navy tried to destroy the ships covering the landing, but it was beaten in the Battle of Empress Augusta Bay on the night of 1–2 November, and on 25 November, in the Battle of Cape St. George, Captain Arleigh Burke’s destroyers sank three of five Japanese destroyers without loss to themselves. The series of night clashes in the Solomons, in which Japanese destroyer men had long held the upper hand thanks to their superb torpedoes and training in night fighting, ended in their defeat. The Battle of Vella Lavella remained the last engagement in that series from which the Japanese emerged having achieved their aim.

None of this changed the course of the campaign. The central Solomons were lost, and the garrisons the Japanese had taken off Kolombangara and Vella Lavella went to Bougainville, where the Americans – following the new method of bypassing strongpoints – intended to seize only a beachhead with room for airfields, leaving the main Japanese forces on the island cut off from supplies. The same method was soon to be applied to Rabaul.