Ambush at Vella Gulf: The Destroyer Battle That Changed the Course of World War II in the Pacific

On the night of August 6–7, 1943, six American destroyers steamed into Vella Gulf two hundred miles northwest of Guadalcanal and laid an ambush for the Japanese destroyers that nightly ferried reinforcements into the Solomon Islands. Within thirty-five minutes, three enemy ships were on their way to the bottom of the gulf, a fourth limped away, and the U.S. Navy’s tin cans scored what was hailed as “an attack that every destroyer sailor dreams about,” “a little classic of naval warfare,” “a...