Free Down to the Sea by Bruce Henderson Page A

to open up from one side or the other with both forward and aft guns. In this manner, hits were scored on Yugiri that caused violent, fiery explosions. The blazing ship began circling out of control in a kind of slow death dance before sinking.
    Meanwhile, Spence and Converse had carried out their mission. At 2:54 A.M. , they radioed Burke: “One more rising sun has set.” Gunners from Spence and Converse had committed to the deep both Onami and Makinami . *
    Shortly past 4:00 A.M. , Burke reluctantly ended the chase, knowing he could not continue after the remaining two enemy ships unless the Japanese would be willing to refuel his ships at Rabaul—where, he deadpanned to another officer, he doubted the “fuel line connections” would fit the U.S. destroyers. There was also the real threat of a vengeful air strike launched from Rabaul—now not much more than a hundred miles away—after sunrise.
    Battle-fatigued crews prepared for the inevitable onslaught from the sky. First light brought the ominous drone of aircraft overhead. However, they turned out to be a swarm of P-38s from the U.S. airfield at Munda, sent to fly cover for the returning destroyers. “Never had the white star on a wing meant so much to tired sailors,” observed Burke,who within months, as word spread in the press of the exploits of the Little Beavers, would be labeled “King of the Cans” by Time magazine.
    Three Japanese ships were destroyed and another damaged with “not even a hit” on a U.S. ship in the Battle of Cape St. George, which would be deemed by the Naval War College—where the tactics of the battle would be taught for years—“an almost perfect action that may be considered a classic.”
    Burke, however, knew how favored they had been by the “fortune of war.” A fifteen-minute delay “would have prevented the battle from being fought.” Even such a short interval would have allowed the enemy ships to be out of range. Because of their reduced speed due to Spence ’s boiler problem, “we reached the enemy by the narrowest of margins.”
    Pulling into Purvis Bay in the Florida Islands north of Guadalcanal at 10:00 P.M. on Thursday, November 25, the Little Beavers found themselves “hoisted into the celebrity class.” The ships in the harbor had stayed abreast of the battle with piped-in radio reports their crews eagerly followed with something akin to the drama of a World Series game. The illuminated decks and rails of those same ships were manned by waving and cheering sailors. Ship whistles tooted and horns blared in salute to the little band of destroyers.
    They had missed Thanksgiving dinner, but no one complained. As Strand, aboard Spence —mindful of the censorship rules against being specific regarding locations and activities since one of his letters had been returned by the ship’s censor—wrote (in part) to his parents the next day:
    Yesterday was Thanksgiving, but we didn’t celebrate…We were not in a position to eat a big chow and everyone was thankful just to be O.K. Today is the day!!! You can see by the menu I am sending just how much we had to eat.
    I’m feeling swell, and hope every one is the same at home.
    As always,
Your Loving Son,
Bob

Five
    Built by Brown Shipbuilding of Houston, Texas, the destroyer escort Tabberer (DE-418)—a new breed of ship designed primarily to protect convoys—was named for one of the Navy’s first heroes of the war in the Pacific.
    Shortly before the U.S. Marines hit the beach at Guadalcanal on August 7, 1942, the aircraft carrier Saratoga (CV-3), steaming offshore, turned into the wind to launch a combat air patrol. Among the planes airborne that morning was an F4F Wildcat—the Navy’s best carrier-based fighter at the time but inferior to Japan’s top fighter, the Zero, in speed, maneuverability, and range—piloted by Lieutenant ( j.g.)