Hello and welcome to episode 211 of the unauthorized history of the Pacific War podcast.

My name is Seth Perriden, historian and deputy director of the Mississippi Armed Forces Museum here at Camp Shelby. And with me, as always, it's my esteemed

co-host, retired Navy Captain Bill Toaddy, former skipper the Fast Tech submarine

U.S.S. Indianapolis, Commodore of Submarine Squad and Three of Pearl Harbor and many other

assignments. How are you this afternoon, Bill? Doing great, Seth. Really,

really anxious to get into Colomongara today.

We're going to cover a couple of events here, yeah.

And they're both intimately related, both with one another and the event that we just

talked about in our previous episode, which of course was Kula Golf.

So on the night of July 6, 1943, speaking

of Kula Gulf, an American cruiser and destroyer force under the command of Admiral Walden

Ainsworth engaged in inferior Japanese troop transport convoy of destroyers and proceeded to slug

it out with the Japanese as a fast and furious barrage of gunfire and a bevy of long-lamps torpedoes.

The fight, known in the history as the Battle of Cooligolf, ended in a sort of a draw, in my opinion, and I know in Bill's opinion, too, it's an actual defeat for the United States.

While the Americans inflicted damage on the enemy and sunk one destroyer in the process, the U.S. suffered the loss of the light cruiser Helena and allowed the Japanese to complete their mission of landing infantry reinforcements on New Georgia, albeit not fully.

Just six nights later, the Japanese would try to run another troop convoy into the area to add more meat to the fight that was as late, turning into a bit of a stalemate on the jungle island of New Georgia.

Again, that fleet would be met by Ainsworth and his cruiser and destroyer task force, and again, the fight would be fast and furious, and again, the results would be less than stellar and less than what they should have been.

A month later, the seas around New Georgia, and the surrounding islands brewed up into yet another naval engagement, this time, off of the shores of the aforementioned Colum Bengara, but this time in the Vela Gulf.

New tactics were tried by the Americans in this one, and the results achieved would dictate further U.S. destroyer tactics for the remainder of the war. And we'll get to

call it. We'll get to Vela Golf in a second. But let's talk about Vela Golf first, Bill.

Let's, it's basically, if you listen to Kula Golf, it's basically this same cast of characters

minus Helena, isn't it? Yeah.

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