70 years ago today, on July 6, 1943, during the naval Battle of Kula Gulf, my uncle, William Brighenti, helped rescue wounded, burned, and drowning sailors from the shark-infested waters off the coast of Kolombangara in the Solomon Islands. He was serving on one of four destroyers, the USS Radford, sent to intercept the Tokyo Express from delivering troop reinforcements on Kolombangara.
During that battle, the USS Helena, a cruiser, was hit by the Japanese destroyers, Suzukaza and Tanikaze, and sank quickly, sending its crew of 900 sailors into the South Pacific sea. At risk of being sunk by Japanese destroyers, the US destroyers, the Radford and Nicholas, remained to rescue over 700 sailors from the Helena, the Radford crew alone saving 468 and the Nicholas 291 sailors of the Helena.
Above are two photos of the destroyers, the Helena and the Radford. The first photograph--and likely its last photo--is of the doomed ship, the Helena, unleashing a salvo from her main battery guns during the Battle of Kula Gulf. The photo was taken from a nearby ship.
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The second photograph shows the Radford--her decks overloaded with survivors--entering Tulagi Harbor the morning after the Helena’s sinking. The rescue destroyers had to depart Kula Gulf at daylight due to the threat of enemy air attacks.
As a young boy, fishing with my uncle for blacks, sea bass, and flats on the dock at Niantic, I would listen to my uncle recall that night of scorching oil fires, the screams of sailors being burned and the shouts of others for help, the explosions and sinking of ships, the drowned bodies of sailors, and the sightings of sharks in the seas looking for prey.
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He told me how he and his shipmates on the USS Radford nevertheless risked their own lives to rescue the injured sailors from the Helena in spite of the presence of Japanese destroyers nearby and the threat of Japanese air attacks.
And so in my uncle's memory, and in memory of those other brave sailors who risked their lives to save their fellow sailors, I publish this blog recounting their bravery and selflessness seventy years later to the very day. I thank and honor them for their service.
