The USS Gamble in the South Pacific - World War Two

EXCERPTS FROM THE BOOK: There were fourteen Japanese ships, all destroyers and cruisers: a formidable batch of firepower if they should catch the poorly armed minelayers. By now, darkness had settled in and with it came a series of line squalls that made it impossible to see from ship to ship. Lightning blazed down from the fronts, rain fell in buckets, and the wind howled. Still the four-stackers plowed on. Over towards Savo Island, the PT Boats were still slugging it out with the Japanese navy. PTs 37, 311, and 123 would not return to base that night. There was no time for salvage, no time for the Japs to tow their 1900-ton destroyer to safer waters, no time for much of anything except to open her sea cocks and let the sea claim the first Japanese vessel to fall victim to an American offensive minefield. The minefield, so carefully laid by the GAMBLE, PREBLE, AND BREESE, claimed at least three of Japan's fighting ships within 24 hours after completing their mission. One of Aiso's marine guards told the CPO that he had hoped that the Japanese prisoner [who had starved his own men] would do something while being transferred to justify shooting him. It remained for an old "four piper," an ex-DD, to wipe out the first of the subs that went down in the enemy's Guadalcanal offensive. The old timer was the USS GAMBLE.