1943-08-02
Loss of PT-109
Blackett Strait, between Kolombangara and Arundel
On the night of 1–2 August 1943, fifteen motor torpedo boats went up from Rendova to stop a run into Vila, on Kolombangara. Commander Warfield's report puts them in four divisions. Off Vanga Vanga: PT-159, PT-157, PT-162, and PT-109. Off Gatere: PT-171, PT-169, PT-172, and PT-163. East of Makuti Island: PT-174, PT-105, and PT-103. South of Ferguson Passage: PT-107, PT-104, PT-106, and PT-108. The section leaders had radar. They fired, and several were ordered home when their torpedoes were gone. The report counted five destroyers and claimed five or six torpedo hits. The Japanese records name four ships: Arashi and Hagikaze carrying the troops, Amagiri and Shigure as cover. No hit on those four is confirmed. PT-162, PT-109, and PT-169 were left idling off Vanga Vanga, headed south. Around two in the morning Amagiri, headed north, took PT-109 on the starboard side and broke the wooden hull in two. Harold Marney and Andrew Kirksey were killed. The other eleven reached the islands. Before dawn on 8 August, PT-157 took them off, with PT-171 in company. Whether Amagiri's captain aimed the bow is still argued.
Sunk in this fight
One ship.
Created for this encyclopedia, not a scanned historical map. Base map: Natural Earth, public domain; the coast is generalized. North is up. Not a surveyed track. The red pin is the collision, at about 08°03' S, 156°58' E. That figure is from a chronology entry, and no report read gives a latitude and longitude, so it is approximate. The blue arrow is the heading of PT-109, PT-162, and PT-169 before the collision, south, from the Navy's report on the loss of PT-109. The red arrow is Amagiri's heading at the collision, north, then circling left toward Gizo Island, from the same report. The curve is illustrative. The sources give no coordinates for the Japanese column, so no route is drawn. The accounts differ on the time: 0227 in one, about 2:30 in another.
