Ships
- USS Dunlap (DD-384) Captain from 21 April 1943 · Relieved on 22 August 1944 · He had her at Vella Gulf
Clifton Iverson was born on 7 August 1908 in Badger, Minnesota. He graduated from the United States Naval Academy with the class of 1931 and was promoted to lieutenant on 1 July 1939. Wartime advancement came quickly. He became a temporary lieutenant commander on 15 June 1942 and a temporary commander on 1 November 1942.
On 21 April 1943 he took command of the destroyer Dunlap. She was a prewar Mahan-class ship that had already served in the Pacific, and he remained her captain until he was relieved on 22 August 1944. His tour carried her into the Solomons, where American destroyers were being sent to break up Japanese attempts to reinforce their garrisons by night.
Late in July 1943 Dunlap reached Guadalcanal and began operating among the islands. Early in August, Commander Frederick Moosbrugger assembled a task group of six destroyers for a sweep of Vella Gulf, and the conference that fixed the plan was held aboard Dunlap at Purvis Bay. Moosbrugger kept his own division for the torpedo attack, with Dunlap as flagship and Craven and Maury alongside. A second division of three destroyers was to follow and engage with gunfire.
On the night of 6–7 August 1943 the force entered Vella Gulf to meet Japanese destroyers carrying reinforcements toward Kolombangara. American radar found the enemy first. From the dark side of the island, Moosbrugger’s division launched a coordinated torpedo attack. Three of the four Japanese ships, Hagikaze, Arashi, and Kawakaze, went down. Shigure got away. Dunlap came through the action undamaged and with her crew intact, and the American group as a whole suffered no losses.
Iverson received the Navy Cross for his handling of Dunlap that night. The award recognized the timing of the torpedo attack and the fact that he brought his ship through the fight without harm. Vella Gulf was the battle that defined his command of her.
He stayed in Dunlap after the action. The ship returned to the United States for an overhaul at San Diego, and on 23 November 1943 she sailed for Alaskan waters, where she spent a short period on patrol out of Adak. He left her on 22 August 1944.
On 10 February 1945 he took command of the new destroyer Hawkins and remained with her until 4 October 1945, through the last months of the war and the first weeks after the surrender. He retired from the Navy as a captain. Clifton Iverson died on 9 September 1976.