Ships
- USS Little (APD-4) In command, 7 August 1942
Gus Brynolf Lofberg, Jr., was born in Manitou, Michigan, on 6 April 1903. He graduated from Grand Haven High School in 1921 and from the United States Naval Academy on 2 June 1927, with the class of that year. Oakland, California, was the home town recorded for him as a midshipman. In the peacetime fleet he served in the light cruiser Concord, the destroyers William B. Preston and MacLeish, the stores ship Arctic, and the battleship California.
He was promoted to lieutenant on 1 July 1936 and to lieutenant commander on 1 January 1942. Early in 1942 he received his first command, the high-speed transport Little (APD-4). She had begun life in 1918 as a Wickes-class destroyer, spent the 1920s out of commission, and returned to service in November 1940 after conversion to carry raiding troops. Boat davits and a reduced gun battery replaced much of the armament a destroyer would have taken into a surface fight.
Little shifted to the Pacific and in July 1942 sailed for the South Pacific. On 7 August 1942, with Lofberg in command, she was among the fast transports at the Guadalcanal and Tulagi landings. Through the rest of that month she remained in the southern Solomons, moving Marines and supplies for the force holding Guadalcanal.
On 4 September Little and the transport Gregory landed a detachment of Marine raiders on Savo Island after a report that Japanese troops had occupied it. The island was empty of the enemy, and the raiders were taken back to Lunga Point. The two ships then patrolled off the point rather than feel their way into Tulagi harbor in the dark.
Gun flashes to the east in the early hours of 5 September came from a Japanese destroyer force shelling the American shore. A patrol plane dropped flares over the sound, and the light fell across Little and Gregory. Searchlights picked the transports out, and the destroyers opened fire. Lofberg took Little toward the heavier ships. Her small battery scored hits while she tried to draw clear, and she kept firing until salvos left her burning and helpless around 1:15 a.m. The Japanese column steamed between the two wrecks, shelling the hulls and strafing men in the water. Gregory sank stern first about 1:40. Little stayed afloat on an even keel for about two hours more and then went down. Lofberg, 39, was lost with her.
He was listed missing in action. His body was never recovered, and on 6 September 1943 he was declared dead. His name is carried on the Tablets of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery. For his conduct that night the Navy awarded him the Silver Star after his death. A new destroyer took his name: Lofberg (DD-759) was launched at Bethlehem Steel in San Francisco on 12 August 1944, sponsored by his widow, and commissioned on 26 April 1945. He was survived by his wife, Norma Costella Lofberg of Santa Cruz, and their daughter, Lynn. He had sent them to Santa Cruz, near his mother, when he went to sea.