On the last day of June, 1943, three PTs packed a company of riflemen on their deck. With 36 small Army landing boats, the PTs sortied into a foul sea, lashed by high winds and rain. Total naval escort for the amphibious armada was PT 168, which presumably was in better fighting trim than the others, because it carried no seasick passengers. PT 168 promptly lost its convoy in the storm.
The Flying Shamrock (PT 142) missed the landing beach at Nassau Bay and did a countermarch. In the rain and darkness, the Shamrock beat the astronomical odds against such an accident by ramming the tiny PT 143, to the alarm of the miserable foot soldiers on both boats.
The Army landing craft scattered in the storm, and the two PTs had to round them up and guide them to the beach, where several broached in the high surf and were abandoned. Short of landing craft to put their own sea-weary passengers ashore, the PTs had to carry them back to the staging area.
Despite the less than 100 per cent efficiency of the operation, the few American soldiers who had reached the beach threw the Japanese garrison into a panic. A lucky bomb hit had killed their able commander, and without his support the 300 Japanese assigned to guard Nassau Bay broke and fled before the insignificant Allied invasion force.
Puny as they were, the landings at Nassau Bay threw the Japanese high command into a flap. They saw clearly, possibly even more clearly than the Allies, that the Nassau Bay beachhead was going to unhinge the whole Japanese gate across the Allied path. The landings also paid an unexpected bonus far to the east, where American soldiers were landing on Rendova Island, as part of the island-hopping advance up the central Solomons toward the eastern hinge of the Japanese gate. The Japanese at Rabaul were so alarmed by the minuscule PT operation at Nassau Bay that they jammed their own radio circuits with alarms and outcries. The Japanese at Rendova couldn’t get anybody to listen to their anguished cries for help, and the American troops went ashore with almost no air opposition.
Ashore on Huon Gulf, the Australians still had the uncomfortable job of convincing the stubborn Japanese foot soldiers that they were doomed, and previously the only way to convince them had been to kill them by bullets or starvation. The PTs tightened the blockade by night.
Just before the end at Finschhafen, when the Japanese were getting ready to give up the Huon Gulf, barge traffic increased. It was the same story as the earlier abandonment of Buna, Gona, and Sanananda. The Japanese were slipping out by night.
On the night between August 28th and 29th, two PTs patrolled off Finschhafen. Ensign Herbert P. Knight was skipper of the 152; Lieut. (jg) John L. Carey was skipper of The Flying Shamrock (PT 142). Riding the Shamrock, in command of the operation, was a most distinguished PT sailor, Lieut. John Bulkeley, rescuer of MacArthur, back from his tour in the United States as the number one naval hero of the Philippines campaign.
Lookouts spotted three barges, and one went down under the first attack by the two PT boats, but the other two were still afloat after the third firing run. Ensign Knight dropped depth charges alongside, but the barges rode out the blast and were still afloat when the geysers of sea water settled. Lieut. Carey made a depth-charge run and blew one of the barges apart, but the other still survived.
Aboard the Shamrock, Bulkeley decided to finish the job in the old-fashioned way—by hand.