USS Waller (DD/DDE-466), a Fletcher-class destroyer, was a ship of the United States Navy named for Major General Littleton Waller, USMC (1856–1926). Waller was laid down on 12 February 1942, at Kearny, N.J., by the Federal Shipbuilding and Drydock Co.; launched on 15 August 1942, sponsored by Mrs. Littleton W. T. Waller, the widow of General Waller; and commissioned on 1 October 1942, Lieutenant Commander Laurence H. Frost in command. World War II Into the fall of 1942, Waller conducted shakedown out of Casco Bay, Maine, and occasionally performed local escort duties for training submarines based at New London, Conn. Late that fall, Waller departed the New York Navy Yard, Brooklyn, N.Y., bound for the Pacific, via the Panama Canal and Pearl Harbor. She arrived at Efate on 21 January 1943 and, six days later, sortied as part of the destroyer screen with Task Force 18 (TF 18). Rear Admiral Robert C. Giffen, commanding the force, flew his flag in Wichita (CA-45). The mission of TF 18 was to rendezvous off Guadalcanal with a transport force sent to resupply and reinforce the land-based forces there in their struggle to dislodge the Japanese from the key island. Intelligence reports indicated—wrongly, as it turned out—that the Japanese were mounting a big "push" to resupply their forces. As events would show, they were instead massing forces to evacuate their troops. Rennel Island, January 1943 On 29 January, 50 miles (80 km) to the north of Rennell Island, Japanese torpedo-carrying "Betty" bombers (Mitsubishi G4M-1s) came in low from the east carefully avoiding silhouetting themselves against the afterglow of dusk. Waller, on the starboard beam of flagship Wichita and cruisers (CA-29) and (CA-28), came under machine-gun fire from the lead "Betty" as it bore in on the attack. The American ships responded with heavy fire toward the first two planes, and one cartwheeled into the sea and exploded in a brilliant fireball. Soon red, green, and white flares gave the scene an eerie, ghostly effect, as the Japanese set off pyrotechnics to illuminate the American force. At 19:31, another flight of "Betties" appeared and pressed their attacks on the heavy cruisers steaming in the right van of the task force. One "Betty" splashed into the sea astern of Waller, before another enemy aircraft scored a torpedo hit on Chicago at 19:45, holing the cruiser's starboard side forward, and stopping three of the ship's four drive-shafts.