corvettes supposedly on station. When an unintelligible reply was received in return and the ship turned away and made smoke, Waller recognised the silhouette of a Japanese destroyer (), turned north to follow and opened fire at 23:15. Fubuki was behind Houston when the Allied ships turned north and she fired nine older 61-centimetre Type 90 torpedoes as she turned in pursuit as well as 16 rounds from her guns; all of which missed. Realizing that Waller was reacting to the nearby destroyer movements, Hara cancelled his plan when Waller opened fire and summoned all of his ships to attack. Harukazes sister was the first to close firing her guns at Perth before she turned northeast at 23:38. The cruiser was struck twice by light shells, once at 23:26 and again six minutes later, but was only slightly damaged. Shortly before 23:40, the destroyers and closed to before emptying all nine of their torpedo tubes and turning away under the cover of smoke. Perth hit the latter's bridge with a six-inch shell, killing 1 man and wounding 11 more. None of these torpedoes hit their targets and Waller's ships continued to loop around to the south and west. Harukaze, Hatakaze and their sister closed to attack, although the former ship was struck at least three times by Allied shells that killed three men and wounded 15. She was forced to fall out of formation and Hatakaze could not fire because of the frequent near-misses surrounding the cruisers. Asakaze was able to fire her six torpedoes, but they missed as well. At 23:44 Natori engaged Perth with 29 shells from her guns and fired four torpedoes with no known effect before turning away two minutes later. By this time, the destroyers were no longer in the line of fire of the heavy cruisers and her sister which targeted Perth with six torpedoes each at a range of at 23:49, none of which hit their target. About this time Perth and Houston began shooting at the Japanese heavy cruisers, but consistently shot ahead of them, possibly because both ships were streaming paravanes which increased the size their bow waves and made the Allied ships overestimate their speed. Perth received an inconsequential hit around 23:50. After reversing course and slightly closing the range, Mogami and Mikuma opened fire at Houston with their main guns at a range of at 23:52 using their searchlights.