It is not an unnamed source, it is a highly credible source, it was General George Scratchley Brown, a little from his wiki page
George Scratchley Brown (1918–1978) was a United States Air Force general who served as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In this
capacity, he served as the senior military adviser to the President of the United States, the National Security Council and the Secretary of Defense.
Through the commanders of the unified and specified commands, he was also responsible for executing the decisions of the National Command Authorities
regarding worldwide readiness and employment of combat forces of the United States Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps.
Wiki
He states there were two battles, in the first, an Australian Destroyer class ship was hit and took damage, this was reported in a press conference,
but the press (including CBS) never broadcasted the information
The problem with this however is, there is nothing to confirm this, no date for the press conference, nor location. nothing to back up the claims
being made here at all, its like me saying Obama told the world he had a meeting with aliens in press conference, its just BS without more to back it
up.
Perhaps is any of our Australian friends know of any Destroyer in the area at teh time that took some damage we could look into it more