Subsequently, "Yūbari" and her destroyers participated in the capture of Rabaul and New Ireland in the Solomon Islands, followed by the Invasion of Salamaua–Lae on 8 March 1942. On 10 March, she was attacked by two Douglas SBD-3 Dauntless dive bombers from the aircraft carrier , which scored two severe near-misses that killed a number of her anti-aircraft gun crews. She was then strafed by four Grumman F4F-3 Wildcat fighters from "Lexington", which killed her executive officer and several crewmen on her bridge. The following morning she was attacked again by aircraft from . "Yorktown"'s SBD-3s detonated gunpowder bags near her No. 2 turret, which set the protective mattresses around the bridge on fire, and an F4F-3 strafing run detonated gasoline drums stored in her port lifeboat. Firefighting teams found the fire hoses too short due to a design error and the fire threatened the forward torpedo mount. The captain ordered the torpedoes jettisoned but the mount would not rotate due to a power failure, forcing the crew to use pulleys and ropes to dump the torpedoes manually. During this battle "Yūbari" evaded 67 bombs and 12 torpedoes, suffering 13 killed and 49 wounded. She was bombed again on 10 March by four USAAF B-17 Flying Fortress bombers while returning to Rabaul with four near-misses opening three large holes in her stern. She returned to Truk for repairs on 25 March.