That's pretty cool, your relation to the Battle of Komandorski. The two heavy cruisers the Japanese brought to the islands were the Nachi and the Maya. The Salt Lake City in that battle hit the Nachi several times but was damaged by the shock of its own guns when the gunfire caused damage to the hydraulic steering system making the ship very difficult to steer. Then the ship received a hit from the Japanese causing it to list 5 degrees to port. A mistake by the damage control team caused the ship to lose power and she went dead in the water.
Rear Admiral Charles H. McMorris then ordered the destroyers in the flotilla to commence a torpedo attack on the Japanese ships. As you said though, Vice Admiral Hosagaya broke off the engagement before they could get into range which cost him his career being relegated to the naval reserve.
That's all I know about that battle, if you have any additional stories you heard in your family I'd be interested to hear them.
The second thing was Salt Lake City began running out of armor-piercing rounds and had to switch over to shore bombardment rounds. These shells had different colored marking dye and they exploded as soon as they hit the water, convincing Hosogaya that he was being attacked by American bombers hiding up in the clouds. He was already jumpy about US airpower, having witnessed its devastation at Midway, so now he took council with his fears and ran for home.