Challenge for the Pacific: Guadalcanal: The Turning Point of the War
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Jack Read in the north of Bougainville and Paul Mason in the south at Buin were to be caught and killed.
Hunting dogs were shipped into Buin and kept there in a wire cage while a patrol of a hundred soldiers was brought up from the island’s southern tip at Kahili.
Mason’s scouts quickly discovered the dogs, and Mason signaled their location to the Americans. A Catalina flew over Buin and dropped a bomb.
“Killed the lot,” Mason signaled cheerfully, before departing Buin for the towering green-black mountains that ran down Bougainville’s north-south spine. After him came the Japanese patrol. Between the two moved the ever-faithful scouts, reporting every enemy movement or sending the patrol panting up the wrong slopes. Exhausted, convinced that no effete westerner could survive in such horrible terrain, the Japanese withdrew.
Paul Mason returned to his hideout in Buin. He resumed broadcasting with a report of the enemy’s failure. Then he sent this ominous message:
“At least 61 ships this area: 2 Nati-class cruisers, 1 Aoba, 1 Mogami, 1 Kiso, 1 Tatuta, 2 sloops, 33 destroyers, 17 cargo, 2 tankers, 1 passenger liner of 8,000 tons.”1
It was this message, joined to the reports of tirelessly searching Flying Forts and Catalinas, which sent the last American carrier force in the Pacific tearing north again.
Big E was coming back to battle a cripple, but coming back because Bull Halsey was throwing even half-ships and cockleshells into America’s desperate struggle to save Guadalcanal.
Since the day Enterprise had staggered from Santa Cruz into the hill-girdled harbor of Nouméa, a battalion of Seabees, all of repair-ship Vulcan’s crew, and the carrier’s own craftsmen had been working around the clock to put her back in shape. Enterprise had lain there beside the dozing little French colonial town with its dainty white replica of Notre Dame de Paris crowning the harbor, while her decks rattled to the incessant pounding of air-hammers, while even the nights winked and twinkled with the spark and sputter of welder’s torches, and while other ships sped north with the last of Admiral Halsey’s available troops.
Six thousand of them, Marines and soldiers of the 182nd Infantry Regiment, had been rushed to Guadalcanal to even the 30,000-to-23,000 numerical superiority now possessed by the enemy.
The first group, the Marines, had arrived on November 11 in a convoy commanded by Rear Admiral Norman Scott. Even as they hurried ashore, the enemy struck with the two air raids which ended the aerial doldrums and underlined Halsey’s warning to Vandegrift. The only damage was in near-misses suffered by transport Zeilin, while eleven enemy aircraft were shot down against seven Wildcats lost.
The second group led by Admiral Turner and carrying the 182nd Infantry Regiment was due to arrive the following day, November 12.
So also, Admiral Halsey learned, would the aircraft and battleships of Admiral Kondo’s huge fleet.
Only Enterprise, still needing ten days of repairs, battleships South Dakota—also crippled—and Washington, two cruisers and eight destroyers could offset this powerful enemy concentration.
Halsey ordered them back.
On November 11, Seabees and Vulcan-crew and all, Enterprise stood out of Nouméa. She made the open sea with her decks still shaking and echoing to air-hammers, with welder’s arcs still sparking, with a big bulge in her right side forward, without watertight integrity and one oil tank still leaking, and with her forward elevator still jammed as it had been since the bomb at Santa Cruz broke in half.
Fortunately, the elevator was stuck at the flight-deck level. Or at least it was thought to be. No one, not even Bull Halsey, would have dared to press the “Down” button to find out. If the elevator went down and did not come up again, there would be a big square hole in the flight deck and Enterprise would be useless.
Thus, depending on her after elevators to bring planes to and from the hangars below, Enterprise sailed back to battle only half a carrier. With her, though, were screening ships powerful enough to take on Admiral Kondo’s sluggers.
If they could get there in time.
If …
This time there would be no complicated Japanese Army timetable of attack to work in their favor. This time all depended on a favorable wind.
If it blew from the north Enterprise could launch her planes without having to turn around. But if it blew from the south, the big ship would have to turn into the wind to launch. Leaving Nouméa behind and entering radio silence, Admiral Kinkaid stood bareheaded on Big E’s bridge and saw that the luck of Santa Cruz had forsaken him.
It was a south wind.
Far to the north, the weather favored the Japanese.
At three o’clock in the morning of November 12, Admiral Abe had detached his battleships and three destroyers from Admiral Kondo’s main body. He had sailed south for the Shortlands, making rendezvous with Nagara and eleven more destroyers, among them Amatsukaze under Commander Hara.
They sped down The Slot to bombard Henderson Field, and they ran into a fortuitous rain squall.
Thick clouds clotted overhead. Rain fell in sheets. The sky darkened as though night had fallen, and Abe jubilantly ordered his ships to keep on course at a steady eighteen knots.
Some of Abe’s staff officers aboard flagship Hiei objected. Although the squall certainly would protect the ships against surprise attack, it also made it dangerous to keep plowing ahead in complex formation.
Admiral Abe had formed his fleet into a tight double crescent. Half the destroyers formed a leading arc about five miles ahead of Nagara and the other destroyers, which formed a second arc. Following in column were Hiei and Kirishima better than a mile apart. Some of Abe’s officers thought the fleet should slow down, or else risk collision in the darkness, but Abe replied:
“We must maintain this speed to reach the target area in good time.”2
Charging south almost blindly, his men sweating despite the drenching rain, Admiral Abe pressed ahead.
And the covering squall stayed with him at the same speed.
“Twenty-four torpedo bombers headed yours.”
The message was from Paul Mason at Buin, and it was acted upon immediately by the second group of American ships in Iron Bottom Bay.
Kelly Turner had brought them in early that morning of November 12. They had begun unloading hurriedly, and the 182nd Infantry was already ashore by the time Mason’s warning was received. A few minutes later the Wildcats were taking off and Turner had broken off unloading. He set his transports in two parallel columns of three ships each and sailed them toward Savo. Around them cruisers and destroyers bristled with antiaircraft barrels.
Shortly after two o’clock the Bettys were sighted circling over eastern Florida Island. They had formed two groups, north and south, to make the customary “anvil” attack from both sides. Turner deliberately baited the northern group by turning right to give them his ships’ broadsides.
The Bettys came boring in.
A ferocious storm of steel swept among them. One by one they began to crash into the sea, but many of them still dropped their torpedoes.
Turner swung his ships left. Only his narrow sterns beckoned to the Bettys, and their torpedoes ran harmlessly by either side of the transports.
To the south, Wildcats from Henderson ripped through the second group. Eight minutes after the enemy attack began, it was over and only one of the twenty-four Bettys, and five of eight escorting Zeros, had survived.
Destroyer Buchanan, damaged during that storm of American antiaircraft fire, was put out of action and sent home, while the heavy cruiser San Francisco had been slightly damaged by an enemy suicider who had deliberately crashed into the after control station.
Satisfied, Kelly Turner turned his ships around and resumed unloading.
Hiroaki Abe was jubilant. He actually chortled his delight with “This blessed squall.”3 His spirits rose higher upon receiving a report from the scout plane he had launched before entering the storm. It said: “More than a dozen warships seen off Lunga.”4
Heaven, it seemed, had no intention of deserting him; for the storm still raged around his ships.
Rainfall on Guadalcanal muffled Carlson’s Raiders in their approach to an unsuspecting company of Japanese. Guided by Sergeant Major Vouza, the Raiders had moved stealthily up narrow native trails to the tiny village of Asimana on the upper Metapona River. They saw, to their satisfaction, that many of the enemy were bathing in the river. Colonel Carlson waited patiently until his men were in position. Then, he spoke one word:
“Fire!”
There were only a few minutes of massacre. Not one of 120 Japanese soldiers survived. The Raiders left their unburied bodies there to rot in the jungle, quickly resuming their pursuit of the harried Colonel Shoji.
The prospect of foul weather as a cloak to conceal the movement of the Tokyo Express did little to cheer Rear Admiral Raizo Tanaka, sortying from the Shortlands that afternoon. Aboard flagship Hayashio, Tanaka led twelve destroyers, eleven transports and 14,000 men toward Tassafaronga. But he had no faith in the fickle Solomons weather, and he also still thought that it was foolhardy to attempt to reinforce Guadalcanal in the face of Henderson’s air power. Tanaka did not think that Abe would be able to demolish the field any more than Kurita had done so a month ago, and he wondered how many of his ships were going to survive.6
As Tanaka’s ships neared Bougainville the weather began clearing.
Jack Read was on the run.
Having been warned by his scouts that the Japanese at Buka Passage were coming after him, he had notified Australia and been advised to flee, maintaining radio silence.
Read moved confidently into the high mountains on northern Bougainville. On the second day of his flight, November 12, a hot hazy morning sun turned into an afternoon downpour. Read and his scouts and the carriers bearing the teleradio slipped and swore while climbing higher to elude the pursuing Japanese.
They reached a mountain peak just as the rain stopped. Sunlight poured through a hole in rapidly dissolving clouds. The mists parted and the horizon became clear. Sailing down it in orderly formation were eleven large Japanese transports protected by twelve destroyers.
They were heading southeast.
Jack Read ordered his radio set up immediately and began broadcasting.
Although the storm was staying with Hiroaki Abe he had no reason to be so confident.
An American Catalina had sighted and reported him early that morning, even as he made rendezvous with Commander Hara’s column, and now, Jack Read had warned Kelly Turner of the Tokyo Express’s approach.
Turner realized immediately that this was the enemy’s big push.
Abe’s big ships were either out to sink Turner’s transports or bombard Henderson Field. Kelly Turner was confident that he could lead the transports, already ninety per cent unloaded, south to safety.
But what of Henderson Field?
It must not be bombarded. It must not because the planes of Cactus Air Force would then be unable to rise to intercept the enemy reinforcements—the heart of the entire Japanese operation—the planes from Enterprise would not be able to land on Guadalcanal to join them, and because one more day, at least, must be gained to allow Admiral Kinkaid’s powerful battleships time enough to enter the battle.
But to save the airfield, to gain the day, to stop the powerful enemy on this ominous and onrushing night of Thursday the twelfth and Friday the thirteenth, Kelly Turner had only two heavy and three light cruisers and eight destroyers. Nevertheless, he ordered them to halt the enemy—to stop the bombardment at all costs.
Turner gave command of this force to Rear Admiral Daniel Callaghan.
Admiral Callaghan had been Vice-Admiral Ghormley’s chief of staff. It was Callaghan who had sat in silence at the acrimonious conference in the Fijis during which Frank Jack Fletcher had curtly advised Turner and Vandegrift that they would receive minimum carrier support for the invasion of Guadalcanal. After Halsey had relieved Ghormley, bringing his own chief of staff with him, Callaghan had gone back to sea.
He belonged there. Handsome with his shock of thick white hair and his jet-black eyebrows, his large dreamy eyes and straight, strong features, he might have been an ancient Celtic wanderer sailing a tossing coracle toward some undiscovered shore. Even his men idolized him, as does not happen often in any navy, and they called him “Uncle Dan.”
But he had neither the experience nor the training for the mission given to him by Turner.
Callaghan was chosen because he was senior to Norman Scott, the victor of Cape Esperance, who was also in the Bay aboard his flag cruiser Atlanta. Scott’s very victory also seems to have had inordinate influence on Callaghan, for he formed his ships in the same sort of column which had crossed the T on Aritomo Goto a month before.
Americans had yet to learn that the column was not the best formation to employ against the night-fighting, torpedo-firing Japanese. But it was chosen because of Cape Esperance, because it made maneuvering in narrow waters less risky, and because, presumably, it made communication between ships easier. So Callaghan set his ships in column: destroyers Cushing, Laffey, Sterett, and O’Bannon in the lead, heavy cruisers Atlanta, San Francisco, and Portland, followed by lights Helena and Juneau in the center; and in the rear, destroyers Aaron Ward, Barton, Monssen, and Fletcher. Unfortunately, Callaghan did not make good use of his best radar ships. They were not in the lead; moreover, Atlanta with inferior radar was ahead of San Francisco with excellent radar. Finally, no plan of battle was issued.
Nevertheless, for all of these oversights and omissions, the Americans led by Callaghan and Scott did possess that single quality which, so often in this desperate struggle, had extricated the unwary or unwise from a defeat of their own devising.
And that was valor.
The Tokyo Express was turning around.
Shortly before midnight Admiral Tanaka received word from Combined Fleet that the landing at Tassafaronga had been delayed until the morning of November 14. Admiral Mikawa was going to follow up Admiral Abe’s bombardment by shelling Henderson Field on the night of November 13, rather than on the morning of that day.
From flagship Hayashio came the signal to reverse course and retire to the Shortlands.
There was tension on Guadalcanal. It was almost a living quality, like the gases composing the atmosphere. It was a quivering electric dread attuned to the jagged flashes of lightning flitting over the island in the wake of the clearing rain. It was brittle, like the emergent bright stars overhead.
General Vandegrift felt it. He was aware of Abe’s approach, and of the outgunned fleet which Admiral Callaghan had to oppose him. The general’s staff also knew that this was the night. They went to bed not only fully clad, as was customary on Guadalcanal, but wearing pistol belts and clutching hand grenades. Some of them expected to use these in the morning. So did all of Vandegrift’s men, crouching beside their guns or perched on the edge of their holes. They spoke in low voices, often pausing to glance fearfully at the sky or to look furtively over their shoulders. It was as though they expected the enemy from every quarter. Upon the sinking of the new moon beneath the dark mountains their voices became hushed and whispering.
Out on the Bay a nine-knot easterly breeze blew gently into the faces of Callaghan’s lookouts. At ten o’clock, Callaghan saw Turner’s transports safely out of the eastern entrance, and reversed course toward Savo. His ships were still in column. He would make no attempt to flank the approaching Abe to launch torpedoes.
It was to be a straight-ahead plunge aimed at the enemy battleships.
It was now Friday the thirteenth and Admiral Abe’s divine squall had fallen behind.
Hiei and Kirishima and their fifteen sister furies had sailed away from the storm after the admiral had reformed his scattered formation. At half-past one, one of Amatsukaze’s lookouts cried, “Small island, 60 deg
rees to left.”
Commander Hara looked to his left and saw the black round silhouette of Savo Island.
“Prepare for gun and torpedo attack to starboard!” Hara shouted. “Gun range, three thousand meters. Torpedo firing angle, fifteen degrees.”7
Aboard Hiei, Admiral Abe was studying reports. General Hyakutake’s headquarters had radioed that the rain had cleared on Guadalcanal. Scout planes had taken off from Bougainville. There were still no reports of enemy ships. Confident and elated, Abe ordered Hiei and Kirishima to prepare for bombardment. Type-3 shells, thin-skinned 2000-pound projectiles each containing hundreds of incendiary bombs, were stacked on the decks around the 14-inch gun turrets.
A quarter hour later, from Hiei’s own masthead lookout came the frantic shout: “Four black objects ahead … look like warships. Five degrees to starboard. Eight thousand meters … unsure yet.”
From Hiei’s bridge came the cry, “Is eight thousand correct? Confirm.”
“It may be nine thousand, sir.”8
Hiroaki Abe was stunned. He had thought to bombard Guadalcanal unchallenged. He had piled the decks of his precious battleships with huge shells that needed but a single enemy hit to detonate them and turn Hiei and Kirishima into floating holocausts.
“Replace all those incendiaries with armor piercing,” he yelled. “Set turrets for firing forward.”9 Abe staggered to his chair and waited in agony. It would take at least ten minutes to change over.
And the range between forces was closing rapidly.
The Americans had sighted the Japanese and they had sighted them first.
Cushing at the head of the column had nearly collided with onrushing Yudachi and Harusame. Lieutenant Commander Edward Parker flashed the word and turned hard left to avoid collision. Behind him, his quick turn had piled up the American column.
“What are you doing?” Admiral Callaghan asked Atlanta, directly ahead of him.