by John Prados
Meanwhile the Hornet restored some power, hoping to get under way—crucial, since an attempt to tow her failed. Her bucket brigades had prevented the fires from getting out of control, and chemical foam began to contain them. Destroyers Morris and Russell hove alongside and strung fire hoses, and then Hornet sailors really quelled the blazes. Commander Edward P. Crehan, chief engineer, decided several boilers could be relit and, by rerouting steam, might work the turbine of at least one shaft. Cruiser Northampton got a towline across and began to pull. The line parted but the Hornet moved, at least for a time. Combined with the disappearance of fires, this confused the next shift of Japanese scouts, who began reporting a third U.S. carrier. However, there could be no doubt the flattop had been stricken. Rear Admiral George D. Murray, the force commander, shifted his flag to heavy cruiser Pensacola at noon. A couple of hours later Captain Mason reluctantly decided Hornet was endangered, ordering all but essential sailors off the ship. Almost 900 seamen decamped to destroyers. Gradual flooding continued, and Hornet began to list. Mason warned his remaining men to prepare to leave.
Coxwain Richard J. Nowatzki was among the damage control party, his battle station as a sight setter on the aftermost starboard-side five-inch antiaircraft mount. Once the initial evacuation had been completed, shortly before 3:00 p.m., Nowatzki was among the team struggling to save the ship. A new towline rigged, the carrier slowly began moving. Thus the Hornet’s brave crew fooled Japanese pilots that afternoon. Their next onslaught came soon after. The Americans had been so successful at fighting Hornet’s wounds the JNAF crews thought they were socking a fresh U.S. flattop. Gathering clouds contributed to their confusion. Coxwain Nowatzki could see the Japanese planes line up to attack. The Zuikaku fliers, according to Nowatzki, and confirmed by the log of the light cruiser San Diego, obtained two further torpedo strikes, a solid heavy bomb hit, and another near miss; the Junyo’s two attacks scored additional bomb hits. The torpedoes were decisive. The ship righted momentarily, then listed even more extremely to starboard. Hornet began to flood more rapidly. The new blitz forced Admiral Murray to abandon his latest attempt at a tow. With the extreme list the blood of dead and injured sailors pooled on the deck, coursed through the gun tubs, and poured into the sea. Coxwain Nowatzki could see sharks circling below. The sailor and his mates agreed that if they had to go overboard it would not be on that side. Remaining crew began to abandon ship shortly after 4:30. Captain Mason finally left the bridge. By dark all surviving crew were taken off. Some 111 sailors died.
Meanwhile Admiral Kakuta’s Carrier Division 2 united with Captain Nomoto’s Zuikaku, and Kakuta assumed command. At midafternoon the Imperial Navy again had a functional carrier task force. After recovery of the last planes that night, the strength available to Kakuta’s Kido Butai would be twenty-five torpedo planes, twenty-two dive-bombers, and fifty fighters. Kakuta’s two carriers were untouched. Their only opposition, the Enterprise, was in a damaged condition that impaired her fighting ability. For all practical purposes, by the late afternoon of October 26, 1942, the Imperial Navy had the only effective carrier force in the South Pacific.
It could have been worse. Commentators, if not veterans, have long belittled the Imperial Navy’s proclivity for dividing its forces into many detachments. The intense Japanese focus on surface warfare in the face of the growing primacy of airpower has also been derided. And impediments to the Imperial Navy’s performance due to its traditionalist doctrine have been noted. But the detachments had specific tactical roles. That of the Advance Force was to dash ahead and crush the enemy with guns. At Eastern Solomons that maneuver had been carried out, but fizzled because the Americans had left. At Santa Cruz the traditionalist Japanese might have succeeded—they had this one glittering opportunity—in putting U.S. carriers under battleship guns. The pursuit phase of Santa Cruz bears instructive lessons. The main actors, as at Eastern Solomons, were Kondo Nobutake and his Advance Force, along with Abe Hiroaki and the Vanguard. Both had battleships, cruisers, and destroyers.
Japanese sailors missed their first opening early. Until afternoon Admiral Abe had been under Nagumo’s command, and he had ordered Abe forward for a surface attack at 8:05 a.m. At that time Kinkaid’s staff placed the Kido Butai 185 to 200 miles from Kinkaid, and the Allied fleet was headed for the Japanese at twenty-seven knots. Kinkaid did not withdraw until 11:35. With Kinkaid’s turn into the wind to launch, plus various defensive maneuvers, however, the fleet essentially halted its forward movement at or about 8:30, without being too precise, and continued in the general area. The air attacks on several of his heavy ships delayed Abe, yet he might have gained about fifty miles before Kinkaid’s retreat. By 11:30 the Vanguard could have been within about a hundred miles of Task Force 61. Abe’s tardiness wasted that opportunity.
Naturally the carrier action tended to absorb admirals’ attention, so perhaps not too much should be made of this, but at 1:00 p.m. Yamamoto reinvigorated the pursuit, putting Admiral Kondo in charge and Abe under command. Kondo’s original operations order had directed him to attain striking distance of the Allies so as to “apprehend and annihilate any powerful forces in the Solomons area as well as any reinforcements.” Kondo had not done much about this so far. What he would do once Yamamoto spurred him remained to be seen. By now Kinkaid had gained some running room, being roughly 240 miles distant from Kondo’s Advance Force and less than 200 from Abe. But the Japanese had ships capable of thirty-four knots, and anything that slowed Kinkaid could have been fatal. His headlong retreat, apart from anything else, would increase the Enterprise’s seaworthiness difficulties. Kinkaid might not have been able to sustain flank speed without endangering the “Big E.” As it was, the Japanese gained twenty to forty miles by late afternoon.
Allied intelligence potentially contributed to the problem with its estimates of just two Japanese carriers. Kinkaid believed from scouts and intercepts that both were crippled. A belief that the enemy air threat had been eliminated suggested Kinkaid could take his time nursing damaged warships, favoring a determined Japanese pursuit. Bull Halsey’s order summoning Kinkaid home to base helped the admiral escape such a temptation.
At this point Japanese confusion over the “third carrier”—still Hornet—reveals its true importance. Scouts kept touch with the Hornet rather than flying the full search legs that would have disclosed Task Force 61’s presence. The Kido Butai afternoon strikes went for the third carrier instead of Kinkaid. No doubt Admiral Kondo also found distasteful the idea of a long stern chase taking him constantly nearer to SOPAC’s Espíritu Santo–based aircraft. On the other hand, Kondo and Abe had both been frustrated by their fruitless surface attack missions at Eastern Solomons, and this time they might have been expected to display more dash. Kondo Nobutake kept his silence, but he is recorded as saying of Santa Cruz, “I got the impression that…when two different fleets were combined, the commanding officer of the main task force should be assigned to take the responsibility [for] both.” Use of the term “task force,” which for the Japanese always denoted an aircraft carrier group, suggests that Kondo felt Nagumo should have had command. But Nagumo was absent. There was no one but the Advance Force leader. From his perspective, Hara Tameichi writes that Kondo “made only a halfhearted advance” and that Abe proved “too cautious.” Just so.
In the end there was a pursuit—focused on the third carrier. The Vanguard Force took the lead. At 2:00 p.m., aware there could be no immediate surface action, Abe had his crews secure from battle stations. Nevertheless, at 2:30 the Vanguard cruisers were making thirty knots and on twenty minutes’ notice for flank speed. At 2:41 Kondo ordered night action preparations. Little more than a half hour later a scout reported an enemy flattop minimally under way—more grist for the third-carrier fantasy. Light cruiser Nagara put up a floatplane at 4:30 intended as a spotter for night combat. The scout proceeded to Hornet’s position. Only then—more than two hours later—did it begin searching to the south. Meanwhile, at 5:00 p.m., the Kondo
and Abe forces rendezvoused, with the Vanguard taking station a dozen miles from the Advance Force. The two units began assuming night battle formation ten minutes later. Vice Admiral Kondo had now assembled a powerful surface fleet of four battleships, six heavy and two light cruisers, plus fifteen destroyers. By sunset Kondo had closed to within sixty miles of the “third carrier.”
There were some misgivings at Truk. Chief of staff Ugaki ruminated that prewar exercises established that unless the adversary was nearby and close contact cemented before dark, a night action against an enemy retiring at high speed always failed. In this instance Yamamoto apparently overruled Ugaki. His dispatch to the fleet at 7:05 noted that the “largest part” of the Americans near the Santa Cruz islands had been destroyed. Allied ships—including “capital ships”—might well be in the area rescuing survivors. “THE COMBINED FLEET WILL ATTEMPT TO DESTROY THESE FORCES.” Kondo should conduct a night battle or, if circumstances required, a dawn engagement.
In actuality the enemy was the derelict Hornet. By this time tin cans Mustin and Anderson were frantically trying to sink the flattop themselves. Captain Mason of the carrier stood on the Mustin’s bridge next to her skipper, Commander Wallis F. Petersen. First they tried torpedoes, launching an incredible sixteen fish at the carrier. More than half hit. Hornet still floated. Then came gunfire, 130 five-inch shells into the ship. When that did not work, the destroyers shot everything they had, 300 rounds of main battery and even flak guns. The Hornet blazed from stem to stern but would not go under. That was when Petersen saw pagoda masts and realized Japanese warships were upon them. He retreated posthaste. Commander Petersen was given the Navy Cross for keeping his ships in harm’s way to perform this hazardous task.
The heavy cruiser Suzuya, wearing Rear Admiral Nishimura Shoji’s Cruiser Division 7 flag, was the first to spot smoke on the horizon. By 9:30 p.m. the Suzuya could actually see the burning American carrier. Also on the scene was Vice Admiral Kurita Takeo, leading Kondo’s battlewagons from the Kongo. Both Kurita and the ship’s gunnery officer, Lieutenant Commander Ukita, remembered watching the blazing flattop. Not far away, Rear Admiral Kakuta’s Kido Butai saw the horizon lit by Hornet’s flames. Japanese commanders briefly debated how they might get a towline on the carrier and pull her to Japan, but they dared not approach to rig one. Instead, after midnight, destroyers Makigumo and Akigumo put four of their own torpedoes into the flattop. The Hornet disappeared beneath the waves. She remains the only fleet carrier ever sunk by surface torpedo attack—although, of course, that credit needs to be shared with many JNAF airmen as well as Japanese and American gunners and torpedomen. Aboard the Akigumo, Lieutenant Yamamoto recalled the crew’s dismay when the fleet was recalled instead of continuing the pursuit.
This episode marked the end of the Battle of Santa Cruz. The destroyers of Abe’s van, it might be noted, were down to 30 percent fuel at this moment. Yet he and Kondo remained in the area through the next afternoon, searching for downed fliers or enemy ships. A few American aircrew were among those rescued. Meanwhile Vice Admiral Nagumo finally managed to transfer to the destroyer Arashi at 7:30 that night, and resumed command of Kido Butai when he reached the Zuikaku at 3:30 p.m. on October 27, America’s Navy Day. Early that morning Combined Fleet C-in-C Yamamoto issued orders that, if searches proved negative, the Kondo fleet should return to Truk at its convenience. On the Allied side there were a few final ignominies. The destroyer Mahan and the battleship South Dakota collided while evading a supposed I-boat. A real submarine, Commander Ishikawa Nobuo’s I-15, got in a potshot at the Allies’ other battleship, the Washington, but the torpedo did not touch her.
Hirohito’s imperial rescript after the battle read, “The Combined Fleet is at present striking heavy blows at the enemy Fleet in the South Pacific Ocean. We are deeply gratified. I charge each of you to exert yourselves to the utmost in all things toward this critical turning point in the war.” Hirohito added that he believed the situation critical, and regretted the loss of fliers, seamen, and soldiers.
Admiral Kinkaid joined a lengthening list of those on both sides who overestimated their battle results. Assembling exaggerated reports from his aviators, Kinkaid forwarded to Pearl Harbor an impressive summary of damage, starting with two Shokaku-class fleet carriers (one hit with two bombs, the other four to six). The list continued with two bomb hits on a Kongo-class battleship, bomb hits to both Tone-class cruisers (four on one, five on the other), three torpedo strikes on a Nachi-class heavy cruiser, and a bomb on an unidentified light cruiser. An Atago-class heavy cruiser was listed for possible hits by both bombs and torpedoes. For a couple of days after the battle, CINCPAC and COMINCH alike continued reporting the enemy fleet carriers eliminated. Radio traffic analysis soon revealed these results to be illusory. In reality the Shokaku, Zuiho, and Chikuma were the only warships touched in the battle. None sank. Yura, the only Japanese warship destroyed, was lost off Guadalcanal and did not even figure in Kinkaid’s Santa Cruz tally.
After the war, Americans interrogating Imperial Navy veterans went to some lengths to induce them to concede Santa Cruz a defeat. They were unsuccessful. The instances of American veterans, observers, and historians arguing that the U.S. fleet obtained a victory here—some have even claimed it a strategic victory—is remarkable. Those who advance such arguments base themselves either on the continued Allied hold on Guadalcanal or on the heavy losses among Japanese airmen. Some Japanese, such as submarine commander Orita Zenji, fault the Imperial Navy for not carrying out its offensive in September, when the force balance favored Japan even more. But the naval action aimed to facilitate a land battle, and in the earlier time frame the Japanese Army had yet to prepare their big offensive.
By any reasonable measure the Battle of Santa Cruz marked a Japanese victory—and a strategic one. At its end the Imperial Navy possessed the only operational carrier force in the Pacific. The Japanese had sunk more ships and more combat tonnage, had more aircraft remaining, and were in physical possession of the battle zone. SOPAC was rushing to coordinate defense plans for its New Hebrides bases, desperately trying to repair the only aircraft carrier it had left, and begging for the loan of a British warship of this type. Sinking another U.S. aircraft carrier by surface torpedo attack (German battlecruisers had dispatched the British Glorious with guns in 1940) was also a notable achievement. Arguments based on aircrew losses or who owned Guadalcanal are about something else—the campaign, not the battle. Disputes over Santa Cruz are sterile. The more important story of the following days and weeks is of how the Imperial Navy squandered this hard-won victory.
One clue is furnished by an episode at Nouméa. With the ship damaged, Enterprise’s air group went to Henderson Field, eventually returning. Thomas Powell was an enlisted seaman and a gunner on an SBD of Scouting 10. At Nouméa the airmen, now grungy, were issued fresh uniforms, but the only stocks available were officers’ khakis, not seamen’s blues. So Powell looked like an officer when he got to the pier to go out to “Big E.” Admiral Kinkaid’s barge, the only boat at the dock, took the sailors aboard. Thinking them officers, Kinkaid invited those in khakis to sit with him in the stern sheets. The admiral proceeded to tell these “officers,” including Powell, that they ought not to be so unhappy with the tragic losses, at least those on the destroyer Smith. When a Japanese plane crashed aboard her, Kinkaid explained, its impact had thrown clear the bodies of the enemy pilot and his radioman, and one of them bore a copy of the current Japanese aircraft code. Bull Halsey and his cohorts were about to use that codebook to their great advantage.
IV.
EMPIRE IN THE BALANCE
“Japanese Fleet Quits Solomons, U.S. Fliers Damage Enemy Carrier and Hit Battleship or a Cruiser,” read the New York Times headline. It was Halloween, and perhaps a fitting sequel to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s singular intervention in the Solomons campaign, when, just before Santa Cruz, he told military and naval leaders that he expected more to be done in the South Pacific no matt
er what their arrangements for Europe. As for the battle, Washington admitted one had taken place, in a communiqué issued a day afterward, but the Navy Department was just then owning up to loss of the carrier Wasp a month earlier. The Navy released few concrete details. Three days later, Navy secretary Frank Knox stepped up to the microphone for a news conference where the Solomons framed his conversation with reporters. Secretary Knox said the South Pacific fighting had ground to a virtual halt, a lull but not a victory, for Knox followed that comment by picturing the recent battle as merely the “first round,” with Halsey’s SOPAC forces “waiting for the second to start.” He refused to make predictions. “I have no idea what the next move will be,” Knox said.
Oddly enough, Radio Tokyo agreed. The two enemies might as well have coordinated their spin. Referring to “naval quarters” and high circles, the Japanese commented that “the battle is still in progress and the final result therefore cannot be foreseen.” There was no doubt as to its importance, however: “It can be said that this is one of the greatest naval battles since the outbreak of the war.” The Japanese exaggerated enemy losses just as did Americans, claiming, following the Combined Fleet’s initial battle report, to have sunk four American carriers. From Pearl Harbor, Admiral Nimitz wrote his daughter that he wished he had as many aircraft carriers as the Japanese were saying had been sunk. Tokyo admitted damage to two of its own. The figure for the Japanese side was, in fact, accurate.
