Neptune's Inferno: The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal

by James D. Hornfischer

  32: Among the Shadows

  “Form 18. Course 092” and “Unable raise other big boys”: USS Helena, “Action Off North Coast of Guadalcanal,” Encl. B, TBS log, 4. “That sure looks like”: Howe interview, 23. “It seemed like everyone”: Heyn, “One Who Survived,” unpaginated. “We’ll fight her until”: Calhoun, Tin Can Sailor, 80–81. “Bodies, mattresses and other debris”: Parrent, Third Savo, 33. “We had not seen”: Calhoun, Tin Can Sailor, 84. “H-I-S H-I-S”: Gibson, “As I Remember,” 33. “Driven from my mind”: McCandless, “The San Francisco Story,” 50. “If you don’t want them shooting”: Gibson, “As I Remember,” 33. “Thank God the Helena”: Bennett interview. “Captain Hoover, may he live forever”: Morris, The Fightin’est Ship, 93. “I hung on”: McCandless, “The San Francisco Story,” 51. “You’re about to run aground”: Bennett interview, ECU. “A wholly unsatisfactory pillow”: Bennett, email to Johnny Johnson, April 2, 2005.

  33: Atlanta Burning

  Efforts to save the Atlanta: USS Atlanta, “Action Report,” Encl. C, Notes on Damage Control, Paragraph 12; Mustin interview, 602–610. “Plastered flat”: McKinney, CL-51 Revisited, 46. “It is a matter of wonder”: Ibid., 42. “Get off. She’s going to blow!” Ibid., 40–41. “Just don’t sink the ship”: Ibid., 43. “Took a little time”: Ibid., 51. “A horrifying spectacle”: Ibid., 55. “They were so deeply ingrained”: Mustin interview, 608. “The entire area was covered”: Kennedy, Fearless Warrior, 114. “As it came alongside”: Mustin interview, 605–606. “There were not very many”: Kennedy, Fearless, 114. “There was a general rush”: McKinney, CL-51, 44. “It’s not in my registry”: Parrent, Third Savo, 43–44. “We raised a cheer”: McKinney, CL-51, 45. Air attacks on Hiei: Lundstrom, The First Team and the Guadalcanal Campaign, 477–480; Frank, Guadalcanal, 454; Moore, The Buzzard Brigade, 68–69. Decision to scuttle Hiei: Tully, “Death of Battleship Hiei”; Lundstrom, First Team, 482–483. “Boys, I don’t know”: Moore, Buzzard, 70.

  34: Cruiser in the Sky

  “I don’t know why”: Whitt interview; Satterfield, We Band of Brothers, 145. Body parts sweep: Spencer, The War Years: Hellfire and Glory, 71. “The ship was just”: Whitt interview. “Detailing the senior rates”: Jenkins, “A Real Belly Full,” 2. “Fellows were picking them up”: Whitt interview. Lt. Cdr. S. Yunoki, the Kirishima’s main-battery fire-control officer, confirmed that bombardment ammo was fired on the U.S. ships. Interrogation of Lt. Cdr. S. Yunoki, 191. “I never will be able”: Jenkins, “A Real,” 2. “The usual eruption”: USS Helena, “Report of Submarine Torpedo Attack on Task Unit and Sinking of USS Juneau,” 2. “Full right rudder”: Schonland interview 1, 41–42. “Loud crrrrrack”: Whitt interview. “De Long, she ain’t no more”: De Long, narrative, 1–2. “The Juneau didn’t sink”: McCandless, “The San Francisco Story,” 51. “Debris fell to such extent”: Hoover to Turner, November 14, 1942 (0001). “As we got up even”: Whitt interview. “Our ship rapidly keeled”: Jenkins, “A Real,” 3. “No one moved or spoke”: Morris, The Fightin’est Ship, 95. “We often talked”: Parrent, Third Savo, 52. “The intrepid and seamanlike way”: Commander, Task Unit 17.5.4, “Report of Action in Coral Sea Area on May 8, 1942.” “Juneau torpedoed”: USS Helena, “Action Off North Coast Guadalcanal,” Encl. D. “Probably the most courageous”: Wylie, NWC interview, 79. “If we had tried”: Mustin interview, 610. “Here comes a bear”: Holbrook, The History and Times of the USS Portland, 195. “This is the American cruiser Portland”: Generous, Sweet Pea at War, 98. “There is a Japanese task force”: Melhorn interview, 98. PT boats seldom operated at the blistering speeds suggested by full-page ads in Collier’s and the other weeklies. They were very heavily loaded, with four torpedoes, several gun mounts, smoke-making apparatus, and wooden hulls that became sodden with water (Mustin interview, 651). At speed, they tossed a high rooster-tail wake that was clearly visible at night. Their captains thus preferred to stalk. “We always idled in with the mufflers down and tried to get in a shooting position,” said Charles Melhorn, whose boat, the PT-44, was in the posse that tangled with the Portland that night. “For the attack phase, the watchword was stealth” (Melhorn interview, 105). In At Close Quarters, 92, Bulkley referred to two PT boats being assigned to escort the Portland to Tulagi that night. No reference was made to a friendly fire incident with them. “If you challenge the wrong group” and “We thought that was pretty dirty”: Melhorn interview, 99. The next morning, Captain DuBose sent an officer to talk with the skippers at the PT boat headquarters. The young officers there confirmed they had sortied but denied firing torpedoes at a friendly vessel. Years later, speaking at a reunion of PT boat sailors in New York, DuBose related this story, then offered that he must have been mistaken and that surely there were no torpedoes fired at the Portland. After a few beats, several of the old hands reportedly jumped to their feet and said, “Oh, yes there were!” It was not a tale that Admiral Halsey was eager to publicize. According to Heber A. Holbrook, a San Francisco veteran, “The only explanation for its absence from the official records is that DuBose, perhaps on orders from Admiral Halsey, ordered it suppressed” (Holbrook, The History and Times of the USS Portland, 194–196). “Then we all dropped”: Parrent, Third Savo, 44.

  35: Regardless of Losses

  “This was the tightest spot”: Halsey manuscript, 383. “If any principle of naval warfare”: Halsey, Admiral Halsey’s Story, 128. Halsey’s orders to Kinkaid: Commander, Task Force 16, “Operations of Task Force 16,” 2. “What do you think” and “You can well imagine”: Weaver, “Some Reminiscences,” 11. “I had the feeling”: McKinney, CL-51 Revisited, 58. “The tension I felt”: Forrestal to Morison, October 22, 1948, quoted in Morison, The Struggle for Guadalcanal, 263. “It was pretty awe-inspiring”: Bennett ECU interview. “What happened?”: Cochran, “Recollections,” 10. “I wasn’t near anyone”: Spencer, The War Years: Hellfire and Glory, 88–90. “There were some real hard feelings”: Heiberg interview, 10–11. “Task Force 67 is hereby dissolved”: Turner to Task Force 67, November 14, 1942 (2000). “Looks like all out attempt”: Nimitz to CTFs, November 14, 1942 (0359), quoted in Lundstrom, The First Team and the Guadalcanal Campaign, 506.

  PART IV:

  The Thundering

  Epigraph from Steinbeck, Once There Was a War, 172.

  36: The Giants Ride

  “The plan flouted”: Halsey, Admiral Halsey’s Story, 128. Battleship design and specs: Friedman, U.S. Battleships, 282–283. Gunnery practice: Fuquea, “Task Force One,” 732–733. “As you can imagine”: Backus interview, 147; ComBatDiv 6 to USS South Dakota, November 8, 1942 (0210). “He was not what you would”: Thomas C. Kinkaid to Evan E. Smith, April 9, 1962, Papers of Thomas C. Kinkaid. “He looked like an Arkansas farmer”: Eller interview, 484–485. Lee at the Olympics: Houston, “Stand Aside, This Is Ching.” “His conversation was so loaded”: Musicant, Battleship at War, 81–82. “It doesn’t take long”: Mustin interview, 510–511. “This is the captain”: Musicant, Battleship, 114. “All we can do”: Claypool, God on a Battlewagon, 12. “There go two big ones”: USS South Dakota, “Action Report, Night Engagement 14–15 November 1942, with Japanese Naval Units, Off Savo Island,” 4. “Refer your big boss”: Frank, Guadalcanal, 473.

  37: The Gun Club

  “Well, stand by, Glenn”: Musicant, Battleship at War, 118. “Then separate into ‘drops’ ”: USS Washington, “Action Report, Night of November 14–15, 1942,” 21. “Grouped together”: Reed, “A Recollection,” 7. “Radar has forced”: USS Washington, “Action Report,” 29. “I saw the Washington open fire”: Lundgren, “The Battleship Action, 14–15 November 1942,” 9, fn. 6. According to the Walke’s action report, the ship that hit the Preston was directly off her port beam. The Washington’s action report indicates that the battleship passed south of the sinking Preston at this same time, two hundred yards to the disengaged side, and that one of the Washington’s five-inch batteries, Mount 3 on the starboard side, had been “firing wild (training motor kicked
out and the pointers were not matched). It was feared the mount might endanger own destroyers” (USS Washington, “Action Report,” 9). However, the extent of damage to the Preston suggests that ordnance much heavier than five-inch hit her. “Bodily out of the water”: USS Walke, “Report of Surface Engagement with Japanese Forces, November 15, 1942,” 2. “Get after ’em, Washington!”: Musicant, Battleship, 122. Damage to and withdrawal of Benham: USS Benham, “Report of Action,” 3–4. Power failure in South Dakota: USS South Dakota, “Action Report,” 5, 12. Sinking of Ayanami: Lundgren, “The Battleship Action,” 12, fn. 11, citing postwar interview with Cdr. Eiji Sakuma. “Our turret commander”: Claypool, God on a Battlewagon, 17. Damage to South Dakota: USS South Dakota, “Action Report,” 14; USS South Dakota, “Report of Gunfire Damage, Battle of Guadalcanal, 14–15 November 1942”; Backus interview, 141, 159. “At such times”: Claypool, God, 18. “Body-punching range”: Musicant, Battleship, 126. “Throwing fourteen-inch”: Backus interview, 153–154. Some naval historians consider the Washington’s duel with the Kirishima a foregone conclusion in favor of the U.S. ship. However, according to calculations by the naval weapons engineer Nathan Okun, at this close range the Washington’s twelve-inch armor belt was susceptible to penetration by a Japanese Type 91 armor-piercing projectile. The Washington’s sixteen-inch fire, in turn, had enough force to penetrate the Kirishima’s ten-inch belt, pass through the ship, and penetrate the belt on the other side going out, assuming the warhead did not detonate (Okun email to author, March 8, 2010). “I was amazed”: Musicant, Battleship, 126. “There is another ship” and “Kirishima is totally obscured”: Lundgren, “The Battleship Action,” 18. “Functioned as smoothly as”: ComBatDiv 6 (Lee), “Report of Night Action, Task Force 64, November 14–15, 1942,” 8. “At least ten hits were made”: Sanji Iwabuchi’s report. “They must have been mighty close”: Musicant, Battleship, 128. “We couldn’t make way”: Iwabuchi report. “If you can see anything”: USS Washington, “Action Report,” 10. Damage to Washington: ComBatDiv 6 (Lee), “Report of Action,” Encl. C, 2; USS Washington, “Action Report,” 36. Sinking of Kirishima: Lundgren, “The Battleship Action,” 24. “My men fought well”: Iwabuchi report. “I am not effective”: ComBatDiv 6, “Report,” Encl. C, 3–4. “This probably saved the battleships”: COMINCH, “Battle Experience: November 1942,” 30–42. “In breaking up”: ComBatDiv 6, “Report,” 7. “War was declared”: Musicant, Battleship, 137. “Our battleships are neither”: ComBatDiv 6, “Report,” 8. “How are all the experts”: Hoyt, How They Won the War in the Pacific, 187. Reinforcements landed: Morison, The Struggle for Guadalcanal, 285; Frank, Guadalcanal, 490.

  38: The Kind of Men Who Win a War

  “This ruled out any further sleep”: McKinney, CL-51 Revisited, 60–61. “Some of them were”: Heyn, “One Who Survived,” unpaginated. George Sullivan’s end: Satterfield, We Band of Brothers, 152–157. “Men like you”: Schonland interview 1, 50. Chick Morris at Nouméa: Morris, The Fightin’est Ship, 101–104. “Despite this officer’s”: Halsey manuscript, 395–396. “Reluctantly, I concurred”: Halsey, Admiral Halsey’s Story, 134. Rescue of Juneau survivors: Hartney, “The Story of the Juneau,” 11–12; Spruance to King, “Solomon Islands Campaign—Battle of the Solomons, 11–15 November 1942,” 12. “Efforts consistent”: Cdr. A. C. Jacobs, USNR, to Mr. J. S. Taylor, July 27, 1944, NARA. “It was lonely indeed”: Ugaki, Fading Victory, 278. “By his daring” and “the behavior of”: Turner to Halsey, November 16, 1942 (1038). “Speaking for the Navy”: Knox to Halsey, November 17, 1942 (1434). “My deep thanks”: Halsey to Knox, November 18, 1942 (1140). “We have admiration”: Nimitz to Halsey, November 15, 1942 (0103). “We believe the enemy”: Vandegrift to Halsey, November 15, 1942 (0318). “During the past two weeks”: Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins, 656.

  39: On the Spot

  “Step closer, son”: Bennett, www.usssanfrancisco.org/Bennet%20Jack%20CAPT.htm. “No sooner had the repair team” and “I wish I could recall”: Calhoun, Tin Can Sailor, 101–102. “After analysis of the situation”: Halsey to Nimitz, “Circumstances of Loss of Juneau,” November 22, 1942. Hoover’s response: Hoover to Nimitz, “Circumstances of Loss of Juneau,” November 28, 1942, 2. Browning’s boast: Casten, Our Ship: The Helena, C-4. “Under these conditions”: Nimitz to King, Third Endorsement of Halsey to Nimitz of November 22, 1942. “A confession of a grievous mistake”: Halsey, Admiral Halsey’s Story, 133–134. “CinCPac was in disagreement”: Halsey manuscript, 395–396. “Orders such as ‘Give them hell’ ”: U.S. Naval War College, Office of the President, “Comments on the Battle of Guadalcanal, November 11–15, 1942,” 5. “A study of the naval actions”: Ibid., 8. “There is no telling”: Ibid., 5. “Take advantage of our success” and “We cannot permit”: Kimball, Churchill and Roosevelt, 611, quoting draft message Churchill, R-186/3, not sent. “Our main amphibious operations” and “Having assumed this commitment”: Stoler, Allies and Adversaries, 96. U.S. troops in Pacific, Europe: Ibid., 293 fn. 51. Late-November naval dispositions: Halsey to all SOPAC commanders, November 23, 1942 (0612); Morison, The Struggle for Guadalcanal, 291. “Must be amphibious”: Halsey to MacArthur, November 28, 1942 (0145). “Send one of these”: Halsey, Admiral, 132.

  40: The Futility of Learning

  “Ahhh, we are more”: Hara, Japanese Destroyer Captain, 160. “A compromise dictated by necessity”: Halsey to Nimitz, First Endorsement of Commander, Task Force 67, “Report of Action Off Cape Esperance, Night of November 30, 1942,” 4. “I thought we had better”: Mustin interview, 650. Kinkaid’s relief: Lundstrom, Black Shoe Carrier Admiral, 492–494. Lundstrom compares the grounds for Kinkaid’s relief with the grounds for Fletcher’s and argues that Fletcher got a raw deal. “About the last visual dispatch”: Wylie, NWC interview, 86. “A small wart”: USS Minneapolis, “Action Report for 30 November–1 December 1942,” Report of Radar Officer, 2. “REQUEST PERMISSION” and “the most stupid thing”: Wylie, NWC interview, 86. “CAN YOU SEND BOATS?”: Wright (CTF 67), “Report on Action Off Cape Esperance, Night of November 30, 1942,” Compilation of TBS Transmissions, 5 (this message sent at 1620 Z); Mustin interview, 631–632. “Belay supply schedule”: Hara, Japanese, 162. Damage to New Orleans: Wright, supplement to CTF 67 action report, 6; USS New Orleans, Report of the Executive Officer, action report, December 3, 1942, 1. New Orleans abandon ship canceled: Wristen, History of the United States Navy Ship New Orleans, 4–3. Hayter, Haines, and Forman: Brown, Hell at Tassafaronga, 131–132. “I wondered what he thought about”: Forgy, … And Pass the Ammunition, 212–213; see also Hartzell and Wristen, The USS New Orleans, An Amended History, 21–25. “The observed positions”: Wright, “Report on Action,” 9–10. According to Ernest M. Eller, who served CINCPAC as assistant head of gunnery and antisubmarine training officer, “The real factor that defeated all of our training in anti-torpedo operations was its high speed at long range. These Japanese torpedoes would run at about 45 or 46 knots and could go, I believe, eleven miles at that rate. Of course, our torpedo at that speed would run only three miles. We operated on the assumption that if we stayed outside of 10,000 yards until we fired, then we could maneuver and avoid the torpedoes because at a longer range we could set our torpedoes at about 25 or 26 knots. In all the night actions in which we received damage—and most of them we received very serious damage—it was because of this fact that we didn’t understand the torpedo and its capabilities.” Eller interview, vol. 2, 614–615. Submarine torpedoes at Tassafaronga: Halsey to King, First Endorsement of Wright, “Report on Action,” 1–2. “Picked off like mechanical ducks”: Morison, The Struggle for Guadalcanal, 306. “Contributed greatly to the destruction”: Wright, “Performance of Duty in Action with Enemy,” 1–3. “He did nothing heroic”: Wristen, History, 4–3. Wristen added, “The award is an example of the pre-war Navy where the captain had to be awarded a medal equal to the highest one earned by one of his crew.” Status of Japanese on Guadalcanal: Ugaki, Fading Victory, 289, 301. “This was quite
a feather”: Mustin interview, 653–654. “A fiasco which”: Ibid., 665–666. “The whole color of the war”: Ibid., 666.

  41: Future Rising

  Guadalcanal leading nowhere: “It had no geographical relation to the course the war would later follow, neither to Nimitz’s central Pacific campaign nor to MacArthur’s return to the Philippines.” Larrabee, Commander in Chief, 257. “People were killed all around me” and “I just cried my heart out”: Graff interview. “This was a privilege”: McKinney, CL-51 Revisited, 69–70. “We hate the petty bickering”: Shaw, Beside Me Still, 104. “Years later I’d have nightmares”: Joslin, quoted in National Geographic Society, The Lost Fleet of Guadalcanal. “They gave this city a strange feeling”: San Francisco Chronicle, “The San Francisco Heroes’ Parade” 155, no. 155, 1. “They didn’t think”: O’Brien, Robert, “When the Proudest Veteran Came Home,” unknown publication, in Spencer, The War Years: Hellfire and Glory, appendix. “In the press”: Spencer, The War Years, 2:11. “Polishing off a battleship”: Davies, “Cruiser San Francisco, Home,” 1, 7. The Boise “sank six Japanese warships”: New York Times, “Boise Captain Gives Credit,” November 24, 1942. Gatch’s statement: Fox Movie Tone News, “Hero ‘Battleship X.’ ” “Victory has a hundred fathers”: Keyes, The Quote Verifier, 234–235. “Informal inquiry into the circumstances”: King to Forrestal, “Investigation of the Loss of the USS Vincennes, USS Quincy, USS Astoria, and HMAS Canberra,” 2. “He is not a colorful personality”: Baldwin, “A Sailor-Diplomat Runs Up His Colors,” SM9. “Dawn is about to break”: Morison, The Struggle for Guadalcanal, 317. “Those who can stand”: Frank, Guadalcanal, 527. “It is unacceptable”: Bix, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, 461. Operation KE and evacuation statistics: Frank, Guadalcanal, 595. “Total and complete defeat”: Patch to Halsey, February 9, 1943.