The Conquering Tide

by Ian W. Toll

  ADMIRAL KINKAID, on the Enterprise about 270 miles south of Guadalcanal, launched his dawn search on a wide arc from north to west, with the planes ordered to fly to a range of 200 miles. The still-wounded flight deck of the Enterprise was kept “cocked” to launch a large airstrike should enemy carriers be discovered. But the search found nothing. Later that morning, Kinkaid decided to send his torpedo planes on an offensive sweep up the Slot, with orders to land at Henderson Field and place themselves at the disposal of General Vandegrift’s air department.

  The Cactus Air Force, thus reinforced, turned its attention to the burning, listing Hiei, which was drifting north of Savo Island. The once-mighty battleship had absorbed about eighty-five shell hits and six or seven torpedoes. Her after turrets were smashed and hanging limply over her side. Smoke poured out of ruptures in her upper works and her forward turret. The Enterprise Avengers dropped torpedoes on her, scoring two hits on the port side and one on the starboard side. Several more flights from Henderson of both marine and navy planes assailed the smoking hulk, but she was a remarkably tough customer. At sunset she was not only still afloat but still making way. At dawn on the fourteenth, however, there was nothing to be seen but an enormous oil slick almost two miles in diameter.62

  Henderson Field had come under bombardment that night by cruisers and destroyers, but the shelling was not particularly unnerving to men who had endured much worse. PT boats operating from Tulagi fired torpedoes on the hostile fleet and apparently drove them away. The Japanese ships were chased and taken under attack the next morning by Enterprise and Henderson-based planes, which probably scored some hits on one of the cruisers. Most important, however, was a sighting report at 9:49 that morning. An Enterprise scout spotted a large Japanese force north of New Georgia island, headed toward Guadalcanal at 14 knots. The pilot saw destroyers and “many enemy transports.”63

  This was Tanaka’s latest attempt to land a major reinforcement—eleven troop-loaded transports screened by eleven destroyers, on a course of 140 degrees. By decree of Vandegrift, the transports were the overriding target for all Allied aircraft that could reach them. Throughout the afternoon, every plane that could fly from Henderson was fueled, armed, and sent up the Slot to attack. The pilots ignored the destroyers and concentrated all their efforts on the troopships. One Enterprise aviator judged that afternoon to be “the most hectic, frantic period of many that took place at Henderson Field. A coordinated effort between the Navy carrier pilots and their Marine brothers-in-arms, combined with a superhuman effort from the aviation ground support personnel, kept a steady stream of SBDs and TBFs carrying bombs and torpedoes shuttling back and forth from the field to the convoy targets.”64

  The slaughter was cold and meticulous. Jimmy Flatley’s VF-10 fighters dived at 60-degree angles and raked the crowded troopships with their .50-caliber machine guns. Japanese soldiers leapt over the sides to escape the onslaught.65 Army B-17s flying from Espiritu Santo got into the act later that afternoon. A torpedo dropped by a TBF ripped out the bowels of a 10,000-ton transport, which rolled over and sank in minutes. Planes circled overhead, then flew low over the debris and strafed the troops struggling to stay afloat. “There were rafts and boats all over the sea floating on an oil scum amidst chunks of wood and other stuff,” recalled one of the Avenger pilots. “There were three transports still afloat when we opened up with our guns. We strafed the transports, the boats in the water, and everything else we saw, and so did the fighters.”66 It was hideous work, even “sickening,” as one pilot said.67 But not all the aviators were so squeamish; some proudly hailed themselves as the “Buzzard Brigade.” The Enterprise action report observed that the work was done “with methodical and devastating effect.”68 By the end of the day, four troopships were sunk, and three more were on fire and limping back up the Slot toward Rabaul. Two more sank that night. Admiral Tanaka later reported that only 400 troops were killed, but that number seems unrealistically low.

  IN SHARP CONTRAST TO THE METHODS OF HIS PREDECESSOR, Admiral Halsey chose to move the chess pieces around the board on his own initiative. By his prior instruction, the partially disabled Enterprise and her screening vessels remained well away to the south of Guadalcanal to avoid crossing paths with enemy aircraft or submarines.69 At 3:42 p.m. on November 14, Halsey detached the Washington and South Dakota and directed them to proceed north, skirting the western edge of Guadalcanal, to take station south of Savo Island. The two big battlewagons, accompanied by four destroyers, were designated Task Force LOVE, commanded by Admiral Lee. They were to intercept enemy surface forces expected to enter Ironbottom that night.

  Zigzagging north at 23 knots, Lee’s force rounded the western shoals off Guadalcanal and arrived off Savo at midnight. He did not have to wait long for the enemy fleet to reveal itself. Strange lights were seen in the sky above the horizon to the west. Officers speculated that they might be the fires of burning ships around the Russell Islands. Radio monitors tuned in to the enemy’s low-power ship-to-ship frequencies and caught some excitable Japanese chatter. Tulagi-based PT boats zoomed around Ironbottom Sound, and Lee’s staff radioed urgent identification messages to avoid taking a friendly torpedo in the hull of one of his ships. It was another calm night. A light breeze blew from the south. A quarter moon was setting in the west, and visibility at sea level was good.

  At midnight, the newly installed SG search radars began to pick up blips in the northwest. As the enemy ships came down the Slot, they entered the radar shadows of the landmasses of surrounding islands. Soon the American spotters, peering through optical sights, made out distant shapes moving on the horizon. Admiral Lee altered his course to 300 degrees and ordered the South Dakota to open fire once she obtained a good firing solution.

  At 12:16 a.m., when the first ship in the enemy column was at a range of 18,500 yards, the Washington’s 16-inch batteries spoke up. Her first salvo of 16-inch armor-piercing shells straddled the target. The splashes could be seen on radar, and the gun elevations and trains adjusted accordingly. The second (or at least the third) salvo connected. The South Dakota opened up about a minute after her sister. With the benefit of radar fire control, she landed her first or second salvo on one of the closer ships in the Japanese column at a range of about 15,700 yards. The target blazed fiercely, providing a gratifying spectacle to the spotters. South Dakota turned her guns to the second ship in the column and scored several more hits. The Japanese task force was slow to respond and scored no hits in this first phase of the action.

  The four American destroyers had held fire because the range was near the extreme limit of effectiveness of their 5-inch guns. At 12:20 a.m., a column of Japanese destroyers and light cruisers emerged from the southwestern edge of Savo Island. The Walke, the first destroyer in the American van, opened fire first, followed quickly by the Benham, Gwin, and Preston. One or more targets appeared to burst into flames. But the quartet of American destroyers soon took heavy punishment in turn. Several 6-inch projectiles landed on the Preston, laying waste to her fire rooms and killing dozens of her crew. The Preston’s stack collapsed, crushing the ship’s searchlight. A Japanese heavy cruiser managed to sneak up on the port side of the four destroyers and added several 8-inch rounds to the Preston’s tally of woe. The little ship burst into flames, listed deeply to starboard, and began going down by the stern. Her captain ordered the crew to abandon ship. As the men were going over the side, fires reached her magazine and she went up in a yellow thunderclap. Debris rained down around the ship.

  At about the same time, the Benham was struck by a torpedo on her starboard side. The foundering destroyer executed a sluggish starboard turn and limped away from the action. The Walke soldiered on, pumping 5-inch rounds at enemy ships off the south coast of Savo, until she was silenced by a series of heavy shells fired by an unidentified cruiser. Violent explosions blew slabs of her superstructure into the sea and set fires raging along her length. Her ready 20mm ammunition began “cooking off,” and her deck began to
buckle. Captain Thomas E. Fraser ordered the men to abandon ship as she began to go down by the head. She sank at 12:42 a.m. Her depth charges had been set to safe, but a few apparently detonated as the ship went down, injuring or killing several of her surviving crew.

  The Gwyn took a heavy salvo in her engine room. As her damage-control parties struggled to save the ship, her captain ordered an emergency starboard turn to avoid the sinking remains of the Preston. She took more shell hits as she limped out of the battle.

  The Washington’s spotters, blinded by their ship’s 16-inch muzzle flashes, lost visual contact with the enemy. Like their counterparts in the destroyers, they found the enemy by scanning the horizon for his muzzle flashes, and targeted them in return. The Japanese ships seemed to retreat beyond the black conical silhouette of Savo Island, perhaps fleeing the catastrophic punishment inflicted by the Washington’s 16-inch shells.

  A brief lull in the action followed as repair crews scrambled to correct electrical failures apparently caused by the concussion of the Washington’s own guns, and her spotters scanned in vain for suitable targets. Where were the Japanese battleships?

  The Washington increased speed to 26 knots and turned onto a course of 282 degrees. Her radar identified four large enemy ships coming into range south of Savo. While the Washington passed through and around the wreckage of the several crippled destroyers of the American van, her crew dropped life rafts over the side. The destroyers were in no condition to continue the fight, and the officer in tactical command ordered them to withdraw toward Guadalcanal as best they could.

  South Dakota surged ahead at 26 knots on a course of 290 degrees, firing on targets off Savo at a range of about 14,000 yards. The blast force of her tremendous weapons set her own floatplanes on fire and then blew them off their catapults and over the side. Circuit breakers tripped and power was cut to much of the ship. At about 12:45, steering clear of the sinking remains of the van destroyers, the South Dakota drew up on the Washington’s starboard quarter.

  The two battleships, without screening vessels, continued to the northwest. But the South Dakota diverged onto a more northerly course, which took her into illumination range of Japanese searchlights. That was a tactical blunder, as it would render moot the American advantage in fire control radar. The Washington’s main battery fired on the battleship Kirishima, the first ship in the enemy line. The Kirishima returned fire, and the two behemoths dueled for the next several minutes at what amounted to close range for guns of that caliber.

  The superstructure of the South Dakota, illuminated by searchlights, was pounded by shells of many different calibers. The salvos destroyed much of her radar and communications equipment. She was unable to hail the flagship or even to see her. She was taking on water. Her turret 3 was inoperable, her fire control systems were seriously impaired, and she was leaking fuel.70 A sailor recalled that “her decks were stacked high with dead, and sharp jagged edges from ripped steel were everywhere.”71

  All the Japanese guns fell silent at about 1:10 a.m., and the ships that could still make way began withdrawing to the northwest in apparent disorder. The Washington continued to pound away at the Kirishima and her screening vessels as they retired. Admiral Lee gave chase for the next twenty minutes, and his ship continued to land shells on the enemy. But he was wary of a torpedo attack, and at 1:33 a.m., he decided to turn south. Dodging the odd torpedo track (launched by the retiring Japanese ships or perhaps even American PT boats), the Washington made radar contact with the South Dakota and the surviving American destroyers. Lee coaxed them in via TBS. At 6:49 a.m., after dawn, Lee received a radio dispatch from Halsey ordering him to pull his wounded ships together and bring them back to Espiritu Santo.

  Lee had routed the enemy. The Japanese had brought a stronger force into the action, but it had been taken by surprise and been beaten by superior gunnery. The American advantage in radar fire control systems was readily evident; the Japanese systems were at least a year behind. Six Japanese ships were lost, including the Kirishima, which sank at 3:25 a.m. Five more were damaged. The survivors were in full retreat. The Washington had come through the action without significant damage. The South Dakota had been roughly handled but would be repaired and returned to service. The American destroyers had been decimated—three of four sunk, with heavy loss of life—but they had played an essential part in the action by absorbing much of the enemy’s punishment, both gunfire and torpedoes, allowing the battleships to concentrate their guns on the larger Japanese ships. Henderson Field was spared another shelling, and Tanaka’s four surviving transports would be obliged to attempt a landing without naval protection.

  TANAKA JUDGED THAT HIS ONLY HOPE of unloading the four ships was to run them aground near Tassafaronga Point. He asked for permission to do so and received an affirmative reply from Rabaul. As November 15 dawned, the Americans could plainly see the four hulls propped up on the beaches to the west. About 2,000 troops got ashore before daylight, and stacks of crates and rice bales were left in and among the palm groves just inland of the beach.72 Henderson-based planes worked over the ships and supplies throughout the morning. Except for brief and largely ineffective resistance by a few floatplane Zeros, the Japanese had no air protection. A marine 155mm artillery piece even managed to reach the nearest of the four ships, beached near the mouth of the Poha River. By midmorning all four ships were burning fiercely, and by early afternoon they were little more than charred husks emitting columns of greasy black smoke.

  TBFs flying from Henderson targeted the supplies on the beach with the incendiary weapons nicknamed “Molotov bread baskets.”73 A Dauntless pilot detected a trail leading from the beach inland to a circular clearing. Guessing it was an ammunition dump, he aimed his 1,000-pound bomb in the middle of that clearing. He had guessed right. A titanic explosion turned the heads of marines at Lunga, several miles away, and a column of smoke reached up to a height of 2,000 feet. The fire burned all night and was still burning sixteen hours later.74

  Chapter Seven

  IN THE THREE-DAY STRUGGLE KNOWN TO HISTORY AS THE “Naval Battle of Guadalcanal,” the Japanese navy had been soundly defeated and driven back up the Slot. But Admiral Tanaka’s beleaguered “Tokyo Express,” relying on fast destroyers darting into Ironbottom Sound under cover of darkness, had achieved the signal feat of putting more than a division of fresh troops ashore on the island. Added to the remnants of the Kawaguchi Corps, Japanese troop strength on Guadalcanal reached approximately 30,000 in mid-November. The Imperial General Headquarters had not anticipated that so many “sons of heaven” could fail to overrun the American position, but every successive assault on Vandegrift’s lines had been bloodily repulsed. Now the immediate problem was logistics. It was becoming terribly clear that the Imperial Japanese Navy, having strained its capabilities to put so many troops ashore, had no practical means of feeding so many mouths. Even as early as September, Japanese units on the island had begun to waste away for lack of provisions, medicine, and other supplies. By the first week of December, they were succumbing en masse to plague and famine. Guadalcanal, for its Japanese inhabitants, had become “Starvation Island.”*

  Newcomers who came ashore at Tassafaronga Point were taken aback. Wraithlike soldiers approached and begged for food. Their uniforms, little more than rags, hung from emaciated limbs; their hair had grown long and crawled with lice; their skin was dirty and pocked with open sores that were fed on by flies.1 Many had thrown away their rifles because they either felt too weak to carry them or had no ammunition.

  But the Japanese stationed along the coast were among the most prosperous on the island. There they could fish or forage for coconuts or plunder the meager supplies of rice brought ashore from the destroyers. Units posted deeper in the jungle had been reduced to eating lizards, snakes, worms, roots, grass, and insects. Trails into the hills were littered with the bodies of dead or dying men. Those immobilized by malaria, dengue fever, or beriberi were often abandoned to die where they lay.
As one officer observed, food was the overriding obsession of starving men: “All senses, except hunger, went out. No laugh, no anger, no tear.”2

  Japanese soldiers’ diaries, captured during and after the Guadalcanal campaign, told a pathetic story of deteriorating morale and wasted hopes. The malnourished soldiers were repeatedly exhorted to stir themselves to greater efforts: “We must by the most furious, daring, swift and positive action deal the enemy annihilating blows, [and] foil his plans completely. . . . It is necessary to arouse the officers and men to a fighting rage.”3 But the officers made too many promises they could not keep. A fleet of Japanese transports, laden with food and other supplies, was always just over the western horizon; Japanese warplanes would soon darken the sky; one more banzai charge would cause the cowardly marines to throw away their weapons and run for their lives. But for days or even weeks at a time, no Japanese aircraft appeared overhead and no Japanese ships were seen offshore. “Every day enemy planes alone dance in the sky, fly low, strafe, bomb, and numerous officers and men fall,” noted a diarist on December 23. Three days later, he added, “O friendly planes! I beg that you come over soon, and cheer us up!”4

  Discipline collapsed. Soldiers bickered over their paltry rations. Food was stolen and hoarded. Enlisted men accused their officers of diverting extra portions to themselves. They refused to work, fight, or march unless fed. From the summit of Mount Austen, where a detachment of about 450 Japanese troops kept watch over Henderson Field, the lookouts watched miserably as American cargo ships anchored off Lunga Point and delivered a seemingly limitless quantity of supplies, weapons, and fresh troops into the American lines. A sub-lieutenant posted at the top of Austen devised a mortality table to predict each starving soldier’s remaining life span: