As soon as his torpedoes were away, Tanaka changed course to the northwest and raced away at full speed, leaving Wright behind with a shattered cruiser force. Tanaka failed to deliver the supplies earmarked for Guadalcanal, but in the fifteen-minute battle he had damaged four cruisers.
Cole rushed to the assistance of the damaged Northampton. Upon nearing the stricken ship, Cole reduced speed and carefully backed Fletcher into thick oil alongside the cruiser, now engulfed in flames. For almost three hours Cole’s crew brought survivors over from the sinking ship, much like fishermen hauling in a school of fish. Fletcher crewmen tossed cargo nets into the water and put every available sea ladder over the side to aid in the rescue. In the whaleboat, Ensign Gressard towed rafts packed with Northampton survivors to Fletcher. Several men, including Fireman 1/c J. E. Howell, Torpedoman 2/c D. E. Krom, Seaman 1/c D. Strickland, and Seaman 1/c H. W. Thomas, jumped over the side to help exhausted Northampton men to the ship.
In the middle of the rescue operation, Northampton’s stern began settling. The final man off the cruiser, Captain Willard A. Kitts, grabbed on to a line strung from Fletcher to his cruiser, but as he slid across, the line became entangled around his ankle, flipping the officer upside down. Facing the prospect of being dragged downward to a watery death by his sinking cruiser, Kitts grabbed the sheath knife he carried and cut himself free before the ship sank. Captain Kitts’s extraction from near death provided a powerful example for many of Cole’s crew, who had resisted carrying the knives because they were an annoyance. “We never had any more trouble getting our men to carry knives,” said Wylie.16
Fletcher sailors gently peeled the soiled clothing off the oil-covered Northampton survivors. After hosing them down, they handed them spare clothing from the ship’s stores or shirts and trousers donated by the crew. While Northampton cooks joined their Fletcher counterparts to prepare meals for both crews, exhausted Northampton sailors slumped onto unoccupied spaces on deck and below and fell into deep slumbers.
Seaman Chesnutt, who had now survived two major engagements in as many weeks, wrote that Northampton men so filled Fletcher’s decks that “we could hardly walk without stepping on somebody.” The rescue made the young radar operator think about his own mortality. “I always wondered how bad it must have been for them as their ship sank,” he said, “and then when they were in the water. It makes you think—I could be one of those guys one day.”17
Fletcher and a second destroyer helped rescue almost seven hundred Northampton officers and men. Among those plucked from the waters was Radioman 3/c Jason Robards Jr., who after the war won two Academy Awards as a noted Hollywood film actor. With the rescue operation complete and more than one thousand men cramming every deck of his destroyer, Cole steered Fletcher from the area and retired through Sealark Channel on a course to overtake Wright’s other ships, then on their way to Espiritu Santo.
In Noumea, Halsey raged over the outcome off Tassafaronga. Despite commanding a superior force, Wright lost one cruiser, limped away with another three damaged, and suffered four hundred dead while sinking only one Japanese destroyer. Halsey wrote Nimitz that he felt Wright had mismanaged the battle and that the surprising defeat was “entirely due to the way we must throw destroyers and cruisers into action without organization.”18 Halsey stressed the need to revise tactics in line with Kinkaid’s suggestions, especially with the large number of new destroyers due to arrive in 1943.
The outcome underscored that some American task group commanders relied too heavily on their cruisers while underplaying the importance of destroyers such as Fletcher. Halsey and Nimitz understood that evolving naval tactics demanded a closer examination of the new radar and of the massed torpedo attack, both of which would assume greater importance in the 1943 surface engagements bound to occur in Solomon waters, and turned a spotlight on previous encounters.
In light of the poor showings posted in Solomon waters, beginning with the disastrous Battle of Savo Island in August and terminating with Wright’s disappointing performance at Tassafaronga, Nimitz asked Halsey to “please be utterly frank with me regarding flag officers. We are out to win a war and not to please individuals. Those not in line for the first team must be sent ashore.”19 That determination to promote aggressive-thinking commanders would elevate executive officers and other worthy men, including MacDonald of O’Bannon, to ship command.
The first destroyer commander casualty hit Fletcher shortly after the ship reached Espiritu Santo. Wright unfairly shifted blame for the battle to Commander Cole, who Wright contended had not adequately supported his cruisers. Halsey, uncertain that he had all the facts, reluctantly replaced Cole on December 11 with Lieutenant Commander Frank L. Johnson, but later promised Cole a new posting when Halsey learned how gallantly the Fletcher had performed in mid-November. Cole eventually became commander of destroyers in the South Pacific.
Admiral Tanaka deserves much credit for Tassafaronga’s outcome. Hara called it remarkable that Tanaka inflicted so much damage on the enemy while losing only one ship, and naval historian Samuel Eliot Morison concluded that Tanaka “made no mistakes at Tassafaronga” in sinking one American cruiser and putting three others out of action for much of the next year. “It is always some consolation to reflect that the enemy who defeats you is really good, and Rear Admiral Tanaka was better than that—he was superb,” he wrote.20
Destroyer commanders and their crews would have to be superb if they were to grab the initiative from Tanaka, Hara, and their other Japanese counterparts. Naval combat for the next year would be frequent, violent, and costly, with the victor grabbing control of the entire Solomon Islands chain, asserting dominance in the South Pacific, and taking a giant step toward victory in the Pacific war.
“I Actually Believed That I Would Get Killed”
After the draining succession of escort runs across Torpedo Junction, O’Bannon received a welcome break when the ship was ordered to accompany troop transports carrying the 1st Marine Division to Australia for rest and relaxation after their three-month campaign on Guadalcanal. MacDonald could not have been prouder in “bringing out our very famous First Marine Division who had done such wonderful work in holding Henderson Field,” and the added bonus of a few days enjoying Australia’s food, bars, and women was like an early Christmas present.
A four-day trip southward brought O’Bannon into Brisbane on December 19, the start of a glorious three days in the city. The chance to drop their concerns about enemy air or submarine attacks worked wonders for the crew, both mentally and physically, and MacDonald noticed that the men “certainly did make the best of that short stay.”
War duties returned all too soon, and with minor damage repairs complete by December 22, O’Bannon reentered the active zone and steamed northeast to Espiritu Santo, where, as New Year’s Eve approached, they patrolled the entrance to the harbor while preparing for another task. “The Japanese,” wrote MacDonald, “had become very active again and the Tokyo Express was once again running in accordance with their daily time schedule.”21 After a series of bitter clashes on land and at sea, both combatants pulled back to regroup, replenish their forces, and prepare for the next round of fighting.
During December’s final week, the crews of O’Bannon and her sister ships, also in Espiritu Santo, celebrated the holidays. Catholic officers and sailors attended a Christmas Eve midnight mass celebrated aboard another ship, and clusters of men sang carols, a remarkable contrast to the violence they had recently witnessed. On New Year’s Eve men sat in the cooler air topside to watch Disputed Passage, a 1939 war film starring Dorothy Lamour and Akim Tamiroff. The movie helped divert their attention from the fighting to the north, but the rapidly increasing number of ships pulling into the harbor hinted that action was close at hand.
As the New Year approached, Tameichi Hara enjoyed time with his family to end the year, but Admiral Ugaki could not share in the happiness. “Guadalcanal is now hopeless,” he concluded. After a spectacular first five mo
nths of war that had brought triumph and honors to Japan, the United States Navy halted their momentum at the Battle of the Coral Sea and at Midway, and now a combined American Marine-Navy effort had stymied them on Guadalcanal. “The invasions of Hawaii, Fiji, Samoa, and New Caledonia, liberation of India and destruction of the British Far Eastern Fleet have all scattered like dreams,” Ugaki wrote in his diary on the last day of 1942.22
In Tokyo, Emperor Hirohito was not as pessimistic. In his annual New Year’s Day Imperial Rescript, issued December 26, he expressed disappointment in the losses that had marked the latter half of the year, but promised that “dawn is about to break in the Eastern Sky. Today the finest of the Japanese Army, Navy and Air units are gathering. Sooner or later they will head toward the Solomon Islands where a decisive battle is being fought between Japan and America.”23
Across the waters, Nimitz concluded, “Until we have the requisite numbers of fresh troops to take and keep up the offensive our situation in the Solomon Sea Area will be unsatisfactory from the viewpoint of getting along with the war. Results in 1942 are gratifying considering the fact that we have not had enough tools to work with. While we have managed to stop Jap advances toward Australia and the supply lines thereto, we have not impaired Jap capacity to defend gains of 1942.” He added that nothing substantial could be accomplished until more ships, aircraft, and other matériel arrived from the United States. “All this means only one thing for 1943—more tools to work with than are now in sight. In addition, we must improve material, such as torpedoes and radios.”24
Hanson Baldwin conveyed similar thoughts to his readers back home. He explained that in the aftermath of Tassafaronga, both sides prepared for the next phase in the Solomons fighting. “The job at the moment is supply; the inexorable laws of logistics have forced one of those temporary lulls peculiar to all great wars. But it is certain that great blows are being prepared by both sides and soon again the armies, the navies and the flying fleets will surge back and forth in intensified struggle across the global map of battle.”25
Countless patrols and frequent escort duties, interrupted only by battles large and small, awaited O’Bannon, Fletcher, and Nicholas in 1943. They welcomed on December 13 the added presence of the fourth ship of what would become Desron 21, the USS De Haven (DD-469), under Commander Charles E. Tolman, and looked forward to the arrival of another six Fletcher-class destroyers in the coming weeks. But with such bounties at stake, the costs were bound to be high. Halsey’s destroyers were certain to absorb a large percentage of those casualties. “I actually believed that I would get killed during some of the battles,” explained Seaman Chesnutt of his thoughts for the future. “I didn’t see any way in the world that I could live thru the fighting day by day and felt sure the war would last 4–5 years, especially, if we had to take Japan.”26
The New Year brought hope that 1943 would be better than the year that had expired, but the crews of the four destroyers already in the South Pacific, as well as the six additions in place by February, instead encountered six weary months of patrols, bombardments, and escorts in the Slot, a stretch of water that would burn itself in their memories, followed by three major surface engagements. No one, whether MacDonald, Whisler, or Chesnutt, would think that 1943 was an improvement.
In the first week of the new year, Halsey used a quick trip to New Zealand to boost his forces’ morale. When reporters asked the admiral what he thought Japan’s next move might be, Halsey shot back, “Japan’s next move will be to retreat. A start has been made to make them retreat. They will not be able to stop going back.” He added, “All the Axis is hearing the tolling of the bells. And we are doing ‘the rope pulling.’” His prediction was “victory for the United Nations. Complete, absolute defeat for the Axis Powers.” Then, in words directed at both his forces and the home front, Halsey said that each of his men was the equal to twenty Japanese, and that “under my command the United Nations in the South Pacific have the finest fighting men our country ever produced. They are imbued with a fighter instinct and it is conceded we will not stop until there is a complete victory.”27
Halsey understood that the situation around Guadalcanal did not support his boisterous comments, but he hoped his words would resonate not only with men and women in the United States but also with his weary forces in the Solomons. He later explained, “My forces were tired; their morale was low; they were beginning to think that they were abused and forgotten, that they had been fighting too much and too long.” He said that in Pearl Harbor’s aftermath, some people saw the Japanese as “supermen. I saw them as nothing of the sort, and I wanted my forces to know how I felt.”28
After the four-day trip to New Zealand, Halsey returned to his headquarters to oversee the buildup of his forces. He arrived with the confidence of his commander in chief in his back pocket when, in a message to Congress, President Roosevelt echoed Halsey’s optimism by asserting that the country’s military forces in the South Pacific were switching from a defensive stance to an aggressive one.
Reporters noticed a difference as well. In an article titled “What Comes Next in the South Pacific?” John G. Norris wrote in the Washington Post, “Reinforcements had been landed at Henderson Field, and sizable reserves of food, fuel and ammunition installed there. Bombers, escorted by fighters, were taking off from the Guadalcanal airfield for daily air raids all over the middle and northern Solomons.” He concluded, “The trend of war in the Pacific definitely is in our favor.”29
Part of that trend would be the first offensive operation undertaken by O’Bannon and Fletcher, as well as the arrival of six more Fletcher-class destroyers to bolster the four that already operated in Solomon waters. Their addition was the first step toward organizing them into a fighting unit that would garner more acclaim and awards than any other Pacific squadron.
“Get a Staff Together and Get Going”
Halsey had become aware of a new enemy threat in early December when reconnaissance aircraft spotted the beginnings of a Japanese airfield at Munda on New Georgia Island, 180 miles northwest of Guadalcanal. Once the airfield was operational, it could house the fighters needed to escort Japanese bombers on their runs against Henderson Field. “The airfield that the Japs have put in Munda is a thorn in my side,” Halsey wrote to Nimitz in December. He urged immediate action, and promised on his end to “give it all the Hell we can from the air.”30
Henderson Field fighters mounted the first air strike on December 6, followed three days later by a major B-17 bomber raid. Into the New Year, American aircraft pounded Munda almost daily, but to Halsey’s dismay, the Japanese quickly recovered after each raid, filling bomb craters and patching damaged installations. Halsey concluded that only a land assault against New Georgia would knock out the threat.
Halsey brought in a new admiral, Rear Admiral Walden L. “Pug” Ainsworth, to take over his sparse collection of cruisers and destroyers, but offered Ainsworth few specifics as to what his first steps should be. Improvisation was the order of the day until more of everything arrived from the United States. “I was told by Admiral Halsey to get aboard the Louisville and get a staff together and get going and he would tell me what to do,” recalled Ainsworth. The admiral would have to make do with a ragtag collection of cruisers and destroyers—“we seldom had full destroyer squadron strength”—that bore little resemblance to the mighty armadas that would hunt down the Japanese in 1944–1945.31 His principal tasks were to keep the Guadalcanal area secure from enemy attacks and prevent the Tokyo Express from reinforcing Japanese land forces still on the island.
After putting his cruisers and destroyers, organized as Task Force 67, through five days of training and exercises off the Santa Cruz Islands east of Guadalcanal, on January 2 Ainsworth led two groups of ships out of Espiritu Santo for his first offensive strike against the Japanese. Once they had escorted the transports to Guadalcanal, the ships, which included Ainsworth’s flagship, the cruiser Nashville, six additional cruisers, and their escort
ing destroyers, including O’Bannon, Fletcher, and Nicholas, would hasten northwest to bombard the Japanese airfield and other installations at Munda. Ainsworth planned to travel at high speed once darkness settled in, with the goal of arriving off Munda by midnight. There, aided by black-painted Catalina amphibious planes (nicknamed “Black Cats”), whose pilots spotted targets and observed the firing, he would conduct the bombardment early in the morning. Speed and timing were crucial, as Ainsworth needed to move into position the night before, try to remain unobserved by enemy aircraft, run the gauntlet of Japanese heavy guns and airfields that protected Munda, conduct the bombardment, and race back to American air cover near Guadalcanal before pursuing Japanese ships caught up to them.
Under overcast skies late in the evening on January 4 Ainsworth started his run into Munda with O’Bannon and Fletcher screening for Nashville, Helena, and St. Louis. Ainsworth was reluctant to trust the radar aboard O’Bannon and Fletcher, which had never been used to guide ships in a nighttime offensive. As backup, the submarine Grayback waited at her preassigned position off the entrance to the bay leading to the airfield to act as a navigational aid into the unfamiliar waters.
Shortly after midnight on January 5, radar picked up Grayback off Banyetta Point, at which time the column slowed to eighteen knots and turned onto the course along New Georgia’s western shore. The plan called for a ten-minute bombardment of the white coral airstrip and adjoining installations by each of the three cruisers, after which Fletcher and O’Bannon would turn their batteries on the island in a joint bombardment.
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