by Toland, John
In Rabaul the import of the landing was not recognized by Lieutenant General Harukichi Hyakutake, commander of the 17th Army. New Guinea was still the main target and his attention was focused on a plan to cross the Owen Stanley Range and take Port Moresby. Not a single soldier could be spared for what was merely a diversion. Vice Admiral Gunichi Mikawa completely disagreed with him. He commanded the recently organized Eighth Fleet and had just arrived in Rabaul with a double mission: to spearhead a new drive south and to protect the Solomons from any Allied counterattack. The first reports of the landings had indicated beyond doubt that it was a major invasion, but he knew it was useless to argue with the Army. If anything was to be done immediately, it was up to the Navy alone. He managed to assemble 410 sailors, some rifles and a few machine guns and dispatched them at once to Guadalcanal in the transport Meiyo-maru. Then he radioed the Navy General Staff in Tokyo for permission to launch a surface attack the following night on the American transports.
It sounded too audacious to Navy Chief of Staff Nagano—Mikawa would have to break through a formidable ring of warships that far outgunned him—and he passed on the decision to Combined Fleet. Yamamoto knew that Mikawa was not at all reckless and radioed him direct: WISH YOUR FLEET SUCCESS.
Mikawa was advised to command the battle from Rabaul, but being a true samurai, the gentle, soft-spoken admiral boarded the heavy cruiser Chokai that afternoon. Ordering his other seven ships—four heavy cruisers, two light cruisers and a destroyer—to follow in column, he headed south through the St. George Channel.
The area was poorly charted and the few maps available were unreliable. It would be humiliating to run aground, and for hours the admiral pored over charts with his staff navigator. Finally he decided to lurk above Bougainville out of range of any American carrier planes until late the next afternoon. Then he would lead his little fleet into that dangerous channel through the Solomons (the Americans would nickname it “The Slot”), trusting to luck that no Allied search plane would sight him in the fading light. It was dangerous, but if he didn’t take the chance he would never reach Guadalcanal in time. All depended on surprise.
But he had been discovered. A U. S. submarine, the S-38, lying in ambush at the mouth of the St. George Channel, was almost run down by Mikawa’s column. Swaying in the wash, S-38 was too close to fire her torpedoes. Her captain, Lieutenant Commander H. G. Munson, a veteran of the frustrating Java campaign, radioed:
TWO DESTROYERS AND THREE LARGER SHIPS OF UNKNOWN TYPE HEADING ONE FOUR ZERO TRUE AT HIGH SPEED EIGHT MILES WEST OF CAPE ST. GEORGE.
3.
By dusk on D-day, eleven thousand Marines had landed on Guadalcanal without a casualty. The beaches were piled high with supplies and ammunition. The next afternoon a battalion advanced to the airfield against practically no opposition. The Marines found an almost completed 3,600-foot airstrip; it was abandoned. The entire garrison—leaving meals on tables—had fled inland without trying to destroy any installations or supplies or blow up the runway. They left behind stacks of rifles, machine guns, trucks, steam rollers, cement mixers, ammunition, gasoline, oil and two radar scopes as well as large quantities of rice, tea, beer and sake. Nearby were two large electric-power generators, machine shops, an elaborate air-compressor factory for torpedoes, and an ice plant, which soon had a fresh sign: TOJO ICE PLANT, UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT.
Mikawa’s ships had reached Bougainville at dawn. The admiral sent out four search planes and scattered his fleet to deceive any Allied scout. At ten-twenty an Australian bomber, a Hudson, began circling over his flagship. Chokai reversed course as if heading back to Rabaul, but when another Hudson appeared, Mikawa decided to brazen it out. The column re-formed and headed down toward the narrow passage through the Solomons. Before long one of his own search planes reported sighting eighteen transports, six cruisers, nineteen destroyers and a battleship near Savo Island. The enemy seemed to be split in two forces—the main one guarding the Guadalcanal transports, the other Tulagi. The Americans had twenty-six warships to his eight, but perhaps he could destroy one of the forces before it could join up with the other. What concerned Mikawa most was the carrier force. Where was it?
Admiral Turner was still unaware that an enemy fleet was heading toward his Amphibious Force. The report from the submarine was too inconclusive and the Australian search pilot had decided that his information wasn’t important enough to break radio silence. Turner was preoccupied most of the day with two bombing raids that caused more confusion than damage; the destroyer Jarvis was hit by a torpedo, and the transport George F. Elliott set afire.
By late afternoon—just as the Marines were taking over the airfield on Guadalcanal—Mikawa’s column at last entered the almost unbelievably blue waters of the Solomons passage and started southeast directly for Guadalcanal. It should reach the enemy about midnight and the battle plan had to be simple, since the eight ships had never before maneuvered as a unit or sailed in formation. At four-forty, orders were sent by blinker from Chokai to the other ships: “We will proceed from south of Savo Island and torpedo the enemy main force in front of the Guadalcanal anchorage, after which we will turn toward the Tulagi forward area to shell and torpedo the enemy. We will then withdraw north of Savo.” The recognition signal would be white sleeves streamed on both sides of the bridge.
As Mikawa neared Guadalcanal the dangers of being discovered increased and there was little room in the narrow waters to evade bombers. Every minute of daylight seemed interminable. Just before dusk a lookout on Chokai shouted, “Mast ahead on the starboard!” Sirens shrilled and bells clanged as the men scrambled to their battle stations and trained guns to starboard. It was a friendly ship, the seaplane tender Akitsushima heading for the bulky island sticking out of the water to the right, New Georgia.
Admiral Turner was not blind to the significance of The Slot. Any sailor could see it was the highway between Rabaul and Guadalcanal. He had ordered a Catalina to patrol the upper area where Mikawa had been steaming since dawn, but unknown to Turner, the PBY never took off. As darkness fell on the Amphibious Force, a messenger from the flag coding room handed the admiral a copy of a dispatch from Fletcher to Admiral Ghormley in Nouméa:
FIGHTER PLANE STRENGTH REDUCED FROM NINETY-NINE TO SEVENTY-EIGHT X IN VIEW OF THE LARGE NUMBER OF ENEMY TORPEDO PLANES AND BOMBERS IN THIS AREA I RECOMMEND THE IMMEDIATE WITHDRAWAL OF MY CARRIERS X REQUEST TANKERS SENT FORWARD IMMEDIATELY AS FUEL RUNNING LOW.
Turner was incensed. He was being left “bare arse” without carrier support and would have to pull out at dawn; he couldn’t risk another air strike without carrier-plane protection. He ordered General Vandegrift and Rear Admiral V. A. C. Crutchley, commander of the cruiser-destroyer covering force, to report immediately to his flagship, McCawley, anchored off Guadalcanal. Crutchley was a British officer, winner of the Victoria Cross at Jutland, a hearty man with a full red beard. He had already deployed his ships in three protective groups around the transports and freighters. The Southern Force—three cruisers and two destroyers—was stationed between Savo and Cape Esperance. The Northern Force, with the same number of ships, barricaded the line between Savo and Tulagi while the Eastern Force—two light cruisers and two destroyers—stood off to the east.
There was no battle plan, and the good-natured Crutchley had simply ordered the Northern force to operate independently and conform in general to the movements of the Southern Force, which Crutchley himself would command. When Crutchley received Turner’s urgent summons, he signaled the captain of the cruiser Chicago to take temporary command of the Southern Force and steered down the darkened coast of Guadalcanal in his flagship, Australia, in search of McCawley; it would be quicker to reach her in a cruiser than in a small boat.
Nobody in the covering force suspected that a surface attack was imminent and ships remained in a second condition of readiness. No one thought to inform the commander of the Northern Force, Captain Frederick L. Riefkohl on the heavy cruiser Vincennes, that he was now senior
officer of both forces guarding The Slot. Nor did Captain Howard D. Bode of Chicago bother to take his proper position as temporary commander of the Southern Force ahead of Australia’s sister ship, Canberra.
Australia poked around in the gloom for almost two hours before finding McCawley. Turner and Crutchley discussed a message from the Australian search pilot who had discovered Mikawa that morning. It had finally come after eight hours’ delay—and was misleading: it said that the Japanese force consisted of three cruisers, three destroyers and two seaplane tenders or gunboats. The key words to both admirals were “seaplane tenders” and they concluded this meant an air attack in the morning. Certainly no one would launch any kind of night surface attack with three cruisers. Besides, there had been no report from the PBY that Turner had ordered sent out that morning.
Aboard a small boat General Vandegrift was still hunting for McCawley through the mass of blacked-out ships and it wasn’t until after eleven that he finally joined the conference. The night was hot, overcast, oppressive. Vandegrift thought the two admirals “looked ready to pass out,” and he himself was worn by his exertions on Guadalcanal.
While they drank coffee Turner showed his subordinates Fletcher’s message. Vandegrift was as angry as Turner about Fletcher; he was “running away twelve hours earlier than he had already threatened.” Turner believed he should withdraw his transports soon after dawn and asked Vandegrift’s opinion.
“We are in fair shape on Guadalcanal,” said the general, but he doubted that many supplies had been unloaded at Tulagi. He would like to check in person.
“I thought you would want that,” Turner remarked, peering over his glasses. “I have a minesweeper standing by to take you over there.”
Crutchley offered to take Vandegrift to the minesweeper on his way back to his flagship. The general declined but Crutchley insisted. “Your mission is much more urgent than mine.”
It was not quite midnight when the two boarded Crutchley’s barge. To the left a heavy rain squall had sprung up near Savo, forming a curtain between the Northern and Southern Forces. To the right they could see a red glare—the transport George F. Elliott was still burning. As Vandegrift disembarked, Crutchley shook his hand. He knew what the withdrawal of transports meant to the Marines, but said, “Vandegrift, I don’t know if I can blame Turner for what he’s doing.”
Mikawa’s column was coming on Savo at 26 knots, trailed by phosphorescent wakes. The flagship Chokai led the way, followed at 1,300-yard intervals by the four other heavy cruisers and the two light cruisers, with the lone destroyer bringing up the rear. Decks were cleared for action; topside flammables were jettisoned, and depth charges and unnecessary gear stowed below. Every captain passed on to his men Mikawa’s final message, similar to one by his hero, Lord Nelson: “Let us go forward to certain victory in the traditional night attack of the Imperial Navy. May each one of us calmly do his utmost.”
Above all, Mikawa feared the enemy carrier force. He knew it was nearby from numerous high-frequency radio messages such as RED 6 TO RED BASE and GREEN 2 TO GREEN BASE. But there was still a good chance of escaping back through the Solomons passage in the daylight hours.
Directly ahead in the darkness, Crutchley’s cruiser groups lumbered off Savo on their monotonous patrols, those on watch exhausted from forty-eight hours on constant alert. All the cruiser captains were asleep.
Mikawa saw the volcano of Savo rise out of the sea. No one on the bridge spoke. One, two, three minutes slowly passed. Unlike the Americans the Japanese had no radar, only eyes sharpened by night training. The starboard lookout on Chokai saw a dim form. “Ship approaching, thirty degrees starboard!” he called out. It was the U. S. destroyer Blue. She and the destroyer Ralph Talbot, which was six miles to the northeast, were pickets, the American early-warning system. But their sonar and radar, strangely, gave no indication that a Japanese column was bearing down on them.
“Prepare for action,” said Mikawa, and to keep out of sight, ordered, “Left rudder. Slow to twenty-two knots.”
The black line of ships silently turned, starboard guns ready to blast Blue, but all she did was reverse course and sail off at a leisurely 12 knots toward Ralph Talbot, which had also reversed course. The two sentries passed and drew away, leaving an open gate for the oncoming raiders.
Mikawa knifed forward and was in the center of the Amphibious Force, thanks to an unbroken series of Allied mishaps: he had been sighted three times, but to no avail. The B-17’s patrolling The Slot had missed him entirely, and the extra search order by Turner had not been carried out. Finally, the two picket destroyers had almost been run down by the column, yet had not been alerted by lookouts or radar or sonar operators; either the blips were not seen or they were presumed to be friendly and ignored. In addition, a floatplane—one of three sent out after dark by Mikawa—had been sighted before midnight and reported by Ralph Talbot. It, too, had been assumed to be friendly. As at Pearl Harbor, no one could believe an attack was imminent.
Chokai swung below Savo, unobserved. A lookout saw a cruiser on the port bow. A minute passed. Nothing happened. It was a false alarm. Port lookouts barely discerned what looked like a destroyer moving very deliberately to the west. It was the destroyer Jarvis, torpedoed in the daylight air attack, and steaming back to Australia for repairs. Mikawa’s incredible luck held. Jarvis, too, failed to notice the Japanese column, which was finally swallowed up by a heavy curtain of rain.
Chokai signaled with hooded blinkers visible only to those in the column: “Prepare to fire torpedoes.” A port lookout made out a ship almost ten miles away in the glare of the burning Elliott. “Cruiser, seven degrees port!” At 1:36 A.M. a starboard lookout called out, “Three cruisers, nine degrees starboard, moving right!” It was the heart of Crutchley’s Southern Force, the heavy cruisers Canberra and Chicago and the destroyer Patterson.
“Commence firing,” Mikawa said quietly and the order was relayed to the torpedo crews. “All ships attack” was the next command. Schools of long-range torpedoes that could carry a thousand pounds of explosives eleven miles at 49 knots churned toward Canberra and Chicago.
The two big cruisers were heading slowly to the northwest, guarded by two destroyers, Bagley to starboard and Patterson to port. Finally, at 1:43 A.M., someone on Patterson made out several ships in the distance and the alarm was sounded by radio: WARNING—WARNING—STRANGE SHIPS ENTERING HARBOR!
The warning was unnecessary. Overhead, parachute flares exploded in the darkness behind the Allied ships, making them as distinct as silhouettes in a shooting gallery. The flares had been dropped by Mikawa’s three “friendly” floatplanes.
On the bridge of Canberra a lookout called an officer’s attention to a vague form ahead in the pounding rain. A ship, a strange ship. It began spitting fire. As the two Australians intuitively flinched, a pair of torpedoes plowed into Canberra’s bows. From above, shells hurtled into the cruiser, killing the captain and the gunnery officer. Her main guns useless, the big ship listed, dead in the water. Fire coursed through the companionways, fed by linoleum on the decks. The paint on the bulkheads burst into flame; the upholstered furniture in the wardrooms went up like tinder. Men frantically tried to jettison gasoline and ammunition, but it was too late. Explosions wracked the ship.
The destroyers on either side of Canberra fought back blindly, but Patterson was promptly pinpointed by searchlights and knocked out of action. Bagley rushed at the enemy, got into position to launch torpedoes—there were no firing primers.
With Canberra an inferno, Mikawa’s fleet turned on Chicago. The temporary commander of the Southern Force, Captain Bode, wakened out of a sound sleep, got to the bridge just before a torpedo crunched into the bow. Despite a 16-foot hole and a shell hit, Chicago still looked for a target. Sighting something to the west—it was the sole Japanese destroyer—she gave chase. Bode was inadvertently steaming away from the main battle. Worse, he had yet to warn the Northern Force of what was happening.
On
McCawley, Admiral Turner knew of the battle only from the flash of guns followed by the freight-car rumble of shells. What struck him was that the fate of the Marines on Guadalcanal and Tulagi and the sailors in the helpless transports was at stake. These thin-skinned ships had pulled anchor and were milling around in the darkness.
Admiral Crutchley was far from the action on Australia. He ordered seven destroyers to join his flagship at a set rendezvous—if they were not engaged with the Japanese. In the turmoil the order was misunderstood and four destroyers pulled out of the battle.
Mikawa had disposed of the Southern Force in about six minutes without taking a hit. He continued his counterclockwise swing around Savo to find new targets. Three heavy cruisers followed the flagship Chokai, but the next in line, Furutaka, was so far behind that it mistakenly swung to starboard and the next two ships followed, splitting Mikawa’s force in two. The mistake put Mikawa in an enviable tactical position: he had four cruisers west of the Northern Force and three on the other side. The five American ships, three heavy cruisers and two destroyers, were about to be flanked on both sides—simultaneously, and without warning from Captain Bode.
At 1:48 A.M., lookouts on the heavy cruiser Astoria saw torpedoes approach—they came from Chokai and they all passed by. Wakened by the general alarm, Captain William Greenman rushed to the bridge and wanted to know who the devil had sounded the alarm and why the ship’s main battery was blasting away. He was sure whatever they were shooting at was friendly. “Let’s not get excited and act too hastily,” he said. “Cease firing.” He changed his mind quickly enough when he saw splashes falling around the cruiser Vincennes. “Commence firing!” he shouted and ordered a slight turn to port. “Our ships or not, we’ve got to stop them!”
Salvo after salvo from Chokai crashed into Astoria, knocking out all power and killing everyone in turret No. 2. The cruiser coasted to a stop, her decks aflame—and every fire main was ruptured.