Allied Naval Operations in the Solomon Islands 1942 – Naval Battle of Guadalcanal (Part 1) – Night Cruiser Actions

Allied Naval Operations in the Solomon Islands 1942 – Naval Battle of Guadalcanal (Part 1) – Night Cruiser Actions

Vol. 1 No.11

November 12, 2013

“Sons of heroes, call forth the steel!”

 - Celtic mythology

By dusk on 12 November Admiral Norman Scott, the victor at Cape Esperance, flying his flag in Atlanta, and Admiral Daniel J. Callahan, in San Francisco, were on their own. The nearest reinforcements were Admiral Thomas Kinkaid’s carrier task force, built around Enterprise with battleships Washington and South Dakota, then 325 miles away.

Callahan, senior to Scott, assumed command and formed his ships into a long snaking column reminiscent of line-of-battle from the age of Nelson. Callahan probably chose this formation because it had worked so well for Scott a month earlier. It facilitated communication between ships and eased navigation in restricted waters. Being outgunned, Callahan wanted to use his superior radar and maneuver his column to cap the enemy’s “T” and engage the Japanese at the greatest range possible.

There were several faults in Callahan’s plan. The two commands ever worked together before the afternoon, so a battle plan should have been issued, but none was. The column formation would not allow the destroyers in the rear to employ their primary anti-ship weapon by conducting a torpedo attacks. Finally, placing the ships with the newer more capable SG radar - Helena and Fletcher - eighth and last in the column, would delay the earliest possible enemy radar detection. The fact that the OTC (Officer in Tactical Command) did not fly his flag on either of these ships meant that additional time for communications between ships would be required to fully understand the unfolding tactical situation.

The core of Admiral Hiroaki Abe’s bombardment group, consisting of battleships Hiei and Kirishima, cruiser Nagara and six destroyers had left the Japanese anchorage at Truk Lagoon on the 9^th. The force was joined by five more destroyers near Shortlands and together steamed southward down The Slot, passing to the west of Savo Island and into Iron Bottom Sound.

That night Abe intended to kill marines, so his ship’s magazines were filled with thin skinned, high-explosive shells in order to inflict the most damage on Henderson Field and its aircraft. Despite the warning by Japanese headquarters on Guadalcanal of the presence of five American cruisers and eight destroyers in the Sound, Abe was clearly not concerned about a surface action as his formation resembled a flock of migrating geese.