Islands of Destiny: The Solomons Campaign and the Eclipse of the Rising Sun (20 page)

The Americans attempted to come back the next day. Commander Air Solomons (AIRSOLS) arranged for
Hornet
planes to hit Shortland while Army B-17s struck the Buin complex. Amid cloud cover the attackers could not find their targets. That night the Express ran, as it did on October 5, when Cactus fliers pounded the destroyer sortie, damaging two ships. Mikawa assigned light cruiser
Tatsuta
and seaplane carrier
Chitose
to augment the Reinforcement Unit, now facing a backlog of matériel to land, including eight of the 150mm howitzers plus a number of other artillery pieces.

Coastwatchers and aerial reconnaissance assumed primary importance. Radio intelligence had temporarily been blinded. On September 30, the Imperial Navy modified its entire system of communications, copying some U.S. methods, changing call signs, and introducing a revised D Code (the Japanese name for JN-25). At that moment the most recent CINCPAC monthly estimate had a good understanding of Mikawa’s fleet strength. Weekly reports on Japanese fleet dispositions issued in Washington by the F-22 section of the Office of Naval Intelligence, based primarily on radio direction finding, agreed with CINCPAC’s accounting in dispatches sent on September 29 and October 6.

Pearl Harbor credited the JNAF with twelve to eighteen floatplanes and two patrol bombers at Shortland, and twenty-seven medium bombers, forty-five Zeroes, forty-eight floatplanes (half scouts, half the Zero seaplane version), and a dozen patrol bombers in the Rabaul area. Intelligence assessed that forty-five Zeroes and fifty-four Bettys were in the pipeline to the front.

Officers commented on Japanese intentions in their appreciation of October 1: “For the past six or seven weeks the Japs have been assembling planes, troops and ships in the general Rabaul area. There are no indications whatever of a move in any other direction.” But Pearl Harbor was complacent: “While the Japs may want to start such an [offensive] effort in the near future,” they had suffered heavy losses already, with Allied planes and submarines taking a steady toll, so that “all this has definitely slowed up their preparations.” CINCPAC tabulated Japanese losses and damage during September at several aircraft carriers, an equal number of cruisers,
a battleship, plus lesser vessels, a distinct overestimate. In reality Yamamoto’s fleet was at its greatest strength since the invasion.

Disturbing indications mounted. The CINCPAC bulletin on October 6 mentioned Army and SNLF troops in the Solomons and predicted an impending attempt to overcome the Marines. Two days later the bulletin expected constant Tokyo Express runs, and the fleet intelligence summary noted the flow of aircraft to Rabaul, located the Sendai Division’s chief of staff on Guadalcanal, and commented that the Japanese Seventeenth Army was “increasingly associated” with the island. Next day Admiral Mikawa was thought to have gone to Buin. Then, on October 10, the CINCPAC summary mentioned the Nagumo and Kondo forces in relation to the Solomons, again associated the Seventeenth Army with Cactus, located the Sendai Division as possibly on the island with the Kawaguchi Brigade, listed several SNLF units as “implicated” in the islands, and ominously led with this: “The impression is gained that the enemy may be getting ready for larger-scale operations in the Guadalcanal area.” According to codebreaker Edward Van Der Rhoer, Op-20-G—hence Washington and presumably Pearl Harbor—knew the Japanese would lead off with a cruiser bombardment of Henderson.

The fat was in the fire. At SOPAC, Admiral Ghormley finally agreed to send U.S. Army troops to Cactus, and the 164th Infantry Regiment began loading out on October 8. Their move would be covered by the
Hornet
task force. The Japanese were intent on completing their transport schedule. Early on October 11 they put in motion the latest heavy reinforcement, employing both the seaplane carriers
Chitose
and
Nisshin
bearing artillery, and half a dozen destroyers in escort, most bearing troops. A daytime JNAF fighter sweep followed by a bomber raid tried to cripple the Cactus Air Force, which had just opened Fighter 1 to supplement Henderson Field. Weather and interceptors rendered the strikes ineffectual. But there was a third arrow in the Japanese quiver, a cruiser group sent to administer a naval bombardment. The enemy was bearing down at that very moment.

Norman Scott’s surface action group left Espíritu Santo on October 7. With just three cruisers and three destroyers, Task Force 64 was on the weak side, and at the last moment other warships in the area, light cruiser
Helena
and
a pair of destroyers, joined Scott.
Helena
sported one of the new SG radars. Admiral Scott wanted to hunt. He had a healthy awareness of Tokyo Express activity and a desire to avenge Savo. From west of the Solomons, Scott closed The Slot, timed to arrive off Savo near midnight, then steamed back to his holding position. For two nights Task Force 64 encountered nothing. On the third, the night of October 11–12, Scott found game. On Guadalcanal, Cape Esperance happened to be the closest point, and the battle took that name.

Rear Admiral Goto Aritomo led the Japanese flotilla, composed of three ships of his own Cruiser Division 6 plus two destroyers. A thirty-two-year Imperial Navy veteran, Goto was a torpedoman and had led the Navy’s premier night-fighting unit before taking up these heavy cruisers, which had fought at Guam, Wake Island, and the Coral Sea before their stupendous Savo victory. Goto missed at least two chances for warning: Commander Yokota Minoru’s
I-26
had seen a U.S. cruiser but radioed the information too late, while the Japanese reinforcement group unloading at Guadalcanal, which Scott’s force must have passed, apparently saw nothing. The Japanese had no radar, but they had honed their night skills, with specially trained lookouts and excellent equipment, including low-light, high-magnification glasses.

Admiral Scott’s Americans, on the other hand, only beginning to experience the use of radar, nearly squandered that advantage. Light cruiser
Helena
detected Goto first, at almost fourteen nautical miles, closing at thirty-five knots.
Helena
, which had never operated with Task Force 64, did not report her sighting. Heavy cruiser
Salt Lake City
also detected the Japanese with her less advanced SC radar, but remained silent. So did light cruiser
Boise
, with an SG radar, which assumed Admiral Scott had the information.
Helena
finally passed along her sighting at 11:42 p.m., and a couple minutes later
Boise
did too, but ambiguities in language and navigation terms left confusion as to the Japanese position and even whether there were different groups of them. By that time the range had shrunk to less than 5,000 yards, and Goto’s vessels were plainly visible. Aboard the
Helena
an officer grumbled, “What are we going to do, board them?”

Lookouts on the Japanese flagship, heavy cruiser
Aoba
, finally saw three U.S. vessels at 11:43. Admiral Goto tentatively reduced speed to 26 knots, but just a moment later the
Helena
opened fire followed by the rest of Scott’s ships. Goto had been steaming directly at the Americans, disposed in a line across his course, creating the sailors’ dream of “crossing the T” of an adversary, where all guns could shoot at the enemy, who could reply only with weapons on the bow or stern. The
Aoba
, leading the Japanese line, was quickly reduced to a wreck, both forward eight-inch gun turrets smashed, her bridge hit by heavy-caliber shells. The
Boise
landed a salvo, including a dud shell on the flag bridge that mortally wounded Goto and killed two of his staff. Rear Admiral Scott, worried his ships were shooting at one another, ordered a halt, resuming fire once he felt more confident.

The Japanese force disintegrated.
Aoba
veered to port to bring her broadside to bear, only to offer the Americans a bigger target. She staggered off, struck more than forty times, but lived to fight another day. Saima Haruyoshi, a petty officer with the damage control detail, was sleeping at his battle station in the stern when the shells began to fall. He did not feel the first hit, but after that, destruction came quickly. One shell wrecked the number three turret, in the compartment immediately forward. When Saima tried to open the hatch, flames drove him back. There were dead, wounded, and fires everywhere. They had to pile up the bodies to get at the fires.

Destroyer
Fubuki
, haplessly caught as Scott steamed across her course, was blasted to pieces. Captain Araki Tsutau of the
Furutaka
, second in the Japanese line, turned to starboard, followed by the
Kinugasa.
The
Furutaka
came around to support her flagship, sustaining more than ninety hits, but she scored twice on the
Boise
, once against a forward magazine. The shell, of a type the Imperial Navy had designed to hit water and travel beneath the surface to impact a ship hull, actually functioned as advertised, recording the only known wartime success for this munition. The magazine hit would have blown
Boise
up save that seawater pouring into her from the hole extinguished the fire.
Furutaka
finally succumbed. The
Kinugasa
was slammed four times but punched back at the USS
Salt Lake City
with eight hits.
Aoba
was badly damaged. The Imperial Navy vessels survived the huge numbers of hits due only to high-quality design, brave seamen, and the proportion of duds among the American shells.

The
Boise
would be out of action for six months, the
Salt Lake City
for a full year. And Admiral Scott had not been entirely wrong about friendly fire—destroyers
Farenholt
and
Duncan
were both hit by U.S. shells, the latter mortally.

Goto Aritomo’s death sent shudders through the Imperial Navy. Goto was the first Japanese admiral to die on his bridge in a surface battle. Yamaguchi Tamon had gone down with flagship
Hiryu
at Midway, but he had elected to stay behind when sailors were abandoning ship. Worse, Navy gossip had it that Goto died believing the
Aoba
a victim of friendly fire, not enemy action. After Aoki Taijiro, captain of the carrier
Akagi
at Midway, Goto became the second member of Etajima’s class of 1910 to succumb in the war. That was important to a lot of Imperial Navy officers who, at that very moment, were leading the fleet against the Americans on Cactus. Among Etajima classmates on the scene were Goto’s boss, Mikawa Gunichi of the Eighth Fleet; Kusaka Ryunosuke, chief of staff of the
Kido Butai
; and Kurita Takeo, leading a force of battlewagons. His close friends included destroyer master Tanaka Raizo, now heading
Kido Butai
’s screen, and battleship commander Abe Hiroaki, both of whom had been a class behind Goto; as had Hara Chuichi, driving a cruiser division in Abe’s Vanguard Force. The Japanese officers redoubled their determination.

“WHERE IS THE MIGHTY POWER OF THE IMPERIAL NAVY?”

Marines had standing orders to examine the dead enemy for documents that might help divine intentions and movements. Many Japanese defied orders not to keep diaries. These were fodder for the Americans, part of the pillar of combat intelligence. Some documents Vandegrift’s staff exploited immediately. The bulk went to Nouméa, where SOPAC translated and examined them. During the second Matanikau battle a captured diary, translated at SOPAC, yielded a soldier’s plaintive cry, “Where is the mighty power of the Imperial Navy?”

The complaint hardly needed to be heard. Admiral Yamamoto issued preparatory orders for his fleet sortie on October 4. The Tokyo Express chugged, and the Eleventh Air Fleet roared into Cactus, but it was a race with the Americans. The morning after Cape Esperance, the U.S. convoy bearing the 164th Infantry arrived. Destroyer
Sterett
, among its escorts, dropped anchor. Unloading had barely begun when the air raid sirens
sounded and the ships weighed again. On the bridge, Lieutenant Herbert May grabbed the skipper and pointed to planes breaking through the clouds. “Christ, Captain—look, there’s a million of ’em.” Lieutenant C. Raymond Calhoun,
Sterett
’s gunnery boss, fired the main battery at maximum elevation to disrupt the Japanese V-of-Vs formation; then they were past. Calhoun watched. “The pilots exhibited excellent discipline. They kept tight formation and never wavered…. Their aim was excellent and we watched a perfect pattern fall smack on Henderson Field.” Several hours later the JNAF repeated the performance in every detail save direction of the attack.

The Cactus Air Force got in its own licks. They helped track down Cape Esperance survivors, and they attacked destroyers that had been detached from the Japanese artillery convoy to rescue them. One enemy warship, crippled, had to be scuttled. Meanwhile, sharp as they had looked from the
Sterett
, Japanese bombardiers did not actually crater Henderson, so U.S. missions continued into the afternoon, blasting another destroyer to the bottom. Undeterred, Rear Admiral Joshima, the R Area Force commander leading the mission, immediately sailed on another artillery run in the
Nisshin
.