Islands of Destiny: The Solomons Campaign and the Eclipse of the Rising Sun (24 page)

Rear Admiral Kusaka discounted Combined Fleet’s peremptory orders. In his view Ugaki was a blowhard with no battle experience, a neophyte not worth listening to. The fleet held to its routine, making the usual run south on the night of October 24. Frustration increased. In the morning Nagumo detached Rear Admiral Abe Hiroaki’s Vanguard Force to take station ahead of the carriers. Abe had battleships
Hiei
and
Kirishima
, Cruiser Divisions 7 and 8, and a destroyer squadron. Shortly after 10:00 a.m., a U.S. scout discovered the
Kido Butai
in position roughly 230 miles northeast of Henderson. Kusaka heard that a snooper had been downed by patrol fighters. Nagumo turned north. Carrier planes, then the Navy observation post, advised that the Americans were still at Henderson, affirmed by the bombing that cost the
Yura
. Unknown to Nagumo, Kinkaid had actually sent an
Enterprise
strike wave against him that afternoon, but with
Kido Butai
’s turnaway, and no tracking data, the planes found empty sea. They returned in the dark. A Wildcat plus seven TBFs and SBDs, out of gas, had to ditch.

There was no escaping Combined Fleet’s constant prodding, however. Late that afternoon, alone in the flag plot on the
Shokaku
, Nagumo had another heated exchange with his chief of staff.
Kido Butai
’s commander was ready to fight. Kusaka still advised caution. The same conversation had occurred repeatedly before staff. Admiral Nagumo had had enough of that
unpleasantness. The time had come to attack without remorse. Ugaki’s latest dispatch could not be ignored. The carriers would advance. Nagumo wanted his chief of staff to decide to head south.

“I admit I’ve objected to your suggestions,” Kusaka replied, “but you are the commander and must make the final decisions.” Then the chief of staff repeated his litany: The American fleet had yet to be found; now that they themselves had been discovered, the B-17s from Espíritu Santo would surely reacquire them. If they went south they must expect things to happen. Besides, Kusaka continued, as chief of staff his place was merely to assist. Only the two men were present, staring each other down, and Nagumo Chuichi did not survive the war. Kusaka attests that Nagumo insisted. The chief of staff gave in: “It’s your battle. If you really want to head south, I’ll go along with your verdict.”

In the gathering dusk of October 25, the
Kido Butai
came about and set a southerly course at twenty knots. It was one of those enchanting South Pacific evenings, the night warm and the moon shining. At 9:18 p.m. the fleet received Yamamoto’s latest operations order, noting the Army’s plan to storm Henderson Field, forecasting a high probability that Allied naval forces would appear northeast of the Solomons, directing that the enemy be destroyed.

Japanese forces assumed battle dispositions (from this point the text will refer to forces individually). A hundred miles west of Nagumo, Vice Admiral Kondo steamed with his Advance Force, built around battleships
Kongo
and
Haruna
, with heavy cruisers and destroyers. Rear Admiral Kakuta maneuvered the
Junyo
, screened by a couple of destroyers, a few miles beyond Kondo. Rear Admiral Abe Hiroaki’s Vanguard Force, after briefly rejoining Nagumo, was posted sixty miles ahead. Abe assumed a line-abreast formation, his ships eight to ten miles apart in search mode. Sweating on the
Shokaku
’s flag bridge, Kusaka worked to prevent a Midway-like surprise. He arranged for morning scouts to depart Abe’s ships at 4:15 a.m., reaching the ends of their search legs at dawn. A second search wave—which
Kido Butai
had not bothered with at Midway—would follow. The carriers armed strike planes in momentary readiness for launch. One more advantage: Nagumo would have the weather gauge at the start, steaming directly into the wind and able to launch immediately, whereas his opponents would have to alter course in order to throw their warbirds into the air.

Like the Americans, the Imperial Navy posted mobile radio detachments aboard key fleet units. During the night, monitors informed Kondo and Nagumo of strong transmissions. Signal strength indicated proximity, so while the Japanese could not read the intercepts, they knew the emitters had to be nearby snoopers. In fact, this was a PBY piloted by Lieutenant (Junior Grade) George Clute of Patrol Squadron 11. Soon after midnight Clute’s radar-equipped Catalina found Abe’s Vanguard, which he reported and tracked for a time before attacking it. Clute launched two torpedoes at the destroyer
Isokaze.
In the darkness Clute imagined her a cruiser. Commander Toyoshima Shunichi, the destroyer skipper, saw the PBY six miles away, waited until it had committed to its drop, then went into a tight turn. Clute’s torpedoes missed. No score.

The PBY attack disturbed Nagumo, but he could draw a little comfort from the fact that it was the Vanguard, not
Kido Butai
, that had been sighted, though radio emissions could still be heard. Complacency disappeared at 2:50 a.m., when another snooper, Lieutenant Glen E. Hoffman’s Catalina, appeared directly over the carriers and tried her luck with four bombs. Alarm bells sounded only as the munitions fell. They missed close to starboard, spraying water on the superstructure of Captain Nomoto Tameteru’s carrier
Zuikaku.
On the flagship, consternation. Staff officer Takada almost fell down the ladder racing to Nagumo’s cabin to tell him the
Zuikaku
was safe. Nagumo and Kusaka were sitting together. Kusaka’s stomach tied up in knots. He was indignant. Nagumo looked at his chief of staff. “What you said before was true,” the admiral conceded. “Reverse course, full speed.” The
Kido Butai
turned through 180 degrees, increasing to twenty-four knots. The moon disappeared behind clouds, ominous, since increased darkness would make it harder to see the enemy. For an hour
Kido Butai
rushed defensive preparations, disarming and draining gas from the ready strike aircraft. Having carrier decks crammed with armed planes was another Midway error the Japanese were determined to avoid. But no Americans came; there would be no attack this night.

Aboard the
Junyo
, which received immediate notice of Nagumo’s maneuver, air officer Okumiya had the staff duty watch, and forwarded the order to Kondo’s flagship, cruiser
Atago
. Kondo’s and Kakuta’s forces followed suit about half an hour after the
Kido Butai.
Abe’s Vanguard turned north after that. The Japanese launched their dawn search as planned. The
second-wave scouts left Nagumo’s carriers at 4:45 a.m., an hour before dawn. Nagumo then prepared a combat air patrol of twenty-two fighters and a strike wave of seventy planes. At that point Nagumo, Kondo, and Kakuta, plus Abe, were headed north, with the latter between
Kido Butai
and Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid’s Task Force 61. The Japanese were primed for battle.

At Nouméa another admiral huddled over his charts. Vice Admiral William F. Halsey, newly minted SOPAC commander, knew little about the theater and had had less than a week to learn. Halsey understood that a huge Japanese offensive impended, and he had the advantage of intelligence—which had accurately informed him that “Y-day,” the moment the enemy had picked to set off their fireworks, would be October 23. The top officers—Kelly Turner, Vandegrift, and new AIRSOLS chief Rear Admiral Aubrey Fitch—had briefed Halsey on the overall situation. He recognized Guadalcanal’s crucial importance. The Allied fleet already plied Torpedo Junction. Bull Halsey did know about aircraft carriers—he reckoned their combat power increased with the square of the number—so two carriers were as strong as four single ships, and he hastened the rendezvous of the
Hornet
and
Enterprise
forces into Task Force 61 under Kinkaid. Halsey recalled, “The crescendo of the fighting ashore made it plain that the climax was rushing toward us. I thought that the twenty-fifth would precipitate it.” For a brief moment that seemed so. The
Kido Butai
was spotted once and that abortive air strike sent after it. But the enemy proved elusive. Halsey sent Norman Scott’s surface flotilla on a night sweep through Ironbottom Sound. Again nothing. The Bull felt in his bones that battle must be just hours away. He ordered to all his commands: “ATTACK—REPEAT—ATTACK.”

Admiral Kinkaid had already put his task force in motion toward the seas where the enemy had been sighted. He too was certain of battle. Kinkaid assigned flagship
Enterprise
to conduct the morning search and put up antisubmarine patrols, while the
Hornet
readied a strike. On the
Enterprise
, Air Group 10 skipper Commander John Crommelin gave his pilots a pep talk, telling them they were all that stood in the way of Japanese victory in the
Pacific. He would work them to the bone, Crommelin warned; they could not afford to waste a single bomb. The crews manned their planes. Amid final aircraft checks, Kinkaid received a retransmission of Glen Hoffman’s sighting. Recalling the fiasco of the previous afternoon, he elected to await precise information before striking. The
Enterprise
turned into the wind, and sixteen Dauntlesses began their takeoff rolls. They were scout bombers armed with 500-pound munitions. It was 6:00 a.m. The sun was just peeking over the horizon. The SBDs struggled for altitude. They would fly in eight pairs on preselected search vectors.

Lieutenant Commander James R. (“Bucky”) Lee, boss of Scouting 10 (VS-10), gave himself the most promising sector. But first honors went to lieutenants Vivian Welch and Bruce McGraw of Bombing 10. Barely an hour from the
Enterprise
, both planes saw a Japanese scout pass in the opposite direction. Figuring that bird had to have a nearby roost, they pressed on. Just twenty minutes later they glimpsed warships ahead. It was Abe’s Vanguard Force. The two crews counted ships, checked, and compiled a careful contact report, tabulating two battleships, a heavy cruiser, and seven destroyers steaming north at twenty knots. They did not spot Hara’s two cruisers, which had become slightly separated from the main formation. There were no carriers. Welch and McGraw flew to the limit of their range, hoping to find Nagumo. They did not. Turning back, they overflew Abe again. Admiral Abe now ordered a northwest course and went to battle speed, thirty knots. About 6:45 a.m., two more search bombers came up and attacked, diving on Captain Kobe Yuji’s cruiser
Tone.
Flak from the heavy ship and her consorts threw off the SBDs’ aim, and both missed. The defenders thought they had shot the planes down. Abe’s flotilla went to battle stations. On destroyer
Akigumo
, Lieutenant Yamamoto Masahide noticed that the sea that morning was quiet and the sky quite beautiful.

Bucky Lee was as good as he had hoped. He and wingman Ensign William Johnson at that very moment encountered
Kido Butai.
Lee saw a carrier, then two—clouds covered
Zuikaku—
and reported them headed north-northwest at fifteen knots. Lee eventually glimpsed the third ship, but Japanese lookouts spotted him too, and fighters intercepted. If he found the carriers, Commander Lee planned to summon his scouts and attack. Instead he had to limp away, damaged, though the Dauntlesses claimed
three Zeroes. But others heard Lee’s report and closed in. One pair was driven off, damaging several more Zeroes.

Another flight was the Dauntlesses piloted by Lieutenant Stockton Strong and wingman Ensign Charles Irvine. At Eastern Solomons it had been Strong who first spotted the
Ryujo
, and now he had John Crommelin’s words echoing in his head—no bombs to waste! He had refrained from attacking
Ryujo
, an act of omission that now obsessed Strong. He was a hundred miles from Bucky Lee. But the SBDs reached the position, emerging through a cloud right above light carrier
Zuiho.
The Americans were in the sun for
Zuiho
’s lookouts. Captain Obayashi Sueo’s sailors hardly saw them, and the covering Zeroes were nowhere around. Strong and Irvine dived. The flak began as they dropped through 1,500 feet; then the Zeroes came and the next minutes were hot indeed. Both planes made it to
Enterprise
with gas for just one landing approach. Commander Crommelin put Strong in for the Medal of Honor. He got the Navy Cross.
Enterprise
’s after-action report recorded the attack on a
Shokaku-
class carrier.

Captain Obayashi thought his gunners had gotten one of the American planes. They got him instead. Two 500-pound bombs hit
Zuiho
’s flight deck aft, holing it, wrecking the flak guns and the arresting gear needed to land planes. At an estimated sixteen yards in diameter, the hole was nearly as wide as her flight deck, rendering
Zuiho
useless as a floating airfield. This was a tremendous disappointment for Obayashi’s sailors, who had spent almost the entire war training fliers in the Inland Sea. A brief sortie with battleships, an aircraft ferry cruise to the Philippines, and the Midway operation, in which
Zuiho
had seen no combat, made up her entire war record. Now, in the first minutes of her first real battle,
Zuiho
was out of action. It was 8:30 a.m.

Admiral Kinkaid did not await his scouts’ return. His staff plotted the Japanese carriers to the west-northwest between 185 and 200 miles distant. Kinkaid increased speed to twenty-seven knots at 7:08 a.m. and altered course to close on the enemy. The first-wave strike from
Hornet
was halfway through its launch within a half hour, twenty bombers and torpedo planes in the formation. The
Enterprise
, operating independently, launched twelve strike aircraft at 7:50. Both units had Wildcats for fighter escort. The
Hornet
launched another wave of twenty planes, also with an escort, and evenly divided between dive-bombers and torpedo planes, about 8:15. At the moment of the
Zuiho
attack, these waves were already winging for Nagumo.

The Japanese were actually ahead of this curve. A
Kido Butai
scout filed the first sighting report at 6:50 a.m. Admiral Kusaka insisted—and Nagumo agreed—on immediate attack with overwhelming force. Nagumo ordered his strike unit aloft at 7:10 a.m. The carriers began launching immediately and had finished inside twenty minutes.
Zuiho
planes were in this group, as well as on patrol duty, so her damage did not prevent her contributing to the battle. Lieutenant Commander Murata Shigeharu led the whole unit, its knife edge twenty
Shokaku
torpedo planes and twenty-one
Zuikaku
dive-bombers. Zeroes from all three ships escorted them. The carriers immediately began cycling a second wave, which departed more raggedly. Lieutenant Commander Seki Mamoru led nineteen
Shokaku
dive-bombers off at 8:10, and Lieutenant Imajuku Jiichiro followed with sixteen
Zuikaku
torpedo bombers at 8:40. In addition, at 8:05 Nagumo directed Abe’s van to engage the Americans with guns.