Islands of Destiny: The Solomons Campaign and the Eclipse of the Rising Sun (30 page)

Suddenly the Allied and Japanese fleets were closing at a speed of nearly forty miles an hour. Callaghan’s flotilla, under tight control, settled onto a heading to block entry to Cactus waters. The commander intended to circle Savo Island and reenter Ironbottom Sound. At 1:12 Admiral Abe ordered his force onto a heading of 130 degrees for his bombardment. Light cruiser
Helena
detected the oncoming enemy almost fourteen miles distant at 1:24.
Helena
was eighth in line, and warships ahead of her might have been able to see something, but none did. Admiral Callaghan, pulled between radar reports and the negative sightings of his van, hesitated. Ray Calhoun, in the main battery director of the
Sterett
, heard
Helena
’s report over TBS, the “Talk Between Ships” low-frequency radios the U.S. fleet used for tactical communication. But when he looked in the indicated direction with his optics, there was nothing. His destroyer’s five-inch guns had a maximum effective range of about 18,000 yards, so Calhoun figured he’d have ten minutes until the action commenced.

The TBS announced two columns of Japanese and two big targets—battleships were suspected. Still nothing to be seen. Dan Callaghan must have been surprised at that news, but he was game, and altered course to due north at 1:37. If he could block the enemy he might repeat Norman Scott’s achievement of crossing their T. That would also afford his smaller guns their best chance against the enemy’s big ships. Callaghan’s efforts to obtain information over TBS from the vessels with the best radars were frustrated as the U.S. ships all talked at once. Suddenly, at 1:42 destroyer
Cushing
announced she could actually see three Japanese tin cans. Lieutenant Calhoun spotted the enemy for the first time with the range down to 4,000 yards. It was now clear there could be no clever maneuver. The fleets were upon each other. Admiral Callaghan ordered odd-numbered ships to fire to port and even ones to starboard. Calhoun discerned the silhouette of a
Kongo-
class battleship. Her towering superstructure overlooked the sea like the Empire State Building towered over structures in New York.

Ahead of Admiral Abe’s fractured formation, destroyer
Yudachi
saw the Americans nearly simultaneously—within a minute. A U.S. tin can appeared out of the night on a collision course. Commander Kikkawa Kiyoshi of the
Yudachi
, flabbergasted, turned hard to starboard, followed by
Harusame. Yudachi
flashed a warning but no position, because the dark and the fleet’s maneuvers left her without a good reckoning. Early in the war his ship had been taken unawares while Kikkawa concentrated on another target, so he was determined not to repeat that error. Kikkawa launched torpedoes immediately along the length of the U.S. column. Then he retreated momentarily to ready his gun crews.
Yudachi
tried to circle the Americans to come up on the opposite side. The destroyer fired fiercely at ranges down to 1,200 yards—point-blank for a modern warship. The Americans shot back and they had much bigger ships—Kikkawa successively engaged a heavy cruiser, a light cruiser, an antiaircraft cruiser, and two destroyers.
Yudachi
’s luck had run out—a cruiser Kikkawa thought friendly inflicted crippling hits to his engines and boilers. By then there were also fires near the forward magazines. Lieutenant Nakamura Teiji saw crewmen fetching their hammocks and bringing canvas, hoping to rig sails to catch the wind and beach on Starvation Island. But it was not to be. The
Yudachi
drifted until, much later, destroyer
Samidare
came alongside. Commander Kikkawa ordered, “Abandon ship.” After evacuating the crew, the
Samidare
fired a torpedo to scuttle her sister, without apparent effect. Kikkawa asked
Samidare
’s skipper to fire a second tin fish, but just then an American cruiser approached and
Samidare
had to flee. The
Yudachi
was finished off after dawn by a crippled U.S. cruiser shelling her at leisure.

Kikkawa’s boss, Rear Admiral Takama, was embarked in the
Asagumo.
The fleet’s perambulations had left Takama’s destroyers behind and to starboard of Abe’s force. They were on the disengaged side. They did not come into action until about 2:00 a.m., and retired after a brief firefight.

Hara Tameichi, a good friend of Kikkawa’s, was in his
Amatsukaze
, following light cruiser
Nagara.
Commander Hara worried about the closeness of Florida Island, with its dangerous reefs. Abe’s battleships were between Hara and the Americans. When U.S. warships engaged them, shells fired long began to fall near
Amatsukaze.
Caught between reefs and shells, Hara ordered a high-speed turn. Suddenly he found himself beside Callaghan’s battle line. Commander Hara had literally written the book on Japanese torpedo tactics, having authored the Imperial Navy’s torpedo warfare manual. He found himself in a perfect position and at 1:54 launched eight Long Lance torpedoes that crumpled the destroyer
Barton
at the rear of Callaghan’s
line. Five minutes later, spotting an American cruiser, Hara launched four more tin fish, badly damaging cruiser
Juneau.
At that moment the
Juneau
had been battering
Yudachi
, so Hara’s intervention saved her for a time. Later he almost collided with Callaghan’s flagship
San Francisco
, initially mistaking her for Japanese, and expended his last four torpedoes on that cruiser. But the
Amatsukaze
blundered into cruiser
Helena.
Firing under radar control, the
Helena
inflicted heavy damage and killed fifty-nine of Hara’s shipmates. Hara’s vessel limped away and barely reached Truk.

Rear Admiral Kimura’s flagship, the light cruiser
Nagara
, was under Captain Tahara Yoshiaki. Like Hara, Captain Tahara broke to the left at the outset. A few minutes later lookouts saw a pair of heavy cruisers and a destroyer. Tahara ordered his gunnery officer, Lieutenant Commander Kuhara Kazutoshi, to illuminate the targets with star shells. Then Kuhara began shooting. Suddenly torpedoes struck the enemy cruiser they were blasting. The ship, identified as a
Portland-
class cruiser, began to sink, though the
Nagara
had so far fired just nine 5.5-inch shells. Captain Tahara credited the torpedoes to
Amatsukaze.
The time recorded does correspond to that destroyer’s first Long Lance salvo. Tahara turned the
Nagara
in company with destroyers
Yukikaze
and
Harusame
, and discovered what they identified as a
Cairo-
class antiaircraft cruiser. Admiral Kimura ordered a combined attack. Tahara’s 5.5-inch guns fired 127 shells at the warship. At one point the range became so short that Kuhara ordered flak guns into action. The
Nagara
expended 332 rounds from her AA machine guns. Accompanying destroyers were also credited with sinking an American tin can.

If Abe’s escort vessels were confused by sudden apparitions from the night, the admiral himself was even more startled. The story from
Hiei
’s flag bridge is from Commander Sekino Hideo, communications officer, who related it to Hara Tameichi. Lookouts on the
Hiei
caught their first glimpse of Guadalcanal at the very moment the ship’s image appeared on U.S. radar. Admiral Abe expected to execute his shoot on Henderson Field momentarily and had already laid in the course as gunners loaded incendiaries. Observers on the island had informed Abe that the sky was clearing, and he knew JNAF had put up night intruders from Buin. Suddenly came
Yudachi
’s contact report.

Agitated, the admiral screamed, “What is the range and bearing? And where is the
Yudachi
?”

Before anyone answered,
Hiei
’s own lookouts piped up. “Four black objects ahead…look like warships.”
Look like
warships? In those waters, on that night, how could there be any question? “Five degrees to starboard. Eight thousand meters…unsure yet. Visibility bad.”

Admiral Abe’s staff chief, Commander Suzuki Masakane, tried to confirm the range while Abe himself decided what to do. He knew where
Yudachi
was supposed to be, but his course alterations had thrown everything out of kilter. He ordered the battleships to switch their incendiary rounds for armor-piercing shells. Aboard the
Hiei
the main battery gunner, Lieutenant Yunoki Shigeru, hastened to comply. Sekino saw “pandemonium” as turret crews raced to make the substitution and store the flammables. Radiomen spread the warning and yelled for information on every wavelength—so much that U.S. monitors at FRUPAC picked up high-frequency transmissions and began to listen, a vigil that led to a startling end. Had the Americans hit Abe’s battleships during those vulnerable moments it would have been like the glorious dive-bomber attack on the Japanese carriers at Midway. But for eight critical minutes no American guns spoke, no shells tumbled from the sky.

Lieutenant Calhoun on the
Sterett
watched the range close with trepidation. His ship awaited firing orders. Four thousand yards, three thousand. Tension grew. Finally Callaghan set the fire distribution, which required
Sterett
, in the van, to fire to the opposite side. As Calhoun turned the gun director the inferno engulfed them. Lieutenant Commander Edward N. Parker skippered the destroyer
Cushing
at the head of the van. Parker turned to bring his broadside to bear. It was his ship that nearly collided with Kikkawa’s
Yudachi.
His superior, Commander Thomas M. Stokes, the division commander, requested permission to make a torpedo attack. Admiral Callaghan refused. All his van destroyers were now turning to avoid Japanese warships.

Aboard cruiser
Helena
, Captain Gilbert C. Hoover had his guns trained at zero elevation. The Japanese were
that
close. Suddenly a searchlight split the night, illuminating the
Helena.
That was enough for Hoover, and he opened fire. The searchlight was from Commander Takasuka Osamu’s destroyer
Akatsuki
, in company with the
Hiei.
The whole U.S. battle line firing to that side pasted her.
Atlanta
estimated her own range at 600 yards.
Akatsuki
crumpled under the concentrated fire. Fifty years later, at a commemoration of the Guadalcanal campaign, Lieutenant Shinya Michiharu of the
Akatsuki
would meet Lieutenant Stewart Moredock, who had been on the
Atlanta
as Admiral Scott’s operations officer. Both men survived the sinking of their ships in this hellish encounter.

Behind
Akatsuki
were destroyers
Inazuma
and
Ikazuchi.
They did not wait for orders to launch torpedoes. The Americans quickly saw Lieutenant Commander Ishi Hagumu’s
Ikazuchi
and hit her several times. Ishi led his damaged ship out of the action. Commander Terauchi Masamichi in the
Inazuma
was full of fighting spirit. This was his first sea battle. It was so dark they could see nothing; then the night was lit with flashes and there were big ships. Terauchi loosed his torpedoes at the nearest big enemy vessel, though in his case he received orders first. Ishi’s and Terauchi’s destroyers proved an inadequate screen for Captain Nishida Masao’s
Hiei
. Parker’s
Cushing
fired her own torpedoes now, too close to arm properly but impossible to miss. Nishida’s ship could not miss either, and even her secondaries were enough to leave
Cushing
dead in the water. But the American torpedoes grievously wounded Admiral Abe’s flagship.

Captain Nishida switched on a searchlight, picking out the
Atlanta
. The
Hiei
blasted her. But Lieutenant Yunoki’s main battery got off just two salvos before U.S. shells began pitching in on
Hiei
. Meanwhile the
Atlanta
sheared out of line, swerving to avoid the destroyer melee ahead. Lieutenant Commander Bruce McCandless, at that moment officer of the deck on the next vessel, heavy cruiser
San Francisco
, had the conn and wondered whether to follow. He turned to his captain for orders and was told to match her turn. But the bigger ship could not duplicate the tight maneuver; plus the
Atlanta
kept weaving back, causing McCandless to alter slightly in an attempt to clear the bow for his turn. The ships steered shaky parallel courses as a result. Then the
Atlanta
shuddered from the impact of two Long Lances. Torpedoed, battered by the
Hiei
, she was nearly done for. At that moment the
San Francisco
, shooting at Japanese beyond
Atlanta
, dropped one or more shells short. A salvo—probably from
San Francisco
—carried away one of the ship’s bridge wings, and with it Rear Admiral Norman Scott. From the flagship Callaghan’s talker piped up on the TBS, “Cease firing, own ships!”

But shooting continued unabated. The
Mikazuki
, hit in her number one boiler room, lost a gun and a searchlight.
Akatsuki
simply disappeared. She had gone down with most crewmen, the skipper, and the destroyer division commander. Commander Terauchi on the
Inazuma
was one of the few to see her capsize. The Americans rescued eighteen
Akatsuki
seamen. Captain Hoover of the
Helena
asked whether he could fire if he had targets. The TBS spit back, “Advise type of targets. We want the big ones.” This last bit became Callaghan’s epitaph, forever marking his determination to prevail.