Islands of Destiny: The Solomons Campaign and the Eclipse of the Rising Sun (33 page)

So Rear Admiral Hashimoto’s Destroyer Squadron 3 saw the Americans before Lee’s radars detected him. The Americans turned west shortly before 11:00. Moments later the
Washington
’s radar detected light cruiser
Sendai
with her destroyers steering past Savo, about nine miles distant. Lee, probably the U.S. Navy’s senior expert on electronic systems, elected to await visual contact, which came fifteen minutes later. At 11:16 he signaled his warships to fire when ready. Upon receiving word of the
Sendai
sighting, at 11:15 Kondo changed course to stay north of Savo Island. Kondo clearly intended to keep Savo between his big ships and the U.S. radars until he saw what developed. Captain Morishita Nobue’s
Sendai
confirms the Americans opened fire at 11:16. Admiral Hashimoto wasted no time. One minute later he ordered full left rudder, made smoke, and retired to the north. Hashimoto’s principal role became one of keeping Lee’s gunners busy. They focused on him until their attention was drawn away. The only ship the Americans touched was Commander Sakuma Eiji’s
Ayanami
, engaged by Commander Thomas E. Fraser’s
Walke
at 11:22. Lee’s battleships checked fire. The
Ayanami
was crippled in less than twenty minutes, though not without launching dreaded Long Lance torpedoes. Destroyer
Uranami
went alongside, took off her crew, and scuttled the
Ayanami
with two tin fish. Sakuma and several dozen men took cutters and went to join the fight on land.

Admiral Kimura’s unit did most of the fighting through the first part of the action. Kimura’s sailors first launched torpedoes, then opened fire. With the dark fastness of Savo behind the Japanese, Lee’s ships at first believed they were engaging shore batteries, but as Kimura maneuvered, the Americans realized the truth. The
Preston
fired on Kimura’s flagship until the torpedoes began to strike. At 11:36 Commander Max Stormes of the
Preston
had to abandon ship. The
Gwin
had already been hit in her engine room. In moments Ching Lee’s destroyers had fallen to hammer blows. A dozen minutes after Stormes evacuated
Preston,
Lee ordered them to leave. By then only two could respond, and one later sank. Only the damaged
Gwin
, under Lieutenant Commander John B. Fellowes Jr., was to survive.

The battleship action became the main event. By 11:30 Vice Admiral Kondo understood that the U.S. force, if not confronted—he believed, even now, that only cruisers were involved—would pass behind him. Once that happened the Americans would be free to take the approaching Tanaka convoy. A large-scale exchange of gunfire was reported off Savo. Kondo changed to a southwesterly course and ordered battle stations. At 11:35 he received more reports—of a “cruiser” and three destroyers. A few minutes later Kondo altered course to close with the enemy, and at 11:50 he came around to the northwest to parallel them.

At this point the Americans suffered a disaster that was a blessing in disguise. Captain Gatch’s
South Dakota
commenced fire at 11:17 on the
Shikinami
, the second ship in Hashimoto’s line—and thought her sunk—but after a half dozen salvos the American guns fell silent.
South Dakota
’s chief engineer had tied down the circuit breakers, which put the entire electrical system on a single circuit, instead of many working in parallel. The effect of vibration from firing her own main battery plus the impact of Japanese five-inch shells on
South Dakota
’s superstructure suddenly broke the circuit,
and the ship lost all electricity. It was 11:30. Gatch restored power in eight minutes and resumed shooting, while Lee’s
Washington
was concealed just behind the tip of Savo when Kondo straightened on his new course. Because she was not firing at that moment, the Japanese did not see her. They had eyes only for the
South Dakota
. Captain Davis’s
Washington
would be like a fox loose in a chicken coop.

Kondo received a message sent by the
Ayanami
before her demise. It seemed as if the Long Lance torpedoes were up to their deadly work. The admiral determined to resume his planned bombardment of Henderson Field and led the fleet around to the southeast. Kondo was making between twenty-eight and thirty knots. Within five minutes beginning at 11:52, lookouts on the
Takao
, the
Nagara
, and the flagship all reported U.S. battleships in sight. The
Nagara
accurately observed that there were two. Vice Admiral Kondo professed himself stunned. “The sudden appearance of enemy battleships in that area was utterly beyond my consideration,” Kondo later wrote. “Otherwise, I ought to have prepared to launch a systematized night action.” As it was, Kondo believed himself overextended. His order for the bombardment had sent Hashimoto’s destroyer group ahead on its sweep—the
Sendai
would be off Lunga an hour and a half later—and Kondo’s other ships had their hands full with Ching Lee.

Still confused as to the Americans’ identity, Vice Admiral Kondo ordered a searchlight lit. Captain Baron Ijuin Matsuji of the
Atago—
another Japanese nobleman in the fleet—opened the shutters of one of his lights a minute after midnight. It focused on the
South Dakota.
The light immediately settled all doubts—but it also brought on the hurricane of Lee’s sixteen-inch guns. And Ching Lee had no doubts: he had detected the
Kirishima
in Kondo’s line and all the U.S. guns targeted her.

Baron Ijuin’s
Atago
and Captain Asakura Bunji’s
Takao
both shot at the
South Dakota
, as did Iwabuchi’s
Kirishima.
Captain Iwabuchi actually believed his ship had done well, somehow thinking she had hit the
South Dakota
twice on the first salvo and scored at least eight more times, including destroying the target’s bridge.
Kirishima
’s gunnery officer even prepared to shift targets after one more salvo. The American battleship was peppered with Japanese shells, but there was only a single fourteen-inch hit on her from Iwabuchi’s ship. That would have surprised Lieutenant Commander Tokuno Hiroshi,
Kirishima
’s assistant gunner, who recounted that although his ship had no
gunnery radar—only one of the cruisers present had radar, and that a primitive search type—she picked out the
South Dakota
and piled on. Tokuno too thought the American battleship badly hit. But the lighter weapons of Kondo’s cruisers and destroyers could not penetrate
South Dakota
’s armor. Captain Gatch’s vessel suffered all kinds of topside damage yet no critical hits. Sailors aboard her—like young Ensign R. Sargent Shriver—were astonished at the pounding their ship endured. Wounded by flying shrapnel, Ensign Shriver earned the Purple Heart. Ten minutes after midnight, Gatch decided to withdraw and preserve his ship. Meanwhile, Glenn Davis’s
Washington
completed the destruction of the
Kirishima.

Kondo’s diffident handling of his fleet became the determining factor. He had Ijuin cease fire after just five minutes—
Atago
expended only fifty-seven eight-inch shells. Commander Hideshima Narinobu, her gunnery officer, believed that the target (
South Dakota
) was already sinking. The
Takao
fired so little she did not bother recording consumption. The fleet commander’s idea was apparently to regain the advantage of darkness to afford him the chance of a torpedo attack, and beginning at 12:14 a.m. both cruisers unleashed torpedoes.
Atago
actually fired nineteen of them. Admiral Kimura’s
Nagara
plus destroyers were also pursuing the Americans, as was a division of destroyers that Tanaka sent forward from his convoy. The long-range torpedo attacks—exactly like the Java Sea battle—achieved little. Chief of Staff Shiraishi should have been mortified. The
Washington
turned to evade torpedoes at 12:33. Fearing additional attacks, Ching Lee left the area, abandoning any further effort to defend Henderson Field.

Kimura’s destroyers could still see the
Washington
for more than an hour after she began her retreat, but Kondo did not order any action. Instead, at 12:32 a.m. he canceled the Henderson bombardment. Fifteen minutes later the admiral advised Combined Fleet in a dispatch: “GUADALCANAL ATTACK FORCE AND THE REINFORCEMENTS ARE ENGAGING WITH TWO NEW TYPE ENEMY BATTLESHIPS AND SEVERAL CRUISERS AND DESTROYERS OFF LUNGA…TONIGHT’S SHORE BOMBARDMENT CALLED OFF.” At 1:04 Kondo ordered his pursuit ships to execute torpedo attacks and withdraw. By then the
Washington
had disappeared. An hour afterward the
Sendai
group turned to assist
Kirishima
, but at 2:43 a.m. that effort was suspended and Rear Admiral Hashimoto headed north.

The final act of this terrible drama was the demise of the
Kirishima.
Iwabuchi’s battleship had been smitten early in the action, her steering spaces so badly damaged she lost rudder control. The battleship turned in circles. Captain Iwabuchi slowed his vessel and attempted to steer with the engines, but that proved futile. Lieutenant Commander Tokuno estimated nine sixteen-inch hits and more than forty from five-inch guns. There were fires everywhere; 90 percent of the engine room gang were dead; leaks aft, though briefly stopped, then disabled all but one screw. Fires approached the forward magazines, which had to be flooded. Eerily, as had happened with
Hiei
in these very waters just two days before, the jammed rudder stymied a perfunctory effort to beach the vessel. Admiral Kimura refused to rig a towline from the
Nagara.
Iwabuchi appealed to higher command to order that the ship be saved, but the progression of flooding mooted that possibility. During the predawn hours
Kirishima
capsized and sank. Iwabuchi and 1,128 seamen were evacuated. Another 300 never came back.

Vice Admiral Kondo’s force entered Truk early in the morning of November 18. He estimated nine torpedo hits against U.S. battleships (none were actually made), along with two heavy cruisers and two destroyers sunk, plus another cruiser and a destroyer badly damaged. The Japanese had lost the battleship
Kirishima
and the destroyer
Ayanami.
Actual American losses amounted to three destroyers plus damage to the
South Dakota
, which would return to the United States, out of the war until February 1943. Continuing Japanese confusion as to what had happened—and an implicit claim to heroics—is inherent in the estimate of the Allied force in this battle: Kondo assessed Lee’s strength as
four
battleships, two heavy cruisers, and two destroyers. Not only was the estimate considerably larger than Lee’s actual force, but the claimed destruction of Allied cruisers included more than the Japanese themselves believed present.

In the propaganda war, the battle of the communiqués continued apace. The U.S. Navy issued a fairly detailed description of the cruiser action but very little on the battleship engagement. In fact, only on November 19 did the Navy admit that American battleships had participated at all. The Japanese description, issued on November 18, modified Kondo’s claims but followed his essential description:

Through the sequence of battles from November 12 through 14, the Japanese admitted to the loss of a battleship, a cruiser, and three destroyers, and to sustaining damage on a second battleship and a cruiser. The U.S. Navy texts covering these two battles claimed to have sunk a battleship and damaged two more, sunk eight cruisers and damaged another, and sunk six destroyers while damaging seven more. Both sides could lie with statistics.

Kondo Nobutake explains his decision to terminate the battle in terms very different from his damage claims. The fleet had almost exhausted its torpedoes. He considered that he had achieved substantial results against two battleships, either sinking them or leaving them in a sinking condition. Yet, “[A] continuance of that night engagement in the face of still sound enemy battleships as well as land-and carrier-based air forces, would cause us to subject our fleet to powerful enemy air attacks from early morning…[and] consequently would result in sacrificing our important striking force which could hardly be supplemented afterward.”

Writing of World War I, Winston Churchill once famously named the commander of Britain’s Grand Fleet as the only man on either side who could lose the war in an afternoon. That person, Admiral Sir John Jellicoe, was inclined toward caution, and Churchill sought to explain his attitude. Kondo Nobutake could not make an equivalent claim to importance. Admiral Kondo could not lose the war in an afternoon, so the enormity of stakes did not justify his caution. Moreover, Jellicoe won his war, whereas Kondo and his nation went down to defeat. And while Kondo could not have lost in an afternoon, it might be that Kondo Nobutake
did
lose Japan’s war in a month, the month starting at Santa Cruz and ending with the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal.