Guadalcanal 72 Years On

[kham]

est Scott reorders his line for pursuit while the battle rages on.

Boise has out-of-control fires next to her powder magazines. She is about to blow up! Kinugasa saves her. A Kinugasa 8" shell hits 9' below the waterline. The flooding from that hole fills the powder magazine! Boise, eventually, makes it back to port for repairs.

est Scott's formation is a mess as ships were dodging torps. He doesn't think he can pursue without his ships firing on each other. He calls off the pursuit.

Meanwhile, the TE is unloading all the men, supplies and weapons unmolested. With tonight's TE run all of Sendai division is on 'canal. The IJA and Marines have about the same number of men on the island!

est Some of the DDs on this run head off to rescue survivors from the battle.

[kham]

Ammo on DD Duncan starts to explode. Crew abandons ship. In the water, the crew is attacked by sharks! DD McCalla arrives. Rifle fire dispatches the sharks. McCalla rescues 195 from DD Duncan. 48 die on Duncan. (Picture from Oct 7, 1942)

[kham]

est 513 are rescued from CA Furutaka by IJN DDs before she sinks.

est USN rescues more than 113 survivors from Furutaka and Fubuki. Many others refuse rescue. After another day in the water most agree to be rescued! Interrogations are productive!

[kham]

09:30 est Cape Esperance is the first clear victory for the USN over the IJN since June (Midway)!

(**Also note that for all the time spent training, they never stopped to properly consider using radar effectively, nor the TBS; you'd have to ask the geniuses who developed it why it only had one fucking channel... Again too, the ships and captains who used common sense - shoot first, ask questions later -- were successful and largely undamaged. The problem remains - and will remain - with admirals too worried about stepping on their own dick than focussing on killing the enemy.)

[kham]

H. sends a big dawn patrol to look for crippled ships to attack.
It's SBDx16 escorted by F4Fs and P-39s. They find 3 IJN DDs full of survivors making a getaway N. of the Russell islands. 5 SBDs attack DD Shirayuki! 5 SBDs miss DD Shirayuki! DD Murakumo suffers a near-miss. She starts trailing oil. Now that H. knows where to look, more bombers will follow.

est H. sends a second strike goes after the rescue DDs. F4Fx14 strafe the DDs to suppress AA SBDx7 get 3 near misses on Murakumo. TBFx6 go for the classic 3 on each side attack... HIT! a rare torpedo HIT! Murakumo's (Massed Cloud) boilers explode! She sinks that afternoon. 22 killed Picture from 1930.
DDs Shirayuki and Natsugomo are next. P-39x8 strafe them. Then SBDx10 attack. SBD squadron leader Eldrige leads and goes after Natsugmo. HIT! DDs are small enough that one 1,000 pound bomb is close to a lethal hit. 2 more near-misses are enough to finish off Natsugumo - she soon rolls over and sinks around 8:45 (Pic from 1939.)
(Other books says this last attack happened about 6 hours later)
Recall that Eldrige was saved by a coastwatcher last week. US pilots crash, get saved, return to battle J. pilots crash and ... don't get saved.

What happened between Aug 9 (Battle of Savo Island) and Oct 12? Adm Scott trained, trained and trained some more in night fighting. For all the mistakes USN made last night, their performance was tremendous compared to the Savo Island battle. Night battles are always confusing. Mistakes are normal. *Dealing* with mistakes sees who wins the battle. USN *did* learn some of the wrong lessons last night. They think their gunfire will beat IJN torpedoes, for example. A clear tactical victory (DD for CA, DDx3) but a strategic loss since the TE was able to unload. On the other hand, the CAs weren't able to bombard. So it's a very close Strat loss. CA Aoba is heavily damaged but makes it back to Rabaul and then Tokyo.
USN - 1 DD sunk, 1 CL heavy damage, 1 CA light to moderate damage. 163 killed. IJN - 3 DD sunk, 1 CA sunk, 1 CA heavy damage. 451 killed.

Last night's Battle of Cape Esperance has had no effect on Yamamoto's overall plan. Next step - A *serious* bombardment of H. using TWO Battleships the night of Oct 13-14.

[kham]

est The last 5 of the original flyers at Henderson Field are rotated out.

est 4 PT boats arrive Tulagi. They'll be trying to intercept TE runs. More PTs will arrive later. (**this is eventually where John Kennedy will be based , with PT-109)

[kham]

Sub Grampus is at Vella Lavella to drop off 2 coastwatchers but can't get past a reef. Then she has to hide from an IJN DD. TRs McCawley and Zeilin, with the 164th, arrive at Lunga. Despite 2 air raids today, they unload everything and depart by dusk. Besides the 164th (2,852 soldiers) and other personnel, they unload 44 jeeps, 16 "bren gun carriers", 37 trucks, ... 12 37mm AT guns, 70 days worth of food, 60 days of other supplies, and 1,000 tons of assorted supplies for the Marines. Lots of ammo too! (Bren gun carriers are tiny armored vehicles. tracks instead of wheels. Can tow things through the mud. Very handy.)

Vandegrift has 23,088 men under his command now.

It is CRITICAL that H. be suppressed before IJA's fast transport convoy gets within range of H.'s bombers. Rabaul goes all out today!

est DD O'Brien, crippled by a torpedo on Sept 15*, leaves Suva, New Hebrides for massive repairs in San Francisco. *when Wasp was sunk.

[kham]

Despite Oct 1 code change, SIGINT gives USN has reasonable knowledge of the J. October offensive. Not as detailed as at Midway, but useful. The IJN had been steadily improving their communications security since Midway. The USN, more or less, kept pace.
est US recon spots major units of IJN (CVs) at sea between Truk and 'canal. IJN recon spots the Hornet.

How do you knock out an airfield on an island in the SWPac?
There's only 2 ways. a. Sustained and brutal air offensive or b. Naval blockade and bombardment
What about artillery? Bombers from the airfield won't allow you to get enough ammo for your artillery. What about infantry? Bombers won't let you bring in the heavy weapons and tanks. The airfield defenders *will* have those. Rabaul was too far away for method A. The bomb load of a Betty is far too small at that range. IJN didn't want to risk ships for method B. A blockade means the blockade ships have to stay in the area and would be at risk. Tonight J. will try method "B" in a half-hearted way. A 2 BB bombardment is an excellent way to kick things off. But if you don't block supplies an airfield will be repaired quickly. Japan is gambling that they can land enough heavy stuff after the bombardment, before H. recovers, to capture the airfield. Everything I know about suppressing airfields I learned from "Fire in the Sky" by Eric Bergerud!

With the 164th here, Vandegrift updates his perimeter defense. An attack from the W., across the Matanikau, is seen as the most dangerous threat - that gets the heaviest defenses. The entire perimeter is 22,000 yards. It's all defended except for a mile gap behind the Matanikau. Defending that depends on patrolling. IJA can't get to that gap without going through the Matanikau line.

[kham]

H. has F4Fx42, SBDx39, P-39/400x10.
USN won a night naval battle. H. is crawling with planes. A fresh Army regt. has just landed. Things look SWEET for the US on Guadalcanal!

Rabaul's raid today takes a wide route, evading coastwatchers. (Escorting Zeros might land at Buin instead of Rabaul ... Zeros don't have the range to fly to H., fight, and fly back to Rabaul on anything but the most direct route.) 27 Bettys, 18 Zeros bomb H. No coastwatcher warning. Radar doesn't give enough time for the F4Fs to climb to 30,000 ft to intercept. F4Fx42 chase them. Bill Freeman goes after the lead Betty and shoots it down. But he had to pass the rest of the formation to get it and every other Betty got a shot at him. His F4F is well perforated. He splashes down off Lunga but survives. Besides that Betty and Bill's F4F, a Zero was shot down. Bettys can be accurate when unmolested! 5,000 gallons AvGas blown up - both runways cratered. Main runway worse off.

est The F4Fs are still being refueled (hand pumps!) when 18 more Bettys, escorted by 18 Zeros attack! Joe Foss leads F4Fx12 (the only ones that had fuel) chasing them after the raid. Foss shoots down a Zero but other Zeros shoot his F4F to hell. His engine locked up, Foss dive glides towards H, pursued by Zeros. He can't even slow down to land until AA chases the Zeros away. Foss lives... somehow. This 2nd raid didn't do a great deal of damage but it piles on to the earlier damage. The main runway has enough damage to be unsafe to use. H. has to rely on the secondary airstrip, Fighter One. That's only long enough for fighters to use safely. Besides the cratering, several aircraft on the ground were damaged. The Rabaul raids today were the most damaging H. has ever had.

***FINALLY, Henderson Field is suppressed!*** Most of the damage is holes in the ground. It'll be repaired soon.
est More trouble for H.! 150mm howitzers, unloaded Oct 11-12, start sniping at H. and Kukum beach. Marines call these "Pistol Pete" Marine arty is too short range for effective counter-battery fire. J. hide the guns - bombers from H. aren't effective at silencing them. Without a lot of ammo, these guns are nuisances. They *do* make the mechanics nervous! Filling in craters is a lot more dangerous with huge shells dropping in from time to time.

est BBs Kongo and Haruna are approaching 'canal to bombard H. tonight. They're unseen by H. since the runways are too cratered for the afternoon recon planes to takeoff.

[kham]

More 150mm howitzers bombard H. Marines think they're shooting from the Matanikau area. DDs Sterret, Nichols and Gwin* bombard that area and the howitzers stop. *escorts from the convoy. They leave with the convoy tonight.

Washing Machine Charlie* looks over H. and Lunga. Making sure the coast is clear for the Big Boys. *annoying float plane.

As the 2 BBs approach Lunga point, lets look at the surprise weapon they're about to unleash. The float plane drops different colored flares to mark targets. BB Kongo and Haruna start to bombard Henderson Field. Adm. Tanaka watches from one of the escort ships.
est Marine shore batteries fire at the BBs but the BBs are careful to stay far out of range of those guns.
est 4 PT Boats from Tulagi try to attack the BBs. The BBs have 9 DDs as escorts and those keep the PTs from getting close. BTW, DDs were invented in the 1880s specifically to defend big ships against torpedo boats. And here they are, doing their original job. Destroyer - short for Torpedo Boat Destroyer!
est 10,000 or so large rats flee the jungle in panic and invade Marine dugouts.
est CL Isuzu, escorting Kongo and Haruna, takes some pot shots at Tulagi.
Gen Hyakutake has a view of the bombardment from 20 miles away.

The bombardment stops. It starts up again. The 2 BBs had sailed as far E. as they wanted. They stopped shooting as they reversed direction and are blowing up H. all over again on the way back.
2nd Lt Doyle, in a foxhole, lights a cigarette "You think this match might give away our position to the gunners on those battleships?" H. is being bombarded at the rate of 10 gigantic 14" shells a minute. 1 every 6 seconds. It's still going on!
NOW the bombardment is over.
est J night bombers appear. One bomb hits the H. radio station preventing reports from reaching Espiritu Santo on the damage suffered by H. Takes about 3 hours for H. to get a radio cobbled together
(picture - wrecked station)