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Savo Island it wasn’t.
miral Stanton A. (“Tip”) Merrill’s TF-39, consisting1
good officer and a poor one,” Burke concluded, “is abo1
Japan’s defeat in the bloody contest precipitated by the U.S. landing on Guadalcanal in August 1942 proved to be the turning point of the Pacific War. Even though the fighting on the island continued until the following February, its outcome had become evident to both sides before the end of the year. The strategic shift this signified was emphasized by a virtually simultaneous Allied success in northeastern New Guinea, where U.S. and Australian troops ejected the Japanese from Buna, on the Papuan Peninsula. The days when U.S. leaders scrambled to react to enemy initiatives were over. The United States and its Allies had forced Japan on the defensive.
At the Casablanca Conference of January 1943, Admiral Ernest J. King, U.S. Chief of Naval Operations, bludgeoned the British into accepting his proposal to increase pressure against Japan, on the condition that the primary effort of the Anglo-American alliance must remain to defeat “Germany first.” Three operations were authorized: to capture the cornerstone of the Japanese position in the Southwest Pacific, the fleet and air base at Rabaul, near the northern tip of the New Britain in the Bismarck Archipelago; a subsequent offensive into the Central Pacific from Pearl Flarbor (the former conducted principally and the latter exclusively by U.S. forces); and a British landing in enemy-occupied Burma, an undertaking later adjudged impractical. Details of the drive on Rabaul were settled in March. These called for Admiral William F. “Bull” Halsey, operating subject to “general directives” from General Douglas MacArthur, to command a thrust up the Solomon Islands chain and for MacArthur himself to lead a concurrent advance along the coast of New Guinea. The problems this rather woolly command structure might have caused were averted by the friendship that developed between the two men.
Although Halsey would have preferred to move faster, the time taken to build up MacArthur's amphibious resources delayed the opening of the campaign for several months. Once unleashed, Halsey’s forces island-hopped rapidly through the Central Solomons, from Guadalcanal to New Georgia in early July and from there to Vella Lavella, bypassing bristling Kolombangara, in mid-August. That month, the Joint Chiefs of Staff decided that Rabaul need not be captured, after all; it, too, could be neutralized and bypassed. Still, in order to bring land- based air power to bear against the enemy stronghold as soon as possible, Halsey would have to establish a lodgement on heavily garrisoned Bougainville, the northernmost of the major Solomons, only 210 miles from Rabat On the morning of 1 November, the 3d Marine Division] began landing on the western shore of the island arouw Cape Torokina on Empress Augusta Bay.
Surface support for the operation came from Rear
the light cruisers Montpelier (CL-57)—the flagship—-^ Cleveland (CL-55), the Columbia (CL-56), and the D&1' ver (CL-58), and Destroyer Squadron 23—soon to becoiM famous as the “Little Beavers”—eight vessels command^ by Captain Arleigh Burke. Before suns?1' TF-39 knew that it was in for a fight. U.S. planes ha spotted a Japanese cruiser-destroyer force on its way soU^ from Rabaul.
In its essentials, the situation taking shape bore a mark^. resemblance to the one that eventuated in the Battle Savo Island, when another Japanese cruiser-destroyer fot^' responding to the invasion of Guadalcanal, sank one A^' tralian and three U.S heavy cruisers and exited almost u"' scathed. Enemy surface units had not attempted to intef' fere with any landings since Guadalcanal, but they usually emerged with tactical honors in the numerous othef night actions fought during the Solomons campaign. Tbe Imperial Navy owed its success in these encounters in p'^ to its own strengths and in part to U.S. weaknesses. ltS forces trained rigorously in night fighting, a type of con1' bat to which the prewar U.S. Navy had not devoted equ'' alent attention, and in the deadly Long Lance torpedo, 'j wielded one of the most effective naval weapons of Won War II. The U.S. lead in radar—which Japanese cruisefS and destroyers lacked—might have offset these adva11 tages, but all too often U.S. commanders hesitated to ‘1C on radar contacts and came too close to enemy forfl13 tions—within range of their Long Lances—before opefl ing fire. Even the intrepid Burke experienced buck fev^ the first time his radar picked up a Japanese ship. Thou- the action ended successfully, he realized that the del11- could have been disastrous. “The difference between 1
ten seconds.” Finally, U.S. commanders frequently wai’e until firing had begun before releasing their destroyeI\ thus depriving them of any chance to launch torpedo1- at an unsuspecting enemy. (
For all their similarities, however, the circumstances the battles of Empress Augusta Bay and Savo Island fered in several crucial respects. First, at Savo the All'e cruisers had been taken by surprise; at Empress AuguS ‘ Bay aerial reconnaissance gave TF-39 ample notice of*
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Proceedings / November
j^anwhile, at 0245, Austin’s DesDiv 46 made radar con- /*ct with the enemy ships and turned toward them to at- pk. Its luck was not good. A Japanese torpedo intended jT the U.S. cruisers blew the stern off the USS Foote -*0-511), and her three division mates lost a chance to
demy’s approach. Second, by late 1943 the U.S. radar e^ge increased with the evolution ot the station originally CaUed “radar plot” into the combat information center (CIC), to which all relevant data were fed. Third—and V important—Merrill and Burke had given serious con- aeration to the problems of night fighting. Merrill had ^en drilling his cruisers in night battle tactics since spring ar|d, on Burke’s recommendation, authorized his leading ^stroyers to begin their runs immediately upon contact; "Hess the enemy reacted, the cruisers would hold fire until ^eir torpedoes had time to reach their targets. The result, S'hile not perfect, presented “a refreshing contrast,” as Wiuel Eliot Morison put it, to earlier cruiser actions.
The Japanese force, commanded by Vice Admiral Sen- !;iro Omori, approached Empress Augusta Bay from the ^Thwest in three parallel columns. The northern column insisted of the light cruiser Sendai and three destroyErs> the center, the heavy cruisers Myoko (Omori s flagS) and Haguro\ and the southern, the light cruiser Agano Td three destroyers. The U.S. task force was cruising in a '>ne ahead with Destroyer Division (DesDiv) 45—four ^ssels under Burke’s personal command—in the van. Simander Bernard L. (“Count”) Austin’s DesDiv 46 br°Ught up the rear.
The Sendai column showed on the Montpelier's Tdar at 0227. Burke’s flagship, the Charles Ausburne I D-570), registered the same formation three minutes per, and his division peeled off to attack its flank. The destroyers launched torpedoes at 0246. “My guppies are dimming!” Burke reported. Unfortunately, the Japanese Totted the U.S. ships at almost the same instant and swung Ny to starboard. Detecting the enemy turn on radar, ^errill ordered his cruisers to open fire at 0249. None of Te destroyers’ torpedoes found their mark, but the Sendai showered with 6-inch shells, and two of the destroy- [rs following her, the Samidare and the Shiratsuyu, coined in the violent maneuvering attendant to such events.
launch against the enemy cruisers when Austin’s C1C officer became convinced they were friendly.
While this was transpiring, Merrill’s cruisers were executing a series of disciplined, north-south countermarches, describing a sort of continuous figure-eight and moving westward between the enemy and Empress Augusta Bay. The Japanese never really recovered from the confusion they experienced at the opening of the action, and at 0307 the Myoko, cutting through the Agano's column, divested the destroyer Hatzukaze of her bow. A half-hour later, Omori decided that the time had come to go. In the course of the engagement, he had concluded that he was opposed by 7 heavy cruisers and 12 destroyers and believed he had sunk 3 of the cruisers—clearly, a good night’s work. Merrill did not pursue. Well aware that his was the only substantial U.S. surface force in the Solomons, he had never intended to do more than cover the landing, and he had accomplished that without losing a single ship. Burke’s and Austin’s destroyers polished off the Sendai and Hatzukaze, and might have sunk the Samidare and Shi- ratsuyu, except for another case of mistaken identity, which allowed the crippled destroyers to escape.
With the opening of an airfield at Cape Torokina, the enemy fleet base at Rabaul soon became untenable. By 1 February 1944, close to 400 planes were flying from Bougainville, and on the 20th the Japanese abandoned the air defense of Rabaul. Three months earlier, the Navy had commenced its drive through the Central Pacific. The perimeter that Japanese leaders had expected to contain the U.S. counteroffensive was crumbling.
For further reading: Paul S. Dull, A Battle History’ of the Imperial Japanese Navy (1941-1945) (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1978); Samuel Eliot Morison, History of United States Naval Operations in World War 11, Vol. VI: Breaking the Bismarcks Barrier (Boston: Little, Brown, 1975); E.B. Potter, Admiral Arleigh Burke (New York: Random House, Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1990).
Dr. Sweetman is a military and naval historian.
V,
e®dings / November 1993