began repairing two big holes in Enterprise’s side, above and below the water line. Working up to their armpits in water, using emergency lighting, they built a cofferdam of two-by-six planking placed vertically a foot from the side of the ship. They covered the holes from the inside with heavy wire meshing. Between the meshing and the cofferdam they packed mattresses and pillows. Then they wedged the cofferdam tight against the packing and began pumping.
An hour after the last bomb struck, Enterprise turned into the wind at 24 knots to receive aircraft.
Less than an hour later, the helmsman reported, “Lost steering control, sir,” and a few minutes later the rudder had jammed and Enterprise was turning, turning helplessly to starboard.
Captain Davis slowed to ten knots. He broke out the “Breakdown” flag. He ordered the rudder fixed. And Enterprise circled like a defenseless whale while North Carolina and cruiser Portland stood close by and the group’s destroyers raced around and round them, sniffing for submarines. Below, Chief Machinist Mate William Smith buckled on a rescue-breather-vest and put on his breathing-mask. He filled his pockets with the tools that he thought he would need and stepped into the rubble-strewn oven that was the elevator machinery room. At the other end, behind a dogged-down hatch, was the steering engine room…
Above, Enterprise’s big air-search antenna swung—and stopped. “Large bogey. Two seven zero, fifty miles.” It was Nagumo’s second strike. Thirty Vals from Zui and Sho. And Enterprise still turned…
Below, the heat had sent Smith sagging to the deck. He was dragged back. He recovered and returned, accompanied by Machinist Cecil Robinson. They stumbled through the debris to the hatch. They got their hands on the dogs, and passed out…
Above decks the seas and the skies were darkening. Anxious gunners tilted their chins into the gathering gloom. The big bedspring antenna swept the skies…
Smith and Robinson had been rescued. They had revived and had stumbled to the hatch again. They swung it open. Smith darted inside. He saw that the mechanism had not completed its shift to port. He completed it. The rudder moved again.
Above, the helmsman reported: “Steering control regained, sir.”
Enterprise straightened and sailed south.
Nagumo’s eagles had missed her. They had flown past fifty miles away, going southeast. Enterprise recovered the last of her planes. One flight of eleven Dauntlesses led by Lieutenant Turner Caldwell was too far away to return. They flew on to Guadalcanal, landing after dark by light of crude flares. They were warmly welcomed, and they would prolong their “visit” for almost a month.
And now all of Fletcher’s ships were retiring. Admiral Kondo’s battleships and cruisers came tearing after them. In a night action, they could blow the lightly armed flattops to bits, they could overwhelm North Carolina and her cruisers.
But Fletcher’s caution this time had thwarted the enemy. Kondo could not catch up. The Battle of the Eastern Solomons had ended indecisively. Nevertheless, Ryujo was forever lost and Enterprise, though knocked out of action for two months, would come back to fight for Guadalcanal again, and again.
Admiral Tanaka’s convoy of troops had withdrawn to the northeast again while Admiral Nagumo’s pilots struck at Enterprise. Then, hearing reports that two enemy carriers had been left burning and probably sinking, Admiral Mikawa in Rabaul ordered Tanaka to turn south again.
With a sinking heart, Tanaka obeyed.
Night of the twenty-fourth came and his ships plowed on.
Below him, off Guadalcanal, five destroyers of his command bombarded the Americans. Then they sped north to join Tanaka. They were aged Mutsuki and Yayoi, and the newer Kagero, Kawakaze, and Isokaze. They joined up early in the morning of August 25 at a point 150 miles north of Henderson Field. Tanaka was delighted to have them. He drew up his signal order for their movements and formations, and just as it was being wigwagged the enemy Dauntlesses broke through the clouds.
The dive-bombers were Mangrum’s Marines and Caldwell’s “visitors” from Enterprise. They had caught the Japanese unawares, not even able to ready their guns to return fire.
Lieutenant Larry Baldinus planted his bomb forward of Tanaka’s flagship Jintsu. Near-misses staggered the big cruiser and showered her with tons of geysering water. Another bomb struck the forecastle. Men fell and steel fragments flew. Tanaka was knocked out. He recovered consciousness in clouds of choking smoke. As the smoke cleared, he saw a Dauntless flown by Ensign Christian Fink swoop down and set Kinryu Maru afire with a well-placed thousand-pounder. Admiral Tanaka ordered Jintsu to limp back to Truk for repairs, and began transferring to Kagero. He instructed Mutsuki and Yayoi to take off Kinryu Maru’s troops. Then he took Kagero and the other destroyers speeding north out of airplane range.
But the Dauntlesses had radioed Tanaka’s location and their message brought eight Flying Fortresses over Kinryu and her ministering destroyers. In a shower of deadly eggs Kinryu was finished off and Mutsuki, lying motionless in the water, was sunk almost instantaneously.
Commander Kiyono Hatano of Mutsuki was one of the survivors fished from the water by men of Yayoi. To him had fallen the ignominious honor of skippering the first Japanese ship to be sunk by horizontal bombers, and he took it with resignation, saying: “Even the B-17s can make a hit once in a while.”6
Then Yayoi put about and sailed north.
More ships and more soldiers had been lost to the Emperor. Of the troops who were finally put ashore in the Shortlands, many were wounded or burned and none had their weapons.
Ka had failed and American toes still clung to Solomons soil.
TRUK was quiet.
Major General Kiyotake Kawaguchi and most of his brigade had sailed south in the big transports Sado-maru and Asakayama-maru, and the Nagumo and Kondo fleets had refueled and set out for waters northeast of Bougainville, where they would cruise on call while the carrier aircraft joined the onslaught on Henderson Field.
Weary sailors of the few warships still anchored inside Truk Lagoon took advantage of the respite. They swam or merely loafed aboard ship, watching the blue ocean boil white over the fringing reef. Others fished. The lagoon abounded in fish of all varieties and the men had their fill of sashimi, thin strips of raw fish which Japanese consider a delicacy.
Aboard destroyer Amatsukaze one day the men caught a falcon which had fluttered down and perched on the mast. They put it in a crude cage. Then someone caught a rat. The rat was placed inside the cage with the falcon and Amatsukaze’s crew gathered around to watch. Hearing their voices, Commander Tameichi Hara came out on deck to investigate.
The falcon sat calmly on its perch. Its eyes were closed. The rat raced around in terror. Suddenly, the falcon blinked and swooped on the rat. It put out one of the rat’s eyes, and the sailors cheered. Now the rat scurried around the cage with the falcon whirring after it. One turn, and the falcon put out the rat’s other eye. The men roared their approval, and Commander Hara returned to his cabin with tightened lips.
Hara was not dismayed by the cruelty of his men. It just seemed to him that the falcon was an American
