Challenge for the Pacific

Aoba, 1 Mogami, 1 Kiso, 1 Tatuta, 2 sloops, 33 destroyers, 17 cargo, 2 tankers, 1 passenger liner of 8,000 tons.”¹

It was this message, joined to the reports of tirelessly searching Flying Forts and Catalinas, which sent the last American carrier force in the Pacific tearing north again.

Big E was coming back to battle a cripple, but coming back because Bull Halsey was throwing even half-ships and cockleshells into America’s desperate struggle to save Guadalcanal.

Since the day Enterprise had staggered from Santa Cruz into the hill-girdled harbor of Noumea, a battalion of Seabees, all of repair-ship Vulcan’s crew, and the carrier’s own craftsmen had been working around the clock to put her back in shape. Enterprise had lain there beside the dozing little French colonial town with its dainty white replica of Notre Dame de Paris crowning the harbor, while her decks rattled to the incessant pounding of air-hammers, while even the nights winked and twinkled with the spark and sputter of welder’s torches, and while other ships sped north with the last of Admiral Halsey’s available troops.

Six thousand of them, Marines and soldiers of the 182nd Infantry Regiment, had been rushed to Guadalcanal to even the 30,000-to-23,000 numerical superiority now possessed by the enemy.

The first group, the Marines, had arrived on November 11 in a convoy commanded by Rear Admiral Norman Scott. Even as they hurried ashore, the enemy struck with the two air raids which ended the aerial doldrums and underlined Halsey’s warning to Vandegrift. The only damage was in near-misses suffered by transport Zeilin, while eleven enemy aircraft were shot down against seven Wildcats lost.

The second group led by Admiral Turner and carrying the 182nd Infantry Regiment was due to arrive the following day, November 12.

So also, Admiral Halsey learned, would the aircraft and battleships of Admiral Kondo’s huge fleet.

Only Enterprise, still needing ten days of repairs, battleships South Dakota—also crippled—and Washington, two cruisers and eight destroyers could offset this powerful enemy concentration.

Halsey ordered them back.

On November 11, Seabees and Vulcan-crew and all, Enterprise stood out of Noumea. She made the open sea with her decks still shaking and echoing to air-hammers, with welder’s arcs still sparking, with a big bulge in her right side forward, without watertight integrity and one oil tank still leaking, and with her forward elevator still jammed as it had been since the bomb at Santa Cruz broke in half.

Fortunately, the elevator was stuck at the flight-deck level. Or at least it was thought to be. No one, not even Bull Halsey, would have dared to press the “Down” button to find out. If the elevator went down and did not come up again, there would be a big square hole in the flight deck and Enterprise would be useless.

Thus, depending on her after elevators to bring planes to and from the hangars below, Enterprise sailed back to battle only half a carrier. With her, though, were screening ships powerful enough to take on Admiral Kondo’s sluggers.

If they could get there in time.

If…

This time there would be no complicated Japanese Army timetable of attack to work in their favor. This time all depended on a favorable wind.

If it blew from the north Enterprise could launch her planes without having to turn around. But if it blew from the south, the big ship would have to turn into the wind to launch. Leaving Noumea behind and entering radio silence, Admiral Kinkaid stood bareheaded on Big E’s bridge and saw that the luck of Santa Cruz had forsaken him.

It was a south wind.

Far to the north, the weather favored the Japanese.

At three o’clock in the morning of November 12, Admiral Abe had detached his battleships and three destroyers from Admiral Kondo’s main body. He had sailed south for the Shortlands, making rendezvous with Nagara and eleven more destroyers, among them Amatsukaze under Commander Hara.

They sped down The Slot to bombard Henderson Field, and they ran into a fortuitous rain squall.

Thick clouds clotted overhead. Rain fell in sheets. The sky darkened as though night had fallen, and Abe jubilantly ordered his ships to keep on course at a steady eighteen knots.

Some of Abe’s staff officers aboard flagship Hiei objected. Although the squall certainly would protect the ships against surprise attack, it also made it dangerous to keep plowing ahead in complex formation.

Admiral Abe had formed his fleet into a tight double crescent. Half the destroyers formed a leading arc about five miles ahead of Nagara and the other destroyers, which formed a second arc. Following in column were Hiei and Kirishima better than a mile apart. Some of Abe’s officers thought the fleet should slow down, or else risk collision in the darkness, but Abe replied:

“We must maintain this speed to reach the target area in good time.”²

Charging south almost blindly, his men sweating despite the drenching rain, Admiral Abe pressed ahead.

And the covering squall stayed with him at the same speed.

“Twenty-four torpedo bombers headed yours.”

The message was from Paul Mason at Buin, and it was acted upon immediately by the second group of American ships in Iron Bottom Bay.

Kelly Turner had brought them in early that morning of November 12. They had begun unloading hurriedly, and the 182nd Infantry was already ashore by the time Mason’s warning was received. A few minutes later the Wildcats were taking off and Turner had broken off unloading. He set his transports in two parallel columns of three ships each and sailed them toward Savo. Around them cruisers and destroyers bristled with antiaircraft barrels.

Shortly after two o’clock the Bettys were sighted circling over eastern Florida Island. They had formed two groups, north and south, to make the customary “anvil” attack from both sides. Turner deliberately baited the northern group by turning right to give them his ships’ broadsides.

The Bettys came boring in.

A ferocious storm of steel swept among them. One by one they began to crash into the sea, but many of them still dropped their torpedoes.

Turner swung his ships left. Only his narrow sterns beckoned to the Bettys, and their torpedoes ran harmlessly by either side of the transports.

To the south, Wildcats from Henderson ripped through the second group. Eight minutes after the enemy attack began, it was over and only one of the twenty-four Bettys, and five of eight escorting Zeros, had survived.

Destroyer Buchanan, damaged during that storm of American antiaircraft fire, was put out of action and sent home, while the heavy cruiser San Francisco had been slightly damaged by an enemy suicider who had deliberately crashed into the after control station.

Satisfied, Kelly Turner turned his ships around and resumed unloading.

Hiroaki Abe was jubilant. He actually chortled his delight with “This blessed squall.”³ His spirits rose higher upon receiving a report from the scout plane he had launched before entering the storm. It said: “More than a dozen warships seen off Lunga.”⁴

Abe smiled, and said: “If Heaven continues to side with us like this, we may not even have to do business with them.”⁵