Radio over Radar: Night Fighting Chaos at Guadalcanal (12-13 November 1942)

The tropical evening sun fell beyond the horizon in the southern Solomon Islands, showering the area in brilliant hues of salmon and auburn. In this distance, cracks of lightning peeled across the sky as charcoal clouds billowed into the area. Early that evening, 12 November 1942, Rear Admiral Daniel J. Callaghan received a report indicating that American reconnaissance aircraft had, earlier that day, identified an Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) bombardment force of one light cruiser, two battle cruisers, and nine destroyers seventy miles north, advancing speedily down The Slot.[1] Aerial reconnaissance had confirmed the absence of IJN transports. Rather than simply reinforcing the ground troops already present on Guadalcanal, as American commanders assumed, Vice Admiral Hiroaki Abe intended to bombard the highly-contested airfield and finally wrest it from Allied hands.[2]
 
Despite significant losses over the preceding six months of the Guadalcanal campaign, Rear Admiral Callaghan cobbled together a task force of two heavy cruisers, three light cruisers, and eight destroyers to halt the impending bombardment. Task Group 67.4 comprised of Cushing (DD-376), Laffey (DD-459), Sterett (DD-407), O’Bannon (DD-450), Atlanta (CL-51), San Francisco (CA-38), Portland (CA-33), Helena (CL-50), Juneau (CL-52), Aaron Ward (DD-483), Barton (DD-559), Monssen (DD-436), and Fletcher (DD-445). The ships operated in the waters surrounding Guadalcanal as a support force, screening transports and cargo ships from IJN submarine, aircraft, and surface attacks.[3] Divided into three tactical units of van destroyers, a base unit, and rear destroyers, Callaghan initiated Battle Disposition “Baker ONE”: a line-ahead formation. Within the column, destroyers maintained a distance of 500 yards and cruisers between 700 and 800 yards.[4]
 
It is unclear precisely why Callaghan chose this formation. It may be inferred from available sources that exigency and precedent likely influenced his choice. Recent naval engagements at Savo Island and Cape Esperance—in which IJN and American naval forces, respectively, initiated line-ahead formations—demonstrated the practicality of this formation in night fighting operations. The line-ahead tactic is one in which ships follow the wake of the ship ahead, and, most importantly, change course only upon clear directions from the officer in tactical command (OTC) over high-frequency shipborne radio, or TBS—lest a commander repeat the mistakes of Cape Esperance. This formation is most efficient when employing radar effectively.[5]
 
At Guadalcanal, however, Rear Admirals Callaghan and Norman Scott chose flagships and selected a lead van destroyer without radar capabilities. The historiography—beginning with Samuel Eliot Morison’s foundational text The Struggle for Guadalcanal in 1949—suggests the Japanese were capable of detecting SC radar transmissions.[6] Callaghan’s lack of SC radar aboard San Francisco, historians agree, “seriously handicapped the OTC.” The ships at Guadalcanal equipped with radar, “notably Helena, endeavored to inform OTC of the situation, but simply could not keep him up to the minute.”[7] In a commentary by Commander Bruce McCandless, a recipient of the Medal of Honor for heroism during the naval battle of Guadalcanal, he acknowledged that fitting out radar “could not be made to all ships at the same time.” Given the cruiser losses suffered by the Allies in earlier battles, existing warships could not be spared for the long transit back to Pearl Harbor or San Francisco for refitting with radar sets. In this case, having a radar set installed likely would not have mattered because, as McCandless affirmed, Rear Admiral Scott had ordered the SC radars of his force to remain inoperative at Cape Esperance. “A recent (then) dispatch,” McCandless continued, “indicated that [the] Japanese had radar receiving equipment which approximated the frequency band of SC radar, and [the] Japanese could possibly detect of even track our own force by the emanations from SC radar.”[8]
 
The effective placement and use of SC radar at the naval battle of Guadalcanal, while not a “magic box,” would almost certainly have changed the outcome of the action. After the lead van destroyer Cushing reported visual contact with the enemy at 3,000 yards, Callaghan’s flagship San Francisco asked the aft van destroyer O’Bannon over TBS: “What is range?” In an after action analysis published four months later, Fleet Headquarters concluded, “Doctrine should have provided for a torpedo attack and high speed retirement to northwest to cover enemy retirement.” If Cushing or San Francisco had radar capability and used it productively, the column could have initiated a well-coordinated surprise torpedo attack and “would not have been obliged to wait” for visual confirmation.[9]
  
Historian Richard Frank concludes that Callaghan, conceivably emulating the movements of Scott at Cape Esperance, intended “to cross Abe’s T.” His column, rather, succeeded only in stumbling into the IJN bombardment force.[10] Successive orders authorizing Cushing to open fire, then to stand by, then return to course north threw the entire column into chaos. At 0143, Cushing had swung to port and readied her guns and torpedoes. Upon righting herself back in column formation at Callaghan’s order, the van destroyers engaged in a disorderly turn that forced the light cruiser Atlanta to maneuver sharply to avoid colliding with the destroyers.[11] With his line ahead in shambles and in the thick of IJN vessels, at 0148, Callaghan simply ordered:
 
“Odd ships to fire starboard, even ships fire to port.”[12]
 
Signalman L. E. Zook reported to the bridge of USS Juneau and took his battle station astride the new Executive Officer, Commander William Hobby, Jr. In his personal retelling of the evening’s actions, Zook recalled Juneau’s placement as third among the light cruisers. Juneau received its first radar contact of the IJN bombardment force at 7,400 yards. As the ships closed, Zook reported, “you could see the silhouettes of the Japanese ships with a spotting glass.” While Admiral Abe’s force left Rabaul in a “T” formation, inclement weather caused the group to disperse into what Zook described as a “Y” formation with the enemy intending to ensnare the entire American line.[13] The first three destroyers of the van—Cushing, Laffey, and Sterett—veered starboard, disrupting the line. OTC Callaghan ordered them to stay in line and to hold their fire. San Francisco, nevertheless, opened fire, which caused the remaining American ships to engage the enemy. In the chaotic opening mêlée that emulated that experienced at Savo Island and Cape Esperance, the OTC, fearing friendly fire, ordered over TBS all ships to cease firing. The IJN force, accepting their momentary advantage, according to Zook, “let go from everywhere,” including star shells and “all sorts of illumination.”[14]
 
During the exchange, Juneau received a torpedo on the port side and an official estimate of nineteen men perished in the blast. The ship took on enough water to cause her to list, forcing Juneau to retire.[15] Zook reported seeing “a Jap battleship [turn] on his signal searchlight and . . . made a series of quick flashes, meaning in naval procedure, ‘You are making an error.’”[16] Zook interpreted this message as Japanese subterfuge to convince the American force that the vessel was friendly. While it is possible that Callaghan may have “momentarily” capitulated to such a trick, investigators from the Office of Naval Intelligence believed he would have realized his error almost immediately because the searchlight “was much too large to be one of ours.”[17] While supplied only with bombardment ammunition, Japanese torpedoes and Hiei’s 14-inch guns crippled Atlanta. In the confusion, Atlanta slid across San Francisco’s gunnery arcs, taking an estimated 19 friendly fire hits that tore through the ship’s superstructure, killing Admiral Scott and all but one member of his staff.[18] This, investigators concluded, was why Callaghan directed “cease fire.”[19] With fires ablaze and her foremast collapsed, Atlanta was dead in the water. Caught in the crossfire of Japanese destroyers, Cushing received several hits and she, too, was disabled.[20]
 
The Japanese battleship Hiei then became the target of concentrated American gunfire and received an estimated 85 hits before surrendering to Iron Bottom Sound the following day. Before her demise, Hiei launched two large-caliber gun salvoes and a torpedo at the destroyer Laffey. At such a short range, there was not enough time for fuses to arm, but the 14-inch shells put Laffey out of action. When fires reached her ammunition magazines Laffey exploded, killing many survivors already in the water. Another 37 shell hits reduced Monssen to a burning wreck.[21] After 40 minutes of intense combat, Admiral Abe and Captain Gilbert Hoover, the senior surviving American officer after a Japanese broadside killed Callaghan and San Francisco’s captain, ordered their forces to retire.[22]
 
The night fighting surface actions of 12-13 November 1942 resulted in a tenuous American victory. Similar to that experienced at Cape Esperance as Scott’s forces prevented the reinforcement of IJN ground troops at Guadalcanal, Callaghan’s task force barred the IJN force from bombarding Henderson Field. Nevertheless, debris and human remains dotted the surface of Iron Bottom Sound as the sun reappeared in the sky above the Southwest Pacific. The naval battle at Guadalcanal saw the deaths of over 1,400 American sailors, including the five Sullivan brothers aboard the light cruiser Juneau. George Thomas, Francis Henry, Joseph Eugene, Madison Abel, and Albert Leo were among Juneau’s 682 casualties when a torpedo from a Japanese submarine struck the light cruiser around midday on 13 November. Struck near her ammunition magazines where the keel was weak, Juneau exploded.[23] “The explosion was so devastating that it probably killed a lot of men or at least dazed them,” Zook estimated, “and that was just enough, because the ship went down within the minute.”[24] Underwater archaeologists located and identified fragments of Juneau that littered the sea floor in March 2018.[25]
 
“This desperately fought action,” Admiral R. K. Turner opined in an after action summary, “the Third Battle of SAVO, is believed to have few parallels in naval history.”[26] This is not entirely true. Parallels can be drawn from the line-ahead formations initiated by Japanese Admiral Gunichi Mikawa at the First Battle of Savo Island, by Rear Admiral Norman Scott at the Battle of Cape Esperance, and by Rear Admiral Daniel Callaghan at Guadalcanal. The incongruous orders that resulted in disarray during the opening actions by American forces at Cape Esperance and Guadalcanal are worthy of further analysis, as well. And dispute continues among historians and analysts over R. K. Turner’s appointment of Callaghan as OTC. As Commander Amphibious Forces in the South Pacific, the execution of American plans was his responsibility.[27] Turner’s selection of Task Force commander, Frank concludes, came down to Navy procedure: Callaghan had fifteen days seniority over Scott as flag officer. Despite a stark difference in experience—with Scott clocking six months sea time and Callaghan a mere two weeks—Turner selected Callaghan.[28] While analyst Trent Hone maintains that “Callaghan’s aggressive tactics preserved Henderson Field” and resulted in an operational victory, analysts of the U.S. Fleet suggested that “command must recognize functions of various types of ships and employ them properly,” implying that Callaghan’s experimentation was doctrinally inaccurate.[29]
 
Most notably, however, is the dismissal of radar at Cape Esperance and Guadalcanal. The loss of both admirals at Guadalcanal prevents historians from knowing with certainty why they chose flagships absent of radar. Nor can it be known why Scott and Callaghan did not place ships equipped with radar in strategic positions. According to TBS logs, at the time of the opening salvoes at Guadalcanal, Callaghan was only just receiving information regarding enemy disposition as the two formations intermingled. “With SG radar,” R. A. Spruance opined three months later, “he would have been more certain of his own formation, and his force might have been able to maintain uninterrupted fire.”[30] Callaghan, like Scott at Cape Esperance, prioritized radio communication over radar in night fighting actions, relying upon radar data possessed by another ship in the formation. An intelligence dispatch received prior to surface actions at Cape Esperance indicating the Japanese possessed the technology to detect radar pulses fundamentally crippled American strategy during the campaign to hold Guadalcanal. Penning a night action report three months later, Admiral William F. Halsey confirmed, “It is believed that Japanese ship-borne radars are at present confined to search type.”[31] Conducting night training exercises, as Scott had done prior to Cape Esperance, between American ships equipped with radar would have better prepared Callaghan’s forces at Guadalcanal. Callaghan, rather, abandoned the element of surprise by not using radar to his strategic advantage, causing the opening actions at the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal to plunge into confusion