Neptune's Inferno_ The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal - James D. Hornfischer [0]
The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors (2004)
Ship of Ghosts (2006)
Bantam Books New York
(Photo Credit: Title Page)
Copyright © 2011 by James D. Hornfischer
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Bantam Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
BANTAM BOOKS and the rooster colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Excerpts from unpublished writings by Robert D. Graff copyright © 2011 by Robert D. Graff. Used by permission.
Endpaper map by Jeffrey L. Ward
Interior maps by Lum Pennington
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hornfischer, James D.
Neptune’s inferno: the U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal / James D. Hornfischer.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
eISBN: 978-0-553-90807-7
1. Guadalcanal, Battle of, Solomon Islands, 1942–1943. 2. World War, 1939–1945—Naval operations, American. 3. United States. Navy—History—World War, 1939–1945. 4. United States. Navy—Biography. 5. Veterans—United States—Interviews. 6. Guadalcanal, Battle of, Solomon Islands, 1942–1943—Personal narratives, American. I. Title.
D767.98.H665 2011
940.54’265933—dc22
2010027231
www.bantamdell.com
v3.1
In memory:
CHARLES D. GROJEAN
Rear Admiral, USN
1923–2008
Sailor, Leader, Teacher
Never have the gods of all the tribes put upon the seas such monsters as man now sends over them.… Their steel bowels, grinding and rumbling below the splash of the sea, are fed on quarried rock. Their arteries are steel, their nerves copper, their blood red and blue flames. With the prescience of the supernatural, they peer into space. Their voices scream through gales, and they whisper together over a thousand miles of sea. They reach out and destroy that which the eye of man cannot perceive.
But … all this terribleness will vanish, returning again into the inanimate whenever the capacity and vigor of the guiding mind deteriorates or is worn down by the years that have stolen away the quick grasp of youth.
—Homer Lea, The Valor of Ignorance (1909)
CONTENTS
Cover
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
MAPS
TABLES
PROLOGUE: Eighty-two Ships
PART I
SEA OF TROUBLES
1: Trip Wire
2: A Great Gray Fleet
3: The First D-Day
4: Nothing Worthy of Your Majesty’s Attention
5: Fly the Carriers
6: A Captain in the Fog
7: The Martyring of Task Group 62.6
8: Burning in the Rain
PART II
FIGHTING FLEET RISING
9: A New Kind of Fight
10: The Tokyo Express
11: A Function at the Junction
12: What They Were Built For
13: The Warriors
14: The Devil May Care
15: The Visit
16: Night of a New Moon
17: Pulling the Trigger
18: “Pour It to ’Em”
PART III
STORM TIDE
19: All Hell’s Eve
20: The Weight of a War
21: Enter Fighting
22: “Strike—Repeat, Strike”
23: Santa Cruz
24: Secret History
25: Turner’s Choice
26: Suicide
27: Black Friday
28: Into the Light
29: The Killing Salvo
30: Death in the Machine Age
31: Point Blank
32: Among the Shadows
33: Atlanta Burning
34: Cruiser in the Sky
35: Regardless of Losses
PART IV
THE THUNDERING
36: The Giants Ride
37: The Gun Club
38: The Kind of Men Who Win a War
39: On the Spot
40: The Futility of Learning
41: Future Rising
42: Report and Echo
43: The Opinion of Convening Authority
44: Ironbottom Sound
Photo Insert
Acknowledgments
Ships and Aircraft Types of the Guadalcanal Campaign
Naval Battles of the Guadalcanal Campaign
Total Naval Losses at Guadalcanal
Source Notes
Bibliography
Photo Credits
Index
About the Author
MAPS
Pacific Ocean Area
The Slot
Battle of Savo Island
Battle of Cape Esperance
Cruiser Night Action
Morning After in Ironbottom Sound
Battleship Night Action
Battle of Tassafaronga
TABLES
The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal, August 1942
Order of Battle—Battle of Savo Island
Shipboard Gunnery and Fire-Control Systems
Order