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By Root 1959 0

the flying bridge of the San Francisco the shout went out that an unidentified destroyer was approaching. A mysterious ship came rushing in on the flagship’s starboard bow, displaying an unfamiliar pattern of recognition lights—white over red. Her gambit was overly bold. Recognizing the improper signal, the San Francisco opened fire, then the destroyer’s signalmen doubled down on their deception, flashing in Morse code: “D491 V D456,” indicating with the respective hull numbers a call from the Farenholt to the Laffey. Captain McMorris interpreted this as a legitimate query and promptly ordered his cruiser to cease fire. Other American observers recalled seeing the ship up close, and recognizing the telltale white striping painted on a Japanese destroyer’s stack. The opponents exchanged fire—what hits might have been registered is lost to history—and the destroyer was soon gone.

The Helena had come through the gauntlet unscathed except for a small fire ignited astern by a hot shell casing and a close call with a hang fire in turret four. The Salt Lake City was badly bruised but soon fulfilled the expectations held of the top-rated engineering department in the Pacific. Captain Small signaled Scott that despite the damage to his fire room, his engineers had steam to make twenty-five knots.

Nothing had been heard from Mike Moran and the Boise. Scott ordered Captain Tobin via the TBS: “Detail one of your boys to stand by Boise.” Told that the ship’s location was unknown, Scott queried Small in the Salt Lake City and was informed she was last seen twelve miles west of Savo Island, heading west. That ship soon became the object of a concentrated search in the dark.

Scott prepared a quick dispatch to Admiral Ghormley in Nouméa, summarizing the night’s events. “ENGAGED ENEMY WEST OF SAVO ABOUT MIDNIGHT. AT LEAST FOUR ENEMY DD’S BURNING AND PROBABLY ONE CA HIT BADLY. BOISE BURNING BADLY WHEN LAST SEEN. FARENHOLT NOT YET LOCATED. MCCALLA SEARCHING. REQUEST AIR COVERAGE. AM PROCEEDING TO POINT CAST [50 MILES SOUTH OF CAPE SURVILLE, SAN CRISTOBÁL], SPEED 20.”

Then, attempting to gather his scattered task force via the radio, Scott ordered all ships to switch on their emergency identification lights for ten seconds. On San Francisco, Lieutenant Commander Bruce McCandless noticed that the flagship’s port side bulbs did not come on. Soon thereafter, two star shells burst overhead, illuminating the night and possibly heralding hotter fires. Aware that the threatening ship was friendly, a San Francisco signalman lofted three green flares. “And the navigator pushed the buttons even harder,” McCandless wrote. “This time both sides lighted up. This seemed to satisfy the fire control teams in the Salt Lake City, 3,000 yards to port. One of the operators on her main battery director had already sounded two stand-by buzzers and was about to ring the third and turn loose a salvo when the flares ignited. “Hold it! It’s the ’Frisco!” someone shouted, knocking the man out of his metal seat. “For this we will eternally be grateful,” McCandless wrote.

IN THE SHATTERED heavy cruiser Furutaka, shortly after midnight, Captain Tsutau Araki passed the order to abandon ship. He ordered the ensign pulled down and the emperor’s portrait salvaged, but the man assigned to the task was killed by American shellfire before he could retrieve it. Araki went to his cabin on the bridge to end his disgraceful ordeal, but found that his revolver and his sword had been taken away from him. When he returned to the bridge to strap himself to the compass mount, he could find no fasteners right for the job. The possible culprit confronted him there: his executive officer, who pleaded for his captain to survive. As the two officers argued, the rising sea engulfed the deck of the bridge, and as the Furutaka foundered Araki found himself floating alongside the bow, disgracefully alive.

The idea that a captain should die with his ship, so central to the Japanese Navy’s code of ethics, was opposed by Admiral Yamamoto. Concerned about the high command’s tendency to be “rather