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The Atlanta steamed on the far side of the formation, away from the planes. Lloyd Mustin’s practiced gunner’s eye told him there was a high risk of hitting friendly ships if his ship fired too soon. The gun elevation needed to target the low-flying planes was virtually flat. “With this beautifully clear view of these planes coming in, in a position where the entire Atlanta broadside could have engaged them, we really were unable to open fire,” he said. According to Mustin, neither the Navy nor the local commanders had issued a doctrine for distributing antiaircraft fire against a large aircraft formation. When the bomber line flew across their stern, Mustin’s gunners opened fire.

Confronted with the savage defenses, many of the Japanese pilots flinched. Failure to hold formation was the kiss of death. As they reached the crucial moment of decision—push ahead and drop the torpedo, or lose nerve and turn away—most chose the latter. Turning, they lost airspeed and showed their bellies to the hungry Navy gunners, and that was it. The twenties and forties lit them like fuses. The five-inch guns “seemed to literally hammer them down,” Captain Hoover of the Helena remarked.

On the San Francisco, Lieutenant (j.g.) John G. Wallace was looking out to starboard from the after main battery control station when he observed a Betty release a torpedo toward the ship from just forward of the beam. The twenties mounted around the mainmast barked out. A gray tendril of smoke trailed from the bomber’s starboard engine, dissipating in its airstream. On it came, closer and closer, and as it did so it became clear that the pilot, if he was alive, had terminal intentions. Though the torpedo somehow missed, the plane itself did not. To those watching helplessly from other stations, the ship’s antiaircraft gunners, in their final moments, were an inspiration: eyes focused through iron sights on the plane as it sped at them, weapons hot, going cyclic, hunched down and never flinching until the Betty struck high on the mainmast, killing them all. The plane jackknifed around its own blunt nose as it hit, each heavy engine tearing away from its wing and hurtling past the director platform to either side. A wash of gasoline enveloped the area and ignited at once.

“I just had time to duck inside the outer door,” Wallace wrote, “when a tremendous explosion knocked me all the way up to the forward side of secondary conn.” When he regained consciousness, the back of his trousers and shirt were on fire, and his hair and face burned. “I looked around and found myself all alone. I jumped into a nearby motor launch and rolled out my flames on the tarpaulin covering.”

Joined by another element of Marine Wildcats under Major Paul Fontana, Joe Foss and his boys were viciously in pursuit. They were daredevils, constrained by long training to operate their war machines as a cohesive band. That mix of spirit and discipline paid handsome returns now. “We heard them yelling and cussing as only fighter pilots know how to cuss,” Chick Morris in the Helena recalled. “Watch it. He’s coming in on your port quarter!” “He’s on the run. He’s baggin’ ass. Get on top of the bastard and finish him!” One pilot did just that. Lieutenant Pat McEntee in the Atlanta witnessed it: a Wildcat closing fast on a Betty from behind. The fighter was evidently out of ammunition, for its driver resorted to an unusual tactic. Down came his landing gear. Down went his airspeed. It looked to McEntee as if he was trying “to set his ship down on the bomber’s broad back. And he did—again and again, and again, with sledgehammer impact. He literally was pounding the enemy into the sea with his wheels.” The bomber pilot had no escape. If he tried to pull up, it only increased the force of the impacts. Any evasive turn was easily matched by the agile fighter. “The only course open led down. But before the Jap could make a decision, something snapped under the pounding and the bomber plunged beneath the waves of Savo Sound.”