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San Francisco (CA) (flagship)

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Helena (CL)

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Juneau (CLAA)

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Japan

BOMBARDMENT FORCE

RADM NOBUTAKE KONDO

Hiei (BB) (flagship)

Kirishima (BB)

Nagara (CL)

Akatsuki (DD)

Ikazuchi (DD)

Inazuma (DD)

Amatsukaze (DD)

Yukikaze (DD)

Teruzuki (DD)

Asagumo (DD)

Harusame (DD)

Murasame (DD)

Yudachi (DD)

Samidare (DD)

(Photo Credit: 27.1)

On contact with the Americans, “pandemonium” broke out within the chain of command of the Japanese force, according to Captain Hara of the Amatsukaze. In the Hiei, Captain Masao Nishida and his gunnery officer debated what type of ordnance the flagship should be loading. Prepared for a bombardment mission, the gunnery officer had Type 3 incendiary and high-explosive projectiles loaded in his hoists. They settled in favor of armor-piercing ammunition. But as crews in the shell decks and turrets of both the Hiei and Kirishima scrambled to remove bombardment rounds from the hoists and ready storage execution, it was clear that execution was more difficult than decision. “There was a stampede in the magazines, men pushing and kicking to reach the armor-piercing shells stored deep inside,” Hara wrote. Evidently the Japanese were unsuccessful switching out their projectiles, judging by the volume of pyrotechnics that burst over Callaghan’s formation that night.

For the leading ships, the shooting would begin at a range so close that mechanical sensors were altogether unnecessary. The Battle of Friday the 13th would go down as the first naval engagement in the steam age to begin with a nearly blind head-on collision in the dark.

28

Into the Light

THE HELENA’S GUNS WERE LAID ALMOST TO THE HORIZONTAL—AND still no order to commence firing had come—when a piercing beam of light stood out in the darkness to port, artificial and startling, stinging the night-adjusted eyes of every American sailor manning a topside station. “The light seemed high, as though shining down on us from a higher elevation than our own fighting bridge,” wrote Ensign Bin Cochran. “There was a shocking moment when, staring into that light, all seemed completely silent. Everything around us in the night was quiet and black and here we were standing out for all to see.” On the lightless nighttime sea, the flare of a match could be seen for miles around; the searchlight was overwhelming in its brightness.

“There was a feeling, one that you knew was without logic, that there was protection in getting out of the direct glare of that light,” Cochran continued. “Everybody I could see crouched into a shadow.” It was while squatting in that undignified position, stooping behind the four-foot-high sides of the Helena’s open bridge, that Rodman Smith decided he’d had enough and hustled over to his skipper. “Permission to open fire, Captain?”

Hoover, ducking out of the light himself, shouted back to his gunnery officer, “Open fire!”

The Atlanta was swinging through her own turn to avoid a collision with the van when the searchlight, probably from the destroyer Akatsuki, lit upon her from abaft the port beam. Captain Jenkins reacted as commanders had been trained in peacetime: “Counter-illuminate!” he shouted. His gunnery officer, Lieutenant Commander William R. D. Nickelson, Jr., preferred to respond with other hardware. At once he shouted into his headset mike: “Fuck that! Open fire!” His assistant, Lloyd Mustin, was recording accurate ranges from the narrowcasting fire-control radar and didn’t need help from other wavelengths. “Action port. Illuminating ship is target,” he instructed his gun captains. Mustin, controlling the after trio of five-inch mounts, and Nickelson slewed their directors onto the lights and opened fire immediately.

As Abe’s battleships lofted star shells high in the air, which burst behind the American cruisers, the Japanese destroyers hit Commander Stokes’s destroyer van with terrific fire. The Atlanta came under fire now, too. Captain Jenkins had