Neptune's Inferno_ The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal - James D. Hornfischer [188]
The Portland’s fire-control team quickly got comfortable with their ship’s gyrations, drew on the target with their after director, and fired six salvos from 12,500 yards. Over. Short. Straddle. Straddle. There came then a report from Commander Shanklin that the Japanese destroyer was showing a white flag.
DuBose asked his gunnery officer what nationality the flag was. The gun boss said, “It’s not in my registry.”
“Sink the S-O-B,” DuBose replied.
The next salvo struck the destroyer amidships, bringing a bright flash and a tower of black smoke. When it cleared, nothing remained. On the Atlanta, “We raised a cheer,” McKinney wrote. “A sentimentalist near me croaked, ‘Don’t cheer fellows. The poor guys are dead. It could have been you.’ All shared his observation, few his recommendation.”
The next short chapter in the “battle of the cripples” belonged to the Japanese. The Hiei, lying north of Savo Island, outside the Portland’s line of sight, opened fire on the nearest American ship, the Aaron Ward. As he lolled in an opiate-addled haze, Bob Hagen watched the great splashes close by as the third and fourth two-gun salvos straddled the ship, compelling Captain Gregor to duck behind the pilothouse wheel. Seeing the frailty of that small installation relative to the towers of seawater raised by the salvo, and his holy terror of a skipper diving for cover, Hagen couldn’t suppress a numb smile. The torment ended quickly for the Aaron Ward when some Marine Dauntlesses from Henderson Field, escorted by Wildcats, found the battleship.
Shortly after 7 a.m., when Master Technical Sergeant Donald V. Thornbury planted a thousand-pound bomb into the Hiei’s superstructure, it was the first of a rain of ordnance that would fall in a daylong deluge, seventy sorties in all. The Hiei’s assailants included nine Avengers from the Enterprise’s Torpedo Squadron 10, “the Buzzard Brigade,” which attacked after 10 a.m. Led by Lieutenant Albert P. Coffin and Lieutenant MacDonald Thompson, the veterans of the action off Santa Cruz eased their big Grummans out of the cloud cover and dispersed to set up “anvil” torpedo attacks, converging on either bow. Zero fighter pilots flying from Rabaul, Buin, and the carrier Junyo were foiled by distance and heavy weather and could do little to protect the battleship. The Buzzard Brigade would claim three hits. Rearming at Henderson Field, they attacked again in the afternoon.
(Photo Credit: 33.1)
The Hiei still had a surprisingly deep reservoir of fight left in her. She was capable of ten or more knots, and as long as her crew remained ahead in the close race with floodwaters for control of the manual steering compartment, there was hope she might get away. By midmorning, the Kirishima received orders from Admiral Kondo to reverse course and return south to take the Hiei in tow. According to Japanese sources, however, an attack by a U.S. submarine, which landed two dud hits on the Kirishima, compelled Kondo to abandon the plan and recall the Kirishima to rejoin his Advance Force.
As American planes kept the struggling Hiei under siege, the tug Bobolink took the Aaron Ward under tow, handing her off to a patrol craft that brought her into Tulagi’s harbor. The Portland aspired to get there, too, but her starboard sheer defied all efforts at navigation. Higgins boats pushed against her starboard bow. The ship’s port anchor was cast out and streamed alongside. The crew fashioned large improvised sea anchors out of canvas and threw them overboard, hoping to drag enough water to pull the ship out of her circle. That, too, was to no avail. As the struggle continued, the Portland served as an emergency aid station for wounded