Neptune's Inferno_ The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal - James D. Hornfischer [202]
SAVO SOUND WAS QUIET. Off the port bows of Lee’s ships, the skies and calm waters were gently lit by flashes on the horizon—the gunfire from Tanaka’s transport group as it resisted the last wave of aircraft from Henderson Field. As night fell, a quarter moon reclined overhead and the orange glow of fires warmed the western horizon, the fires of burning ships—trophies for the busy pilots of the Cactus Air Force.
None of this soothed the battleship sailors as they cruised at eighteen knots, prows easing through the sea. The sight of land nearby kept their nerves on edge. Appreciating the need for operating space, Lee had arranged his destroyers—the Walke leading the Benham, Preston, and Gwin—nearly three miles ahead of the battleships, which themselves were separated by nearly a mile. The men in the big ships craved sea room. “All we can do is trust in God and our surveys, and the surveys are not much good,” wrote a South Dakota chaplain, James V. Claypool. He tried to play chess with another officer but found he couldn’t concentrate. He read from a book titled How to Keep a Sound Mind but didn’t get very far.
Lee checked in with Guadalcanal’s radio station, known as “Cactus Control,” for the latest dope. His own radio department had heard Japanese voices on the air, but couldn’t translate them for want of an interpreter on board. Indeed, the intelligence setup was one of the continuing weaknesses of the SOPAC command. No reliable coordination yet existed between the commanders on the island and the naval forces they relied on for defense. Neither Captain Greenman, the “Commander of Naval Activities,” nor General Vandegrift was regularly apprised of the movements of friendly ships. As Lee awaited a reply from Cactus Control, there came a mysterious dispatch from an unidentified sender—one that Captain DuBose of the Portland, still moored to a palm tree in the shadows of Tulagi, would have understood all too well.
“There go two big ones, but I don’t know whose they are.” The intercepted words belonged to the skipper of a PT boat, lurking in shadow.
Order of Battle—The Battleship Night Action
(November 14–15, 1942)
U.S.
TASK FORCE 64
Rear Adm. Willis Lee
Washington (BB) (flagship)
South Dakota (BB)
Walke (DD)
Benham (DD)
Preston (DD)
Gwin (DD)
Japan
ADVANCED FORCE
Vice Adm. Nobutake Kondo
Bombardment Unit
Vice Adm. Kondo
Kirishima (BB)
Atago (CA) (flagship)
Takao (CA)
Screening Unit
Rear Adm. Susumu Kimura
Nagara (CL)
Shirayuki (DD)
Hatsuyuki (DD)
Teruzuki (DD)
Samidare (DD)
Inazuma (DD)
Asagumo (DD)
Sweeping Unit
Rear Adm. Shintaro Hashimoto
Sendai (CL)
Uranami (DD)
Shikinami (DD)
Ayanami (DD)
Reinforcement Unit
Rear Adm. Raizo Tanaka
Four transports, nine destroyers
(Photo Credit: 36.1)
Lee raised Guadalcanal again and warned them off. “Refer your big boss about Ching Lee; Chinese, catchee? Call off your boys!” The warning seemed to register. Another episode like the near torpedoing of the Portland would have had dire consequences for the mosquito boat drivers.
By ten thirty, Lee was cutting a clockwise arc about twenty miles north of Savo Island. With his sweeping radar beams revealing no contacts, he passed near the grave site of the Hiei, over the wrecks of the Vincennes, the Quincy, and the Astoria, then reentered Savo Sound, to cruise over the seafloor where the Atlanta lay. As the task force came around to a westerly heading and steamed toward Cape Esperance, the navigators and helmsmen of the task force noticed that their magnetic compass needles were twitching and spinning. Magnetic interference was straightforward enough an explanation. Some thought the dead ships of Ironbottom Sound were reaching out with an inscrutable message.
37
The Gun Club
FAITHFULLY MOTORING IN CIRCLES AS IT CAST ITS TEN-CENTIMETER microwaves, the Washington’s SG radar spied the enemy ships to the