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By Root 1979 0

“For the attack phase, the watchword was stealth” (Melhorn interview, 105). In At Close Quarters, 92, Bulkley referred to two PT boats being assigned to escort the Portland to Tulagi that night. No reference was made to a friendly fire incident with them. “If you challenge the wrong group” and “We thought that was pretty dirty”: Melhorn interview, 99. The next morning, Captain DuBose sent an officer to talk with the skippers at the PT boat headquarters. The young officers there confirmed they had sortied but denied firing torpedoes at a friendly vessel. Years later, speaking at a reunion of PT boat sailors in New York, DuBose related this story, then offered that he must have been mistaken and that surely there were no torpedoes fired at the Portland. After a few beats, several of the old hands reportedly jumped to their feet and said, “Oh, yes there were!” It was not a tale that Admiral Halsey was eager to publicize. According to Heber A. Holbrook, a San Francisco veteran, “The only explanation for its absence from the official records is that DuBose, perhaps on orders from Admiral Halsey, ordered it suppressed” (Holbrook, The History and Times of the USS Portland, 194–196). “Then we all dropped”: Parrent, Third Savo, 44.

35: Regardless of Losses

“This was the tightest spot”: Halsey manuscript, 383. “If any principle of naval warfare”: Halsey, Admiral Halsey’s Story, 128. Halsey’s orders to Kinkaid: Commander, Task Force 16, “Operations of Task Force 16,” 2. “What do you think” and “You can well imagine”: Weaver, “Some Reminiscences,” 11. “I had the feeling”: McKinney, CL-51 Revisited, 58. “The tension I felt”: Forrestal to Morison, October 22, 1948, quoted in Morison, The Struggle for Guadalcanal, 263. “It was pretty awe-inspiring”: Bennett ECU interview. “What happened?”: Cochran, “Recollections,” 10. “I wasn’t near anyone”: Spencer, The War Years: Hellfire and Glory, 88–90. “There were some real hard feelings”: Heiberg interview, 10–11. “Task Force 67 is hereby dissolved”: Turner to Task Force 67, November 14, 1942 (2000). “Looks like all out attempt”: Nimitz to CTFs, November 14, 1942 (0359), quoted in Lundstrom, The First Team and the Guadalcanal Campaign, 506.

PART IV:

The Thundering

Epigraph from Steinbeck, Once There Was a War, 172.

36: The Giants Ride

“The plan flouted”: Halsey, Admiral Halsey’s Story, 128. Battleship design and specs: Friedman, U.S. Battleships, 282–283. Gunnery practice: Fuquea, “Task Force One,” 732–733. “As you can imagine”: Backus interview, 147; ComBatDiv 6 to USS South Dakota, November 8, 1942 (0210). “He was not what you would”: Thomas C. Kinkaid to Evan E. Smith, April 9, 1962, Papers of Thomas C. Kinkaid. “He looked like an Arkansas farmer”: Eller interview, 484–485. Lee at the Olympics: Houston, “Stand Aside, This Is Ching.” “His conversation was so loaded”: Musicant, Battleship at War, 81–82. “It doesn’t take long”: Mustin interview, 510–511. “This is the captain”: Musicant, Battleship, 114. “All we can do”: Claypool, God on a Battlewagon, 12. “There go two big ones”: USS South Dakota, “Action Report, Night Engagement 14–15 November 1942, with Japanese Naval Units, Off Savo Island,” 4. “Refer your big boss”: Frank, Guadalcanal, 473.

37: The Gun Club

“Well, stand by, Glenn”: Musicant, Battleship at War, 118. “Then separate into ‘drops’ ”: USS Washington, “Action Report, Night of November 14–15, 1942,” 21. “Grouped together”: Reed, “A Recollection,” 7. “Radar has forced”: USS Washington, “Action Report,” 29. “I saw the Washington open fire”: Lundgren, “The Battleship Action, 14–15 November 1942,” 9, fn. 6. According to the Walke’s action report, the ship that hit the Preston was directly off her port beam. The Washington’s action report indicates that the battleship passed south of the sinking Preston at this same time, two hundred yards to the disengaged side, and that one of the Washington’s five-inch batteries, Mount 3 on the starboard side, had been “firing wild (training motor kicked out and the pointers were not matched). It was feared the mount might endanger own