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By Root 1191 0

Japanese sank three American cruisers, Quincy, Vincennes, and Astoria, and blew the bow off Chicago with a torpedo, and sank as well the Australian cruiser, Canberra. An American sub torpedoed a cruiser as they retreated northward, otherwise they would have gotten away scot-free. As it was, the Battle of Savo Island went down as the most humiliating defeat ever suffered in a fair fight by the United States Navy. Had the Japanese admiral Gunichi Mikawa known of Fletcher’s withdrawal of the carrier planes, he could have hit the transports too and made it a massacre. Turner stayed around the next day, salvaging what he could, landing more supplies, then he sailed away at dark with most of the landing force’s heavy equipment and supplies, and indeed, with 1,400 troops still aboard the transports. On the island, the Marines settled down to short rations, supplemented by captured Japanese rice.

The deadly naval pavane continued as both sides sought to reinforce. In the third week of August the Japanese sent in a small convoy. Fifteen hundred troops sailed from Rabaul, escorted by the entire combined fleet—battleships, carriers, and all. The Americans met them in what was called the Battle of the Eastern Solomons. When it was all over, the Japanese had lost a carrier and a seaplane tender and ninety planes, for American losses of fifteen planes and damage to one carrier.

On the island the Japanese put in a premature attack against the Marines’ perimeter. Nearly a thousand men stormed up to the wire and machine guns at the Tenaru River and were wiped out. The Marines suffered just over a hundred casualties. The Americans now had planes on the airstrip, named Henderson Field, and they kept the Japanese ships away from Guadalcanal by day. Each night, therefore, the Japanese crammed troops and supplies aboard destroyers and raced them down the Slot, unloading and scooting back out under cover of darkness. The destroyer runs were nicknamed the Tokyo Express. By early September there were 6,000 Japanese troops on the island, and they were ready for a major attack. They launched it on September 12, trying to clear high ground south of Henderson Field. All night and the next day the Japanese tried to take Bloody Ridge, but the Marines, with heavy machine-guns, howitzers, and mortars, were too strong for them. After a last Banzai charge they gave it up, again with casualties of ten to one, 1,500 Japanese to 150 Americans.

Then it was the navy’s turn again. At the end of August a submarine torpedoed the carrier Saratoga, putting her out of action for the next three months. That left only the Wasp, smallest of the fleet carriers, and she went to the bottom in mid-September after two torpedoes found her. In mid-October both sides moved troop convoys in, and the escorting forces met off Cape Esperance. The superior American force got its revenge for Savo Island, sinking three destroyers and a cruiser, and crippling two more cruisers. This time the Americans had radar, while the Japanese had none. They capped the Japanese “T” and opened with full broadsides, and would have gotten away virtually unscathed had not the cruiser Boise, preferring to do things the old way, switched on her searchlights to find a target. She took six hits immediately, and then her magazine exploded. Still, the honors for the night went to the Americans, who by now badly needed a morale-raising victory.

The Japanese riposted by sending two huge battleships down to bombard Henderson Field, which they did with impunity while more troops were landed. Up till now, Guadalcanal had been a sideshow slowly impinging on their attention while they still were preoccupied with New Guinea and Port Moresby. But if this was where the Americans wanted to fight, so be it. For two days they poured troops in, supported by the battleships, until they slightly outnumbered the Marines, about 23,000 to 20,000. They planned to seize Henderson Field, get land-based planes in, then move in their carriers and take on the U. S. Navy for a fight to the finish.

In the third week of October they