Second Naval Battle of Guadalcanal: Turning Point in the Pacific War

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Berman, aboard Washington, saw Walke get hit. ‘I didn’t realize what it was–just BOOM, goodbye,’ he said later.

Another Long Lance blasted Benham’s bow, ripping off a piece of it. The ship looped to escape gunfire, then staggered back in to action at 10 knots.

All four of Lee’s destroyers were now out of the fight. He was down to his battleships. Lee swung in to attack, his ships racing by blazing hulks and shipwrecked crewmen floating in oily water.

Still, the destroyers’ sacrifice had value. Washington found Ayanami and shelled her. More important, Fraser’s tin cans took torpedoes Kimura had aimed at Lee’s battleships. ‘It was beyond admiration,’ Lee wrote in his after-action report, ‘and it probably saved our bacon.’

Washington and South Dakota raced along at 26 knots. In the engine rooms, the temperature was 112 degrees. Shipfitter John Brown felt the concussions of Walke’s depth charges going off.

On South Dakota, crews were patching minor holes from 5-inch hits by Ayanami when at 11:33 the chief engineer tied down her circuit breakers, violating safety procedures. The system instantly went into series, and the big ship lost electrical power. Radar, fire control, turret motors, ammunition hoists, radios–everything went out, with her guns locked in train. Captain Gatch wrote later: ‘The psychological effect on the officers and crew was most depressing. The absence of this gear gave all hands a feeling of being blindfolded.’ It was worse than that. South Dakota was facing 14 ships scattered across a 12-mile box on a dark night, amid spurious reports of enemy batteries on Savo and motor torpedo boats.

Washington was now the only intact ship left in the force. In fact, at that moment Washington was the entire U.S. Pacific Fleet. She was the only barrier between Kondo’s ships and Guadalcanal. If this one ship did not stop 14 Japanese ships right then and there, America might lose the war.

On Washington’s bridge, Lieutenant Ray Hunter still had the conn. He had just heard that South Dakota had gone off the air and had seen Walke and Preston ‘blow sky high.’ Dead ahead lay their burning wreckage, while hundreds of men were swimming in the water and Japanese ships were racing in.

Hunter had to do something. The course he took now could decide the war. ‘Come left,’ he said, and Washington straightened out on a course parallel to the one on which she was steaming. Washington’s rudder change put the burning destroyers between her and the enemy, preventing her from being silhouetted by their fires.

The move made the Japanese momentarily cease fire. Lacking radar, they could not spot Washington behind the fires. Kondo had to figure out his next move.

Meanwhile, Washington raced through burning seas. Everyone could see dozens of men in the water clinging to floating wreckage. Flag Lieutenant Raymond Thompson said, ‘Seeing that burning, sinking ship as it passed so close aboard, and realizing that there was nothing I, or anyone, could do about it, was a devastating experience.’

Commander Ayrault, Washington’s executive officer, clambered down ladders, ran to Bart Stoodley’s damage-control post, and ordered Stoodley to cut loose life rafts. That saved a lot of lives. But the men in the water had some fight left in them. One was heard to scream, ‘Get after them, Washington!’

Everyone wondered why South Dakota–whose electrical problems had her virtually paralyzed–was plodding along silently behind. She did not follow Washington when the flagship turned left, but sailed in front of the flaming destroyers, presenting a perfect silhouette. The Japanese reacted quickly, illuminating South Dakota with searchlights. Nagara and four tin cans raced in for a torpedo attack. They fired at 4,000 yards, but miraculously none hit.

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Tags: 20th - 21st Century, Historical Conflicts, Naval Battles, World War II

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