Battle of Savo Island

Encyclopedia : B : BA : BAT : Battle of Savo Island

Solomon Islands campaign
Guadalcanal – Savo I. – Eastern Solomons – Cape Esperance – Santa Cruz Is. – Naval Guadalcanal – Tassafaronga – Rennell I. – Blackett Strait – Operation Cartwheel – New Georgia – Kula Gulf – Kolombangara – Vella Gulf – Horaniu – Vella Lavella – Naval Vella Lavella – Treasury Is. – Choiseul – Empress Augusta Bay – Cape St. George – Green Is. – 2nd Rabaul – Bougainville

Solomon Islands campaign
Guadalcanal – Savo I. – Eastern Solomons – Cape Esperance – Santa Cruz Is. – Naval Guadalcanal – Tassafaronga – Rennell I. – Blackett Strait – Operation Cartwheel – New Georgia – Kula Gulf – Kolombangara – Vella Gulf – Horaniu – Vella Lavella – Naval Vella Lavella – Treasury Is. – Choiseul – Empress Augusta Bay – Cape St. George – Green Is. – 2nd Rabaul – Bougainville

The Battle of Savo Island, also known as the First Battle of Savo Island and First Battle of the Solomon Sea, took place August 8-9, 1942, and was a major naval battle of the Pacific Campaign of World War II, between Imperial Japanese Navy and the Allied naval forces. The battle was the first major naval engagement during the Battle of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands campaign.

In an extremely destructive and one-sided nighttime surface engagement, a Japanese cruiser force decisively defeated two Allied warship forces, sinking three U.S. and one Australian cruisers, while suffering only moderate damage to themselves. As a result of the battle, Allied land forces on Guadalcanal were left in a precarious situation, with barely enough supplies, equipment, and food to hold onto their beachhead on the island.

Contents

1 Background
2 Battle
3 Aftermath
4 See also
5 References

5.1 Books
5.2 External links

6 Notes

Background

On August 7, 1942, Allied forces (primarily U.S.) landed on Guadalcanal, Tulagi, and Florida Islands in the Solomon Islands. The landings on the islands were meant to deny their use by the Japanese as bases to threaten the supply routes between the U.S. and Australia, and to use them as starting points for a campaign with the eventual goal of isolating the major Japanese base at Rabaul while also supporting the Allied New Guinea and New Britain campaigns. The landings initiated the six-month-long Battle of Guadalcanal.

The Japanese were concentrating on supporting land operations on the Kokoda Track in New Guinea, but reacted quickly to the Allied landing on Guadalcanal and Tulagai in the Solomon Islands. Vice Admiral Shigeyoshi Inoue dispatched planes from Rabaul in New Britain to attack the beachheads and strike the warships and transports supporting the operation.

Battle

Inoue also sent a task force of five heavy and two light cruisers (Chokai, Aoba, Furutaka, Kako, Kinugasa, Tenryu, and Yubari) and one destroyer (Yudachi), under the command of Rear Admiral Gunichi Mikawa, to make a surface attack.

The Allied naval forces were split into three groups to protect the invasion transports and cargo ships in Savo Sound. Two groups of ships, a "northern" group and a "southern" group, protected the entrances to Savo Sound on either side of Savo Island. An "eastern" group guarded the opposite side of Savo Sound. The eastern group was to play no part in the battle.

By midnight on the night of August 8-9, the Japanese task force was only 35 miles (55 km) from Savo Island and remained undetected. Instead of radar, the Japanese ships relied on raw eyesight of specially trained crewmen and precision optical devices to spot any enemy ships. The Japanese had extensively practiced this type of night operations before the war, and this was to give them the advantage in naval night fighting until later in the war when Allied radar technology finally became reliable and efficient enough to overcome the Japanese advantage in this area.

U.S. Navy chart of the battle, based on information from a Japanese participant. (Click on map for larger image.)

The Allied naval forces relied on two picket destroyers to warn of any approaching, enemy ships.  However, in addition to the unreliable nature of their primitive radar technology, the steaming patterns of the two ships were uncoordinated, leaving a large gap in radar coverage.  Mikawa's squadron slipped past the destroyer picket Ralph Talbot and at 01:00 on 9 August 1942, near Savo Island, they saw the Allied "Southern Group", comprised of HMAS Canberra, HMAS Australia and Chicago, and two destroyers. The group was commanded by the British Rear Admiral Victor Crutchley, who was attached to the Royal Australian Navy (RAN).

As it entered Savo Sound, the Japanese task force was spotted by crew members on the destroyer USS Patterson. At 01:43, Patterson sent a warning by radio: "Warning! Warning! Strange ships entering the harbor!" However, the Japanese ships had already launched torpedoes, which were only minutes away from their targets in the southern group.

Crew members on Canberra spotted the unidentified vessels; the commanding officer, Captain Frank Getting, was called to the bridge, and gun crews took up "action stations". Canberra sped up and turned to try to position itself between the intruders and unarmed troopships. At 01:44, as the ship's gunners were attempting to aim, the port side of the ship was hit by two torpedoes, and then with a massive and highly accurate burst of shell fire. Although the sending of a warning message had been ordered, a Japanese shell destroyed the radio room before it could be sent. Within a few minutes the Canberra had been hit at least 24 times and was on fire amidships.

In a short space of time, the Japanese ships had also severely damaged Chicago with torpedo attacks and 8-inch gunfire. Chicago was also unable to respond and failed to warn the two other Allied squadrons in the area of the Japanese presence for unknown reasons.

Patterson repeated its warning by blinker and opened up with its guns. The US destroyer received a return salvo from the enemy that killed 10 crew members, knocked out its Number 4 gun, injured eight other crew members, and damaged the deck and the Number 3 gun. The Japanese ships steamed north through Savo Sound, leaving behind the defeated southern group of Allied ships.

In a picture taken from one of the Japanese ships, Quincy is settling by the stern, illuminated by Japanese searchlights

Fifteen minutes later, the Japanese engaged a second American squadron, the "Northern Group" of three cruisers (Vincennes, Astoria and Quincy) and two destroyers, commanded by Captain Frederick L. Riefkohl. The Japanese ships had accidentally split into two groups which enveloped the Allied Northern Group on both sides. After illuminating the northern group with searchlights, the Japanese opened fire and quickly disabled the Vincennes, Astoria, and Quincy before the three cruisers could fire any more than a few salvos in response. All three cruisers subsequently sank.

The now scattered Japanese ships then departed Savo Sound and Mikawa had to decide if he should turn back around to attack the allied invasion force. Aoba was damaged, and Chokai sustained several hits from Quincy and Astoria, blowing off one of her turrets, destroying the chart room (near where Mikawa was standing), and killing 34 men. Perhaps due to the damage to his flagship, the near-miss to himself from the shell that hit Chokai's chartroom, and the disorganized state of his ships' formation, Mikawa ordered a return to Rabaul instead of attacking the now defenseless Allied transports. He may have also been apprehensive of Allied air attacks once dawn broke, which would have found his ships scattered in the vicinity of Guadalcanal if he had gone after the transports. In any event, the now defenseless allied transports left the next day, without fully unloading their cargo, significantly increasing the impact of the Japanese victory by leaving the invasion force undersupplied. The U.S. forces on Guadalcanal didn't recieve their next supply of ammunition and aviation fuel until the 18th of September.

Canberra was so badly damaged that it had to be evacuated and sunk by gunfire from Allied ships. Captain Getting and 83 other crew members died as a result of the attack. The Japanese cruiser Kako was sunk by the American submarine S-44 just outside of Rabaul the next day with heavy loss of life.

Aftermath

The Battle of Savo Island was one of the most complete and humiliating defeats that the US Navy ever suffered and, as an immediate result, Allied warships and transports were withdrawn to the New Hebrides. From August 15 until several months later, all supplies sent to Guadalcanal came by high-speed transports in small convoys, mainly during daylight hours, while Allied land-based planes from the New Hebrides flew frequent covering missions.

In recognition of the severe losses suffered by the RAN in 1941 and 1942, the British Royal Navy donated another County class cruiser, HMS Shropshire (later known as HMAS Shropshire) to replace the Canberra. Similarly, the name USS Canberra was adopted by the US Navy for a new heavy cruiser.

Towards the end of World War II, a formal U.S. Navy board of inquiry prepared a report of the battle. Captain Howard D. Bode, captain of Chicago during the battle, upon learning that the report would be very critical of his actions during the engagement, committed suicide.

References

Books

-Although a second-hand account, this book does give a Japanese perspective on the battle and includes a defence of Mikawa's decision to withdraw without trying to attack the Allied transport ships.

External links

-somewhat inaccurate on details, since it was written during the war

Notes

Savo Island Savo Island

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