* By early October 1942, the Japanese and the Americans were deeply engaged in an intense life and death struggle for Guadalcanal, the fighting between the two becoming ever more earnest.
* There was a lull in the sea fighting around Guadalcanal from mid-September into early October 1942, most of the action taking place in the air and the Japanese generally getting the worst of it. As a harassment measure, however, they began to send in one or two aircraft a night, usually floatplanes, to drop a few bombs and then go home. The "Washing-Machine Charlies" caused little damage; they were just trying to raise a fuss to ensure that the Americans couldn't get a good night's sleep.
Back in Rabaul, General Hyakutake had decided to commit major resources to clearing the US Marines off Guadalcanal. Unfortunately for him, the old IJA-IJN antagonism resurfaced again, with the IJN refusing to provide him with the means to transport his force in a consolidated fashion down the Slot. The IJN felt the only way to run the gauntlet was to send in small groups on fast destroyers at night. Even that was becoming riskier, since American fliers were beginning to figure out how to fight at night.
To break the impasse, Hyakutake sent his operations chief, Lieutenant Colonel Tsuji Masanobu, to Truk to plead the IJA's case with Admiral Yamamoto. Tsuji made his case eloquently while the admiral listened patiently. In the end, Yamamoto admitted that the IJN had made mistakes that had cost the IJA dearly, and committed to providing full naval support for a big push to retake Guadalcanal. Yamamoto, always eager to do battle, also saw the operation as an opportunity. Once more, he would have the chance to press the "decisive battle" on the US Navy. Not all the Japanese military command were so optimistic. Guadalcanal was at the end of a long and dangerously exposed supply line that was vulnerable to strengthening Allied air and sea power. In fact, some senior officers were convinced the battle was lost, and that Guadalcanal should be abandoned.
General Kawaguchi returned to Rabaul to report on the situation. There were those who disliked him and wanted him sent away for his failure, but he had his patrons as well, and his eloquent description of the suffering and failure of Japanese troops on Guadalcanal helped convince his superiors of the seriousness of the situation. Because of his knowledge of circumstances in the combat area, he was ordered to return to Guadalcanal with General Hyakutake.
* Having received reinforcements, not to mention enough rations to keep his Marines properly fed, General Vandegrift was feeling encouraged enough to launch a counteroffensive against the Japanese on Guadalcanal, mostly directed against concentrations of Japanese to the west of Henderson Field. In late September, two Marine battalions went on a sweep south towards Mount Austen, then west and back north to the coast. Following a few days of intermittent fighting, the two battalions were then joined by the 1st Raider Battalion on 26 September, getting into fights on the east bank of the Matanikau.
A push by the Marines the next day, 27 September, led to very sharp clashes; communications to the operational commander, Colonel Edson, were garbled, and he misunderstood them to mean that his Marines were successfully pushing back the enemy. Edson ordered an amphibious landing at Point Cruz, to the west of the mouth of the Matanikau River. The landing force managed to get ashore without trouble, but immediately ran into a trap; they lost 60 men killed plus 100 wounded, the survivors finally managing to cut their way out, to be evacuated by a destroyer. The Marines gave up the offensive for the moment and set up defenses along the Matanikau.
The whole exercise had been a fiasco from the start, with the Marines struggling through the jungle and being badly cut up by the Japanese, who remained generally unhurt. Planning for the operation had been poor, the underlying mindset being that they would just go and "hit the Japs" -- to find out it was just as hard for Americans to take the offensive in such nightmarish terrain as it was for the Japanese. The aggressive reaction of the Japanese reinforced Vandegrift's belief that he was facing a major enemy force that was preparing to attack him again. In fact, there were only about 5,000 Japanese, and they were so weakened by disease and starvation that only about half were fit for combat.
* The Americans were frustrated at not being able to get the upper hand on Guadalcanal; on 28 September there was a strategy meeting in Noumea, with Admirals Nimitz, Turner, and Ghormley; General MacArthur's chief of staff General Sutherland; and General Henry "Hap" Arnold, head of the USAAF, in attendance. The Navy was hoping to get reinforcements from MacArthur for Guadalcanal from New Guinea, recent Japanese moves there having been blunted, but Sutherland turned down the idea flat, the assumption being that the Japanese would be back on the offensive in New Guinea soon. Actually they wouldn't, the IJA having decided from mid-month to focus on Guadalcanal. In any case, the campaign for Guadalcanal had to struggle on as best it could for the time being.
Back in the combat zone, Turner -- an abrasive, arrogant, and insufferable know-it-all, inclined to lecture generals on how to fight battles -- felt that Vandegrift was being excessively cautious and sent him a pompous message, suggesting that the general "go after them hard." Vandegrift reacted angrily; there was a sullen stand-off for a few days, until Admiral Nimitz flew in to Guadalcanal to inspect the situation. He was noncommittal but sympathetic to the situation of the Marines on the island; Vandegrift, having blown off a little steam, recovered his nerve and launched a second counteroffensive.
This time he sent a full regiment up the coast, with orders to be as loud and busy as possible. In the meantime, three battalions of Marines crossed the Matanikau River upstream and curved around to the rear of where the Japanese would be expected to make a stand, on the west bank of the mouth of the river. The decoy regiment got to the east side of the river, to go through exaggerated motions for a crossing. On the morning of 9 October, the Marines sprung the trap, pinning in the Japanese, pounding them with mortars and artillery, and cutting them down with machine guns and rifle fire when they tried to escape. It was a massacre. The Marines counted about 700 Japanese bodies, while 65 Marines were killed in return.
Vandegrift's shift back to the aggressive had paid off in aces, and more than avenged the humiliation of the Marines a few weeks earlier. He was reluctant to press the offensive further, being satisfied with increasing the depth of the buffer zone around Henderson Field. Examination of papers found on Japanese bodies also yielded considerable intelligence about Japanese strength and intentions. Vandegrift followed up the attack to the west by a series of small actions to clean out surviving Japanese to the east. The small pockets of Japanese troops there amounted to no real threat, but they were a nuisance, and could also potentially throw their weight behind a broader assault on Henderson Field.
BACK_TO_TOP* On the evening of 9 October, farther to the west along the coast at Tassafaronga Point, General Hyakutake and his staff, along with General Kawaguchi, were dropped off with supplies. Hyakutake saw for himself the desperate condition of the soldiers, and his unpleasant awakening to the facts was accelerated by the reports coming back of the slaughter along the Matanikau River. He wired Rabaul:
SITUATION ON GUADALCANAL IS FAR MORE SERIOUS THAN ESTIMATED.
Hyakutake had planned to simply drive up the coast on Henderson Field, but whatever illusions he might have had that direct, bold action would roll the Marines back had been thoroughly dampened. The Americans were obviously not as incompetent on the battlefield as the IJA had assumed them to be, and the defenses to the west of Henderson Field were clearly solid. Hyakutake knew he needed a better plan. He decided to send a regiment up the coast as a diversion, while the 2nd Division under Lieutenant General Maruyama Masao circled south of Mount Austen and hit the Americans from the rear at night.
A trail had already been cut through the jungle for the movement of Maruyama's men. The jungle was very rugged and the Japanese engineers had only hand tools, but they had managed to clear a path, though soldiers could only infrequently walk upright along it. General Kawaguchi had come to ruin fighting over the same and similar terrain, and he was not optimistic. However, Maruyama knew his political position was shaky and dared not protest very loudly.
More Tokyo Express runs followed each night, though the Cactus Air Force interfered when it could. A run took place on 11 October, with six destroyers and two seaplane carriers steaming fast down the Slot, carrying heavy weapons, supplies, and more troops. This time, the supply convoy was accompanied by a bombardment force, consisting of three heavy cruisers and two destroyers under command of Rear Admiral Gotou Aritomou. The IJN decided that Henderson Field needed to be given a healthy shelling to put a stop to the annoying air attacks.
The convoy was spotted by a B-17. The US Navy was present in force, with the carrier HORNET, battleship WASHINGTON, and support vessels protecting a supply convoy headed for Guadalcanal. A secondary surface force, under Rear Admiral Norman Scott, had been assigned to perform active defense for the convoy, to "search and destroy" the enemy instead of waiting for the enemy to strike first. Scott was an experienced Navy hand who had served in the First World War; he was in command of two heavy cruisers, two light cruisers, and five destroyers. Scott moved to intercept Gotou's force.
The reality that the Japanese were competent and dangerous was finally soaking through the complacency of US Navy men; they were very sick of having their asses kicked by the Japanese in night actions, and Scott had been drilling his sailors for night combat for weeks for a rematch. Scott's scout planes targeted the supply convoy at about 2300 hours on 11 October, but the report was confusing. However, the Americans spotted the Japanese first, while the Japanese were inattentive and had no clue that they were at risk, the US Navy not having been inclined to take on the IJN at night to that time.
Just before midnight, the light cruiser HELENA opened up on the heavy cruiser AOBA, mortally wounding Admiral Gotou; Scott then ordered a cease fire, under the mistaken impression that they were shooting at friends. The Japanese were similarly confused, but in a few minutes Scott decided the vessels in front of him really were hostiles, and bore in to attack.
In fact, Scott's captains hadn't really obeyed the order to stop shooting; they had only slackened their fire. The confusion over, both sides slammed into each other in earnest in the dark, blasting away until about 20 minutes after midnight. The AOBA took about 40 hits but survived, while the heavy cruiser FURUTAKA and the destroyer FUBUKI went down in Ironbottom Sound. The US Navy light cruiser BOISE was badly hurt but survived, while the destroyer DUNCAN -- whose most serious damage may well have been inflicted in error by American broadsides -- sank after a determined but futile struggle by her crew to save her. The fighting lingered into daylight on 12 October, the IJN destroyers MURAKUMO and NATSUGUMO being sunk by the Cactus Air Force as the vessels hunted for Japanese survivors.
* The third naval battle of Guadalcanal, the "Battle of Cape Esperance", was a turning point, at least emotionally, for the US Navy. For the first time making effective use of their shipboard radar systems, the Americans had finally stood up to the Japanese at their own game, a night surface engagement, and the Japanese were correspondingly humiliated. The Americans had cause for satisfaction; true, they had been lucky in catching the Japanese by surprise, but luck is often a major factor in battles. The victory was announced to the press, with considerable exaggeration of losses to the IJN; the defeat at Savo Island was also announced, no doubt with a degree of understatement.
Later events would prove the US Navy had hardly discovered the winning formula. It was telling that the FURUTAKA was the first major Japanese warship sunk by the Allies in a surface action in the Solomons campaign. It was certainly an improvement in circumstances for the Americans, but only relative to their pathetic showing in naval shootouts to that time. Scott's confused management of the battle left something to be desired -- in particular, echoing Mikawa's failure after Savo Island, Scott failed to intercept the supply convoy. The Japanese were able to deliver badly needed equipment and supplies to General Hyakutake and his men.
Still, those IJN admirals not lost in complacency began to wonder if the US Navy might be learning and becoming more dangerous. The Japanese certainly couldn't see that the US Navy seemed discouraged by all the punishments dealt out to that time; exactly the opposite. However inept the US Navy had been in the past, the Americans hardly seemed lacking in aggressiveness.
As far the IJA reinforcements went, they didn't necessarily tip the odds to the Japanese, since the convoy led by HORNET got through, arriving on 13 October. Scott hadn't been able to interfere with Japanese troop shipments, but the Japanese hadn't been able to interfere with American troop shipments, either. Vandegrift obtained 2,852 Army troops from the Americal Division, as well as more weapons, ammunition, and supplies. That gave Vandegrift a total of over 23,000 men to defend Henderson Field. The base was also being expanded, with a supplementary field hacked out of the jungle by Seabees.
BACK_TO_TOP* Even as the Americans were sorting out the new arrivals on Tuesday, 13 October, the Japanese bombed Henderson Field with 24 aircraft at noon, inflicting serious damage, followed some time later by a second attack with 15 more bombers. The Seabees were busy cleaning up the mess that afternoon when they came under fire from a long-range 150-millimeter gun that had just arrived and been placed near the Matanikau River. The Japanese gunners were skilled and accurate, with the Marines quickly naming the gun "Pistol Pete". Japanese ground artillery was particularly troublesome, since it could be registered on a target coordinate -- sending in a round, waiting for a repair crew to try to fix the resulting hole in the runway, and then tossing another round into the same place.
The Japanese were only getting warmed up. While the sun was setting, the battleships KONGOU and HARUNA were moving towards Guadalcanal under the escort of six destroyers; the group's commander, Vice Admiral Kurita Takeo, had orders to blast Henderson Field off the map. Japanese soldiers set up oil drums on the shore and used them as torches to mark targets. At a little after 0100 hours on Wednesday, 14 October, the two battleships lit up the dark of night with their 36-centimeter (14-inch) guns.
The bombardment was unlike anything the Americans had ever endured, or that many of them would ever endure again. For a half hour, the big shells pounded Henderson Field, smashing equipment and aircraft, blasting fuel and ammunition dumps. The shelling went quiet for a moment, but the two battleships were simply turning about for another pass. The hammering continued for another hour and a half.
The Americans were unable to put up any effective resistance, though four torpedo boats -- the "PTs" having just arrived in the theater -- made a valiant but futile attempt to attack the battleships. Although the PTs inflicted no damage, they still made Kurita nervous about further attacks, and he felt he'd done his job, a Japanese report later commenting that "explosions were seen everywhere, and the entire airfield was a sea of flame." Having expended over 900 shells, the Japanese turned north and left. From that time on, the incident would be known to those who had endured it as "The Bombardment".
By mid-morning of 14 October, fires were still burning all over Henderson Field. 41 Americans were dead, most of the aircraft were damaged or destroyed, and almost all the fuel had been burned. Rear Admiral Aubrey Fitch, the regional air commander based on Espiritu Santo, responded energetically to the crisis by ordering all available Dauntlesses and Wildcats under his command to fly in and reinforce Henderson Field. He also organized an airlift of fuel and other supplies, flying them in from Espiritu Santo with R4D transports, each hauling 12 barrels of fuel.
Available vessels, even the submarine USS AMBERJACK, were pressed into service to move cargoes to Guadalcanal. The IJN did what it could to interfere with the shipments, planes from the ZUIKAKU sinking the destroyer USS MEREDITH on the afternoon of Thursday, 15 October -- the survivors enduring three horrific days on the sea, being attacked by sharks, until they were rescued. The only bright side to the loss of the MEREDITH was that the Japanese were distracted from attacks on other US shipping, which got through to Guadalcanal.
In the meantime, six new Japanese fast transports were moving down the Slot with 4,000 men, 14 tanks, 12 150-millimeter guns, and other supplies under escort of warships and aircraft. The Cactus Air Force managed to attack them with 11 aircraft, but with little effect. After the sun went down that Wednesday, 15 October, the transports were being unloaded near Tassafaronga Point, while the heavy cruisers CHOUKAI and KINUGASA, under the direct command of Admiral Mikawa, provided a repeat performance of the shelling of the previous night, if on a smaller scale. They fired over 750 20-centimeter (8-inch) shells and then departed, unharmed.
The Cactus Air Force managed to catch three of the transports still being unloaded when the sun came up on Thursday, 15 October, and set them on fire, forcing their captains to ground them. It must have come as a frustrating revelation to IJN captains that all the pounding of Henderson Field hadn't put it out of business -- though the troops there had to conduct a mad scramble to scrounge up fuel for the aircraft, even draining the tanks of aircraft that had been wrecked by the shelling.
However, most of the Japanese supplies and men had made it to shore. General Hyakutake had 15,000 men, and was ready to take the offensive. The heavy cruisers MYOUKOU and MAYA, backed up by Tanaka's destroyers, pounded Henderson Field again that night of 15 October, underlining the pressure against the Marines there. On 17 October, the destroyers USS AARON WARD and LARDNER handed out some payback, pounding Hyakutake's positions with over 2,000 rounds of five-inch ammunition. Thanks to sharp air spotting, the two vessels destroyed several ammunition and stores dumps, raising consternation among Japanese soldiers and doing much to undermine Hyakutake's preparations for the offensive.
* Haykutake still had a large force available to him; Vandergrift understood that, and was once more unsure that he could hang on to Henderson Field. Vandegrift had reason for concern, many of his men being afflicted with tropical ailments or otherwise in worn-out condition -- but it appears he failed to appreciate that the Japanese were just as badly, or worse, off in that respect. In any case, Vandegrift sent back a report to his superiors that if Guadalcanal was to be held, the Navy would have to put a stop to Japanese naval operations and he would have to be immediately reinforced.
Worries over the ability to prevail on Guadalcanal went all the way up to the White House. Nimitz decided that, as far as he was concerned, America was going to win, and he had backup, FDR making it clear that Guadalcanal was priority over everything but the TORCH operation. The joint chiefs authorized the prompt dispatch of more fleet and air power to the South Pacific; even MacArthur was ordered to contribute to the effort, however reluctant he was to do so. Whatever useful that could be spared from TORCH had to be sent in against the Japanese in the South Pacific.
Vandegrift's impression that Nimitz was backing him was confirmed when Nimitz finally relieved Admiral Ghormley on 18 October, replacing him with Vice Admiral William Frederick Halsey, who had been on the sicklist for several months due to a nasty skin condition. Nimitz had not been pleased with Ghormley's lack of aggressiveness and wanted someone who could fight. Bill Halsey -- newspapers liked to call him "Bull" Halsey, but nobody who knew him called him that -- was a scrappy, colorful guy from New Jersey who was much more inspiring than the relatively low-key Ghormley, Halsey being well-liked by his men and the press for his slugging aggressiveness and a certain sort of crusty old-salt sense of humor. Halsey received the order immediately after arriving at Noumea by flying boat, saying: "Jesus Christ and General Jackson! This is the hottest potato they've ever handed me!"
Halsey faced his new duties with "astonishment, apprehension, and regret"; he was not entirely happy to be put in charge of an operation that seemed to be hanging by threads -- and was also not happy to relieve Ghormley, a friend for 40 years. Ghormley, by most accounts, was a competent officer, he was just unable to get the upper hand against all his difficulties, and didn't impress people as a fighter. Fairness is a second priority at best to the military; whatever might have been said in Ghormley's defense, the attitude was that if he didn't seem to have the winning touch, somebody else needed to be sent in who might.
Halsey ordered Vandegrift to fly to Noumea to report on his situation. When the general arrived, he detailed the desperate position of his men and said he would need reinforcements. Turner raised objections that Halsey knew were valid, but whatever the risks, the USA could not afford to lose Guadalcanal: it would be a major strategic and moral defeat. Halsey told Vandegrift: "All right, go on back. I'll promise you everything I've got." Halsey was determined to fight it out. He sent out his first general order to his command:
KILL JAPS. KILL JAPS. KILL MORE JAPS.BACK_TO_TOP
* On the ground, the Japanese were preparing for their big push to take Henderson Field. Maruyama was hoping to have 5,600 men in place by 21 October to attack the Americans from the south -- but even with the trail cut through the jungle, the going was very tough for the sick and starved Japanese, and the attack was repeatedly postponed.
General Kawaguchi was placed in command of the right flank of the attack. The attack plan seemed much too similar to the one that had led him to ruin in September, and he expressed misgivings about the battle plan to Colonel Tsuji, suggesting that it would be better to try to flank the American defenses from the southeast. Kawaguchi thought that Tsuji agreed and that the change in plans would be passed up to General Maruyama, but there was some mixup and Maruyama wasn't informed. When Maruyama found that Kawaguchi wasn't where he was supposed to be, Maruyama sacked him on the spot. Kawaguchi believed Tsuji had deliberately betrayed him and never forgave him.
Finally, Maruyama set the jump off time for the night of 24 October. Unfortunately, General Sumiyoshi's people on the coast didn't get the word and launched a diversionary attack over the mouth of the Matanikau, supported by nine tanks, on the afternoon of Friday, the 23rd. However, that was the only place where the Japanese could operate tanks and the Marine defense was well prepared, braced by 37-millimeter anti-tank guns along with halftracks mounting 75-millimeter anti-tank guns, backed up by howitzers.
The Japanese were aware of the strength of the American defense, having been probing it for much of the last week with painful results, but with customary resolve they threw themselves at the Marines. American artillery tore Japanese infantry to bits, while the anti-tank guns made short work of the nine tanks -- only one surviving long enough to get across the river, to be shot up in turn. About 600 Japanese were killed, while only two Marines were lost and 11 wounded. It was a humiliating defeat.
The diversionary attack was a costly fiasco that accomplished nothing but to drain Japanese forces and put Vandegrift's men on the highest alert. By the afternoon of Saturday, 24 October, they were perfectly aware that the Japanese were massing to the south for an attack. Marine lines to the south were built up under the direction of Colonel Lewis "Chesty" Puller, an experienced and notoriously gung-ho Marine officer with a barrel chest.
Although the Japanese were badly hampered by torrential rains, the attack jumped off after midnight on Sunday, 25 October; Japanese advance units excitedly announced that they had broken through and were overrunning the airfield. They were mistaken. Japanese soldiers had a great enthusiasm for coming to grips with an enemy which could allow them to do the extraordinary, but that had a number of downsides -- one being an inclination to take a unrealistically optimistic, even deluded, view of a situation. Seizing the airfield should have broken American resistance, but instead of dying down, the fighting became hideously intense. It turned out that the advance units had simply run into an open field, and in the dark had assumed it was the airfield. The attack was cut to pieces, and by dawn, it was obvious that it had been a bloody failure.
* The mistaken report that the airfield had been seized was relayed back to Admiral Yamamoto, who assumed that American air power had been neutralized on Guadalcanal and was no longer in a position to threaten IJN warships. Yamamoto ordered a strike force under Vice Admiral Kondou to move in and engage the US Navy around the island. A separate, smaller force, consisting of the light cruiser YURA and eight destroyers, was already moving in to support Maruyama's attack with naval gunfire.
After the sun came up that Sunday morning, 25 October, Yamamoto received word that the airfield hadn't been captured after all; so the admiral told Kondou to halt and wait for further instructions. The YURA force did not proceed to bombard Henderson Field, three of the destroyers being diverted in chasing two fast US Navy destroyer-transports, TREVER and ZANE. Thanks to air attacks on the Japanese destroyers, the two APDs managed to get away -- but the three Japanese destroyers then ran into the tug SEMINOLE and a "yard patrol" boat, YP-284, operating as part of the local "Cactus Navy" out of Tulagi. The "yard patrol" designation, incidentally, was really just a blanket term for civilian craft pressed into Navy service, most prominently ocean-going tuna-fishing boats, being given light armament and used for running errands. Neither of these two small vessels stood a chance against three IJN destroyers, and they were promptly sent to the bottom, most of the two crews fortunately being rescued.
However, that would prove a costly win for the Japanese; having failed to interrupt air operations from Henderson Field, the YURA force found itself under persistent air attack. Early in the afternoon, SBD dive-bombers sent the YURA to the bottom, and also scored a hit on a destroyer. The IJN had been given a pointed reminder of the folly of attempting to hit Guadalcanal by daylight.
* That was a sideshow in the day's fighting. Kondou's main force was about 480 kilometers (300 miles) northeast of the island. Halsey was determined to deal with the Japanese, and his own task force was sitting off the Santa Cruz Islands, about 640 kilometers (400 miles) east of Guadalcanal. The task force included the carriers HORNET and ENTERPRISE, just returned to the war zone after lightning repairs in Pearl Harbor, accompanied by nine cruisers and 24 destroyers, and was under the command of the aggressive Rear Admiral Thomas Kincaid.
American patrol planes found Kondou's fleet, organized in two groups, that Sunday afternoon. The patrol planes were spotted by the Japanese, however, and Vice Admiral Nagumo Chuichi, in charge of the carrier group, decided to make a hasty exit. Yamamoto angrily overruled Nagumo and ordered him to attack. While Nagumo feared another disaster like the one at Midway, particularly because he had no idea where the American fleet was, orders were orders. The Japanese fleet went south to engage the US Navy.
The Japanese had a larger force. The carrier group included three carriers, a heavy cruiser, and eight destroyers. The surface force leading them included two battleships, four cruisers, and seven destroyers. While they didn't realize it, the US Navy force was steaming almost directly towards them.
Back on the island, Maruyama's men made another desperate attack after nightfall that Sunday. They were driven back once again with heavy losses, and the attack fizzled out around midnight. Fighting flared up intermittently into the morning of Monday, 26 October -- but by 8:00 AM, Maruyama had decided to call it quits. He had lost a total of 3,000 men in his attacks, and had failed completely.
There had been three Japanese attempts to drive the Americans off Guadalcanal, each attack bigger than the previous, with each proving a lopsided failure. This third attack was the last, the IJA having finally shot their bolt; they wouldn't try it again, having been strained to the utmost to bring in a force that still wasn't powerful enough to do the job. All the extraordinary courage of Japanese soldiers had been squandered by their officers, one US Army soldier involved in the battle saying much later: "If they would have had our leaders they might have won the war, the poor bastards."
BACK_TO_TOP* Following the Battle of Henderson Field, there was a lull in the fighting -- but it was short-lived. Kondou's fleet was still in the area; the original plan that had brought it there having been derailed by the failure to capture Henderson Field, Kondou was unsure of what to do next. The Japanese fleet was located by a B-17 at about 1430 on Monday, 26 October. The Japanese discovered the American force not much later. Kincaid already had his orders, radioed out by Halsey that morning:
ATTACK REPEAT ATTACK
Both forces launched aircraft that evening; the air strike forces actually passed within sight of each other. Although Kincaid's force detected the Japanese aircraft on radar, he delayed in ordering Wildcats into the sky to meet them, and the American fighters were not able to climb high enough in time to stop the enemy. The Japanese Aichi D3A dive bombers screamed down on the HORNET and blasted it, the squadron commander deliberately crashing into the carrier's deck. In the meantime, Navy Dauntlesses were making their own strikes on the Japanese, hitting the light carrier ZUIHOU, the heavy cruiser CHIKUMA, and the fleet carrier SHOUKAKU -- with the SHOUKAKU being knocked out of combat until well into 1943.
Another group of Japanese aircraft found the ENTERPRISE and her screen, steaming about 16 kilometers (10 miles) away from the HORNET and her escorts. Kincaid had again delayed in launching fighters, but the anti-aircraft fire from the American vessels was intense and effective. The battleship SOUTH DAKOTA had just returned to action after running aground in the Tongas in September, and during her repair in Pearl Harbor she'd been fitted with an array of 40-millimeter Bofors automatic cannon that could throw out rapid and heavy fire at attacking aircraft; the ENTERPRISE had similarly been fitted with Bofors guns. The proven 20-millimeter Oerlikon cannon carried by the ships of the task force also made life difficult for the attackers.
Two bombs hit the ENTERPRISE and a near-miss damaged a turbine bearing, but the carrier was not put out of action. By this time, American fighters were in the air to beat back further attacks, but the Japanese still managed to hit the SOUTH DAKOTA and the light cruiser SAN JUAN. Damage control on the injured vessels was disciplined and effective -- the SAN JUAN having had some good fortune in being hit by an armor-piercing bomb that actually punched all the way through it, without exploding. Unfortunately, a Japanese submarine put a torpedo into the destroyer PORTER, and there was no saving her; she was finished off by her mates, with most of the crew being rescued.
The HORNET was under tow when yet another Japanese strike wave pounded her. Saving the carrier was hopeless; it went down early the next morning, being given the final blow by four torpedoes fired from Japanese destroyers. No doubt the IJN, remembering the HORNET's role in the Doolittle raid on Tokyo in March, enjoyed the revenge. Later, the US Navy would assign powerful tugs to fleet task forces to ensure that vessels crippled in the fighting would be towed out of harm's way much more quickly.
The fourth naval battle of Guadalcanal, the "Battle of Santa Cruz", was a clear American defeat. The Japanese had once again got the better of the US Navy, sinking a carrier and a destroyer, while damaging another carrier, a cruiser, and a destroyer. The Americans put three Japanese warships out of fighting condition, though all three would return to service. However, the IJN had not been able to inflict decisive injuries on the US Navy, and had not been able to influence the Battle of Henderson Field in Japan's favor. The IJN also lost about 100 aircraft and crews, in comparison to 74 lost by the Americans -- while many Japanese planes were lost to American fighters, US Navy anti-aircraft fire was also more intense and accurate than it had been to that time. The Japanese could not afford to lose so many trained airmen, while the Americans could replace their losses quickly.
The US Navy assessed the damage inflicted on the IJN with reasonable accuracy; the loss of the HORNET was announced to the American public. Nimitz, reflecting on the situation in the Guadalcanal theatre a few days later, with characteristic prudence judged circumstances "not unfavorable" to the American cause. US forces there were holding their own, the supply line was unbroken and getting stronger; given reinforcement as well as experience, the Americans were likely to do better in the future. Things were looking, if not sunny, much brighter than they had only about a week earlier.
The vision on the Japanese side was more muddled. Confused and overoptimistic reports filtered up to IJN headquarters, with the high command believing the American fleet had been wiped out. Despite this exuberance, the failure of the Maruyama attack convinced Admiral Yamamoto, who was wise enough to take grand reports of damage inflicted on the enemy with a grain of salt, that the battle for Guadalcanal was lost. The Americans were stronger than the Japanese on the island, and Yamamoto could perceive how the American grasp on the island was continuing to grow stronger, while the Japanese grasp kept slipping.
In a sense, the IJN had also shot its bolt; IJN carriers would not be involved in any further actions in the struggle for Guadalcanal. Yamamoto was no longer seeking the "decisive battle" so close to the hearts of IJN admirals. That didn't mean the naval fighting was over by any means; in fact, it was about to reach a crescendo.
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