Eighty years ago a naval battle seals the fate of the Guadalcanal campaign

 

The Naval Battle of Guadalcanal also goes by other names but it was the decisive sea battle of the campaign. The Japanese were attempting to run a convoy carrying 7,000 or so reinforcement troops to the island with a large escort; other vessels were also to shell the US positions around Henderson Field. US intelligence alerted the navy. The Japanese had the better of the first of two night engagements  but they were still forced to postpone the bombardment by one day. More important the Japanese convoy was badly mauled by aircraft from Henderson and the carrier USS Enterprise, which was not fully repaired from its last battle but was the USN's only available carrier. Damaged Japanese transports had to be beached and only 2,000 troops made it ashore. In the second surface battle the Americans forced the Japanese to withdraw. The other register of American success is that they brought a similar sized convoy to land with minimal loss.

The forces were roughly equal in strength. Arguably the decisive advantage for the Americans was Henderson Field, which multiplied the effectiveness of their air assets. Vastly superior American SG radar took the edge off superior Japanese night fighting skills. Against this Japanese 'long lance' torpedoes were far better than the American types.

The numbers of troops involved in the campaign were tiny compared to the forces battling at Stalingrad or even North Africa but this masks the strategic aspect. Both sides were operating hundreds of miles from their nearest major bases and thousands of miles from their homelands. Each side was deploying the greatest naval and air resources available and the victor would win the battle as a whole. Guadalcanal was a perfect tri-service campaign: a sea, land and air battle for control of an airfield.

This was the last ever  naval battle fought principally by gun action on the surface, if only because  of previous carrier losses and damage. It was also replete with colourful incident. Two American admirals were killed on their flagships and awarded posthumous Congressional Medals of Honor. Even more tragically, all five Sullivan brothers were killed when the cruiser Juneau was sunk.