Guadalcanal Campaign
The Battle Of Savo Island & Loss Of Canberra
In August 1942 a powerful
fleet comprising 48 combat ships, including the US Aircraft Carriers
Wasp, Saratoga and Enterprise and the new battleship
North Carolina, began to assemble for the invasion of the Solomon
Islands. The Royal Australian Navy was represented by the cruisers
Australia (Captain H. B. Farncomb); Canberra (Captain
F. E. Getting and Hobart (Captain H. A. Showers). Commanding
the Australian cruisers and five American cruisers was Rear-Admiral
Victor Crutchley RN, who in June had succeeded the Australian born
Rear-Admiral Crace RN, as the commander of the Australian Squadron.
He was responsible for the safe arrival in the combat area of the
troopships carrying the assault force of some 16000 US marines.
Australian ground forces were at this time busy holding the Japs back
on the Kokoda Trek in New Guinea.
The invaders achieved complete
surprise as they approached the shores of Guadalcanal over a smooth
sea and under a clear sky. HMAS Australia and USS Quincy
opened fire at 6.13 a.rn. and at 6.23 a.m. and shortly
afterwards
at dawn on 7 August, the first waves of US Marines landed at Guadalcanal
and Tulagi, and soon secured the sites.
The first wave of marines went ashore near Lunga Point without opposition
and next day the marines occupied the
airstrip. Opposition at Tulagi was strong but was soon crushed
The Japanese
reaction was immediate. Hastily organising a surface strike force
of seven cruisers and a destroyer, they began to attack the Allied
force without delay. It was a bold decision as it involved steaming
in broad daylight down the length of 'The Slot' between the Solomons.
Incredibly, the sole sighting of the approaching enemy force - by
an RAAF Catalina - was not passed on to Allied leaders. The Americans
had split their forces into three groups. Two
were guarding the channels on either side of Savo Island. AUSTRALIA
in company with CANBERRA, CHICAGO and two destroyers, patrolled the
southern channel, while the northern channel was guarded by the US
cruisers VINCENNES, ASTORIA and QUINCY, and two destroyers.
At great personal peril a number of Australians
of the RAN’s Coastwatcher Service had remained behind in the
Solomons, New Britain and New Guinea after the Japanese occupation
and had maintained a lonely vigil gathering information on enemy movements,
strengths and activities, which they passed on to the Allies by tele-radio.
They saved the lives of scores of shot-down airmen and stranded sailors
(including Lieutenant John Kennedy of the US navy, later to be President
of the United States). Some went ashore as guides to the first waves
of marines when they invaded at Guadalcanal.
The first reaction of the Japanese when
news of the American landing at Guadalcanal - Tulagi reached their
main base, Rabaul, was to despatch an air striking force of 27 bombers
and 17 fighters to attack the invaders.
The air striking force took off
from Rabaul at 9.30a.m. on 7th August and was seen by Coast-watcher
Lieutenant Paul Mason as the aircraft flew over south Bougainville.
At 11:37a.m. the Allied ships at Guadalcanal heard his direct voice
transmitting the warning: ‘From STO. Twenty-four bombers headed
yours.’
The raiders were still 5 - 10 kilornetres
from their objective when Mason’s warning was received and by
the time they arrived over Guadalcanal all Allied ships were under
way and carrier fighter aircraft were in position to intercept. The
enemy lost 5 bombers and 2 fighters. The Coastwatchers were to provide
many such timely warnings of enemy movements. In appreciation William
Halsey, the American Admiral, in a message relayed to this unique
body of men said ‘The Coastwatchers saved Guadalcanal and Guadalcanal
saved the Pacific.’
Meanwhile Vice-Admiral Gumichi Mikawa,
the able commander of the Japanese 8th Fleet, had sailed from Rabaul
at 4.30 p.m. on 7 August in the cruiser Chokai. Some 30 hours
later after having passed down ‘the slot’ between Santa
Isabel and New Georgia islands, he arrived undetected off Guadalcanal
with 7 cruisers and a destroyer. His plan was to carry out a night
attack on the invader’s shipping off Guadalcanal and Tulagi in
the small hours of 9 August.
Two radar-equipped American destroyers
patrolling off Savo Island and the entrance to ‘Ironhottom Sound’
inexplicably failed to detect Mikawa’s approach. Then suddenly,
at 1:43 a.m. on 9 August the American destroyer Patterson inside
the harbour saw Mikawa’s force and signalled: ‘Warning,
warning, strange ships entering harbour.’ It was too late. Japanese
torpedoes had already leapt from their tubes on their way to unsuspecting
Allied naval targets and Japanese float planes dropped brilliant flares
which silhouetted Chicago and Canberra as the Japanese
cruisers, their crews tense and alert, opened fire. The action across
Ironbottom Sound was of tremendous intensity and short duration. Within
2 minutes Canberra was hit by 24 shells. Captain Getting was mortally
wounded, his Gunnery Officer Lieutenant Commander D. M. Hole was killed
instantly and his ship was listing and doomed. Both engine rooms had
been hit by the 2nd enemy salvo and all communications
and power had failed completely.
Chicago had been hit by a torpedo but had
managed to stay afloat. After attacking Canberra and Chicago Mikawa's
raiders swung round Savo Island to get at the US Cruisers of the Northern
Screening Group. His column divided as he turned and he caught the
cruisers Vincennes, Quincy and Astoria in a devastating crossfire
at close range. Fatally hit Vinceenes sunk a blazing and abandoned
wreck. Quincy managed to fire one salvo but within minutes her decks
were a shambles and her below decks an inferno. She sank at 2:25 a.m.
Astoria stayed afloat the longest. Badly mauled she also sank at midday
on August 9th when a magazine explosion blew a hole in
her port side.
Having created great havoc, at 2:23a.m.
Mikawa gave the order to break off the engagement and surprisingly
made off up ‘the slot’ thus abandoning his original intention
of attacking the American transports now within his reach. He was
severely criticised for this omission. But he had to think of the
arrival of daylight and the possibility of American carriers mounting
air attacks on his force.
The Battle of Savo Island was one of
the sharpest reverses suffered by the US navy in the war. It was,
too, for the RAN. Yet the Japanese did not go unscathed. Chokai
was hit four times and next day Kako, one of Mikawa’s
cruisers, was sunk off Kavieng by a torpedo from a US submarine.
At Guadalcanal the Pacific Allies had
taken a first step on the road to Tokyo. but a bitter campaign lay
ahead before the tenuous hold of the marines on Guadalcanal would
be consolidated.
On Canberra, 84 men had been killed
or would die later of wounds (including Captain Getting who still
conscious after the action, refused all medical aid). The Americans
lost 939 killed. Strenuous efforts were made to extinguish the fires
in Canberra, but with no water or water pressure, bucket chains
had to be used. Meanwhile Rear-Admiral R. K. Turner USN, who commanded
the amphibious force, had decided to withdraw all shipping from Guadalcanal
and at 3:45 a.m. the wounded Commander J. A. Walsh RAN, now in command
of Canberra, was informed that unless the cruiser could be
made ready to steam by 6.30a.m. she was to be abandoned and destroyed.
No such objective was possible and Walsh was forced to order his crew
to abandon ship. Canberra sank
next morning after torpedoes from an American destroyer were fired
into her.
In total 263 rounds of 5-inch shells and four torpedoes were poured
into her hull by Allied ships and on 9 August, 1942, she slipped beneath
the sea. A Board of Inquiry was convened in Sydney within weeks of
the action. The Board found that CANBERRA was not in a proper state
of readiness, but judged the crew's behaviour 'satisfactory'
Writing later to Rear Admiral Crutchley,
Patterson’s Captain, Commander Walker USN, paid this tribute
to Canberra’s crew:
The Commanding Officer
and entire ship’s company of the USS Patterson noted with admiration
the calm, cheerful and courageous spirit displayed by officers and
men of Canberra. When Patterson left from alongside because of what
was then believed to be an enemy ship close by there were no outcries
or entreaties — rather a cheery ‘Carry on Patterson, good
luck!’ — and prompt and efficient casting off of lines,
brows etc. Not a man stepped out of line. The Patterson feels privileged
to have served so gallant a crew.
In thirty-two
minutes of gunfire and torpedo attacks the Japanese force had destroyed
four allied warships.
Thus the RAN which began the war with
six cruisers, had lost three of them in combat in less than ten months,
together with a number of smaller warships — grievous losses
for a comparatively small navy. But for the RAN the worst was now
over. Moreover on the battlefronts of the war the tide was about to
turn decisively against the Axis and their Japanese Allies, forcing
them hence-forward on the defensive.
HMAS Australia had not taken part
directly in the Savo Island Battle because Rear Admiral Crutchley
had been ordered to attend a conference with Rear-Admiral Turner on
the transport McCawley and had left Captain H. Bode of Chicago
in charge of his patrol group. After the action commenced Crutchley
ordered Australia to patrol about 11 kilometres west of the
transports to intercept any enemy which might penetrate the cruiser
screen. Hobart also was not engaged. She saw flares and the
glow of burning ships on the horizon. After the battle, Admiral Crutchley
steamed with Australia and Hobart to Noumea, where his
ships were victualled, ammunitioned and fuelled.
After failing to dislodge the American
marines from Guadalcanal immediately after the initial landing, the
Japanese gathered a large fleet of warships including two battleships
and the aircraft carriers Zuikaku, Shokaku and Ryujo to
cover the landing of reinforcements which were to take part in an
attempt to expel the Americans from Guadalcanal.
Australia and Hobart were
assigned to the Saratoga Group Task Force 61. On 24 August
aircraft from Saratoga operating east of the southern Solomons
attacked Ryujo which sank four hours later. On 31 August Saratoga
was hit by a torpedo which put her out of action for three months.
The Australian cruisers then reverted to the operational control of
MacArthur’s command and reached Brisbane without further incident
on 3 September.
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