Savo Island: The US Navy's Greatest Defeat
Part I: A Little Known Island in the South PacificOn the morning of August 7, 1942, a U.S. Navy amphibious force put Marines ashore on a never before heard of island in the South Pacific, Guadalcanal....
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At 1026 on August 8, Mikawa's cruiser force was spotted in the Slot by an Australian Hudson recon plane. Eight hours later, Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner, the commander of the American Expeditionary...
View ArticleRe: Savo Island: The US Navy's Greatest Defeat
At 2310 (11:10 pm) on August 8, five minutes before Admiral Turner opened his flag conference, Admiral Mikawa launched three obeservation planes from the catapults of his cruisers. Thirty-five minutes...
View ArticleRe: Savo Island: The US Navy's Greatest Defeat
Seaman A.B. Mackintosh was high in the foremast of the Australian cruiser Canberra. soon after 0136 (1:36 am) on August 9th, he saw the dark shape of a ship off the starboard bow. Moments later he saw...
View ArticleRe: Savo Island: The US Navy's Greatest Defeat
Immediately after the destroyer Patterson sent her warning at 0143 (1:43 am), her captain, Commander Frank Walker, ordered a hard left turn. As his gunners fired a starshell, Walker gave the order to...
View ArticleRe: Savo Island: The US Navy's Greatest Defeat
As Admiral Mikawa turned his ships to the north his cruisers split into two columns; the Yubari, Tenryu, and Furutaka, on the left, and Chokai, Aoba, Kako, and Kinugasa on the right. Meanwhile, as the...
View ArticleRe: Savo Island: The US Navy's Greatest Defeat
At the same time that the destroyer Patterson sent it's warning, a messenger was sent to call the captain of the heavy cruiser Quincy to the bridge. A moment later general quarters sounded throughout...
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Lieutenant Commander R.R. Craighill was the gunnery officer of the watch on the USS Vincennes during those early hours of August 9, 1942. Approximately 0123 (1:23 a.m.), a lookout called out, "Object...
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The battle had lasted a total of 32 minutes. Now, with four cruisers sunk or sinking behind him, Admiral Mikawa's two columns were speeding away from Sealark Channel.Captain Toshikazau Ohmae was on...
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Morison, Samuel Eliot, Two Ocean War: A Short History of the United States Navy in the Second World War (Boston: Little, Brown, 1963).Smith, Stan, The Battle of Savo (New York: MacFadden Books, 1962)
View ArticleRe: Savo Island: The US Navy's Greatest Defeat
The destroyer Ralph Talbot was on picket duty northeast of Savo Island in the early morning hours of 9 August 1942 when at 0143 she received the radioed warning from a destroyer southeast of Savo that...
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