Guadalcanal: decisive naval struggle?

[aurora]

In the six months between August 1942 and February 1943, the United States and its Pacific Allies fought a brutally hard air-sea-land campaign against the Japanese for possession of the previously-obscure island of Guadalcanal. The Allies' first major offensive action of the Pacific War, the contest began as a risky enterprise since Japan still maintained a significant naval superiority in the Pacific ocean.
Nevertheless, the U.S. First Marine Division landed on 7 August 1942 to seize a nearly-complete airfield at Guadalcanal's Lunga Point and an anchorage at nearby Tulagi, bounding a picturesque body of water that would soon be named "Iron Bottom Sound". Action ashore went well, and Japan's initial aerial response was costly and unproductive. However, only two days after the landings, the U.S. and Australian navies were handed a serious defeat in the Battle of Savo Island.
A lengthy struggle followed, with its focus the Lunga Point airfield, renamed Henderson Field. Though regularly bombed and shelled by the enemy, Henderson Field's planes were still able to fly, ensuring that Japanese efforts to build and maintain ground forces on Guadalcanal were prohibitively expensive. Ashore, there was hard fighting in a miserable climate, with U.S. Marines and Soldiers, aided by local people and a few colonial authorities, demonstrating the fatal weaknesses of Japanese ground combat doctrine when confronted by determined and well-trained opponents who possessed superior firepower.
At sea, the campaign featured two major battles between aircraft carriers that were more costly to the Americans than to the Japanese, and many submarine and air-sea actions that gave the Allies an advantage. Inside and just outside Iron Bottom Sound, five significant surface battles and several skirmishes convincingly proved just how superior Japan's navy then was in night gunfire and torpedo combat. With all this, the campaign's outcome was in some doubt for nearly four months and was not certain until the Japanese completed a stealthy evacuation of their surviving ground troops in the early hours of 8 February 1943- a missed opportunity for the Americans.
Guadalcanal was expensive for both sides, though much more so for Japan's soldiers than for U.S. ground forces. The opponents suffered high losses in aircraft and ships, but those of the United States were soon replaced, while those of Japan were not. Strategically, this campaign built a strong foundation on the footing laid a few months earlier in the Battle of Midway, which had brought Japan's Pacific offensive to an abrupt halt. At Guadalcanal, the Japanese were harshly shoved into a long and costly retreat, one that continued virtually unchecked until their August 1945 capitulation.[/B

http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/e...l/guadlcnl.htm

[aurora]

Though tactically the Battle of Santa Cruz was a draw, strategically it was a narrow victory for the Americans-IMO. Nagumo's carriers and Kondo's battleships had been turned away from Guadalcanal, giving the Marines and soldiers there some much needed relief. More importantly, the destruction of the best Japanese naval aircrews, begun in earnest at Midway, culminated at Santa Cruz. Though plane losses were high on both sides - 74 American and 92 Japanese - the loss of airmen was a Japanese catastrophe. Nearly 70 Japanese aircrews - including a number of squadron leaders - never returned to their carriers at Santa Cruz, while all but 33 American airmen did.
The first hint of the damage done to Japan's naval airpower was seen on the day of the battle, in the feeble afternoon strikes at Hornet. A more telling sign came on November 11, when Enterprise - after quick patching by Sea Bees and the repair ship Vulcan - sortied from Noumea, a full air group on her flight deck, ready to fight. The only Japanese carriers in the area - Hiyo and Junyo, both slow converted ocean liners - were well north of Guadalcanal, stayed clear of the American planes there. Without planes and the crews to fly them, the enemy's fleet carriers were impotent. Although Enterprise and her task force faced significant threat from ground-based air forces and submarines, the simple fact was this: 15 days after Santa Cruz, an American carrier stood off the Solomons, battered but ready for action, and not a single enemy carrier came to challenge her.

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[BobDonnald]

It was still a close run thing up to the re-inforcement of the troops and aircraft in November. Had Japanese landbased torpedo planes and submarines been a little more effective and coordinated, the USN carrier force might have been attrited at sea. Exactly what old Jack Fletcher was castigated for being too cautious about. The IJN still managed to sink or damage all the pre-war carriers except the Ranger at one time or another. Without sea control, the marines might have been left to their own devices.

Some of the blame for the eventual defeat at the Solomons has to be laid on the Japanese Army. Their tactics were little better than those of the WW1 war era without regard to the advances of land warfare. Sharpening bayonets and charging prepared positions backed by artillery on a island that could not be readily re-inforced is hardly the path to victory. The battles against the Chinese and the colonial troops had re-inforced the wrong lessons.

The best question to pose is exactly where would the best defensive perimeter against the coming US attack be set up. Or is there one discounting the coming of the A-Bomb

Bob

[aurora]

There was no best defence line for the Japanese.The Allied efforts at island hopping in World War II met with immense success. Many Japanese isles were isolated and cut off from supply lines. The swift conquest of the Marshall Islands led to many subsequent Allied victories. The superior Allied Navy and submarine corps enabled rapid and secret deployment of forces.

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[aurora]

The Battle of Tassafaronga on 30 November 1943 in which the Americans lost cruiser Northampton and received major damage to Minneapolis ,Pensacola and New Orleans was the culminating sea battle for Guadalcanal.
By this defeat-the Japanese were intent on evacuating Guadalcanal and Tanaka made regular sorties down the Slot and by ruse managed to evacuate 25000 men from Guadalcanal under the very noses of the Americans.
Thus at the end of the Guadalcanal campaign,the Americans failed to exploit their hard won sea superiority and allowed the trapped enemy to escape.The scale of the evacuation runs were carried out by twenty,twenty and eighteen destroyer runs respec.

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[Dave Saxton]

By this defeat-the Japanese were intent on evacuating Guadalcanal

I hope you mean that the USN was defeated in this battle. Tassafaronga was one of the worst and most humilating defeats of the war for the USN. I dare say it was worse than the German defeat at the Battle of Barents Sea four weeks later.

[Dod Grile]

Tassafaronga was fought in November '42, not '43...by which time the struggle for Guadalcanal was long past. However, it is worth noting that the Japanese themselves considered Guadalcanal the turning point & said so after the war--I believe this is recorded in the USSBS docs.

[Steve Crandell]

By this defeat-the Japanese were intent on evacuating Guadalcanal

I hope you mean that the USN was defeated in this battle. Tassafaronga was one of the worst and most humilating defeats of the war for the USN. I dare say it was worse than the German defeat at the Battle of Barents Sea four weeks later.

I suspect you would argue that every naval battle fought in the Guadalcanal area was a US defeat.

[Dave Saxton]

I suspect you would argue that every naval battle fought in the Guadalcanal area was a US defeat.

Why do you say that?

[Steve Crandell]

I suspect you would argue that every naval battle fought in the Guadalcanal area was a US defeat.

Why do you say that?

Actually I am not sure the USN actually "won" any of those engagements. The IJN was often rescued by their excellent torpedoes, while the USN didn't really have any working torpedoes at all. There were many torpedoes fired by USN destroyers, but I don't recall even one hit in the entire period. In spite of this, the US managed to force the IJN off of Guadalcanal, which was quite an accomplishment under the circumstances.

Having said that, I believe you have an anti-US bent in your belief system and that it is reflected in many of your posts over an extended period. I'm sure you feel justified, but it is what it is.

[Dave Saxton]

Having said that, I believe you have an anti-US bent in your belief system and that it is reflected in many of your posts over an extended period. I'm sure you feel justified, but it is what it is.

I try be dispassionate. It is what it is of course, and Tassafaronga was a disaster.

[aurora]

"By this defeat"-Apologies-meant to say "Even with this defeat (of the USN)"

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