The Naval Battle of Guadalcanal took place from 12 to 15 November 1942 and was the decisive engagement in a series of naval battles between Allied (primarily American) and Imperial Japanese forces during the months-long Guadalcanal campaign in the Solomon Islands during World War II. The action consisted of combined air and sea engagements over four days, most near Guadalcanal and all related to a Japanese effort to reinforce land forces on the island. The only two U.S. Navy admirals to be killed in a surface engagement in the war were lost in this battle.
Allied forces landed on Guadalcanal on 7 August 1942 and seized an airfield, later called Henderson Field, that was under construction by the Japanese military. There were several subsequent attempts to recapture the airfield by the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy using reinforcements delivered to Guadalcanal by ship, efforts which ultimately failed. In early November 1942, the Japanese organized a transport convoy to take 7,000 infantry troops and their equipment to Guadalcanal to attempt once again to retake the airfield. Several Japanese warship forces were assigned to bombard Henderson Field with the goal of destroying Allied aircraft that posed a threat to the convoy. Learning of the Japanese reinforcement effort, U.S. forces launched aircraft and warship attacks to defend Henderson Field and prevent the Japanese ground troops from reaching Guadalcanal.
In the resulting battle, both sides lost numerous warships in two extremely destructive nighttime surface engagements. Nevertheless, the U.S. succeeded in turning back attempts by the Japanese to bombard Henderson Field with battleships. Allied aircraft also sank most of the Japanese troop transports and prevented the majority of the Japanese troops and equipment from reaching Guadalcanal. Thus, the battle turned back Japan's last major attempt to dislodge Allied forces from Guadalcanal and nearby Tulagi, resulting in a strategic victory for the U.S. and its allies and deciding the ultimate outcome of the Guadalcanal campaign in their favor. The Japanese decided on the evacuation of Guadalcanal the following month, which they completed by early February 1943.
Guadalcanal was the last major naval battle in the Pacific War for the next one and one half years, until the Battle of the Philippine Sea. It was one of the costliest naval battles of the Second World War in terms of lives lost and most singularly unique in the history of modern naval warfare because of the close-range, almost point-blank, distances among the warships involved.
Background The six-month Guadalcanal campaign began on 7 August 1942, when Allied (primarily U.S.) forces landed on Guadalcanal, Tulagi, and the Florida Islands in the Solomon Islands, a pre-war colonial possession of Great Britain. The landings were meant to prevent the Japanese using the islands as bases from which to threaten the supply routes between the U.S. and Australia, to secure the islands as starting points for a campaign to neutralize the major Imperial Japanese military base at Rabaul, and to support the Allied New Guinea campaign. The Japanese had occupied Tulagi in May 1942 and began constructing an airfield on Guadalcanal in June 1942.Hough, Pearl Harbor to Guadalcanal, pp. 235–236.
By nightfall on 8 August, the 11,000 Allied troops secured Tulagi, the nearby small islands, and a Japanese airfield under construction at Lunga Point on Guadalcanal (later renamed Henderson Field). Allied aircraft operating out of Henderson were called the "Cactus Air Force" (CAF) after the Allied code name for Guadalcanal. To protect the airfield, the U.S. Marines established a perimeter defense around Lunga Point. Additional reinforcements over the next two months increased the number of U.S. troops at Lunga Point to more than 20,000 men.Morison, Struggle for Guadalcanal, pp. 14–15; Miller, Guadalcanal: The First Offensive, p. 143; Frank, Guadalcanal, p. 338; and Shaw, First Offensive, p. 18.
In response, the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters assigned the Imperial Japanese Army's 17th Army, a corps-sized command based at Rabaul and under the command of Lieutenant-General Harukichi Hyakutake, with the task of retaking Guadalcanal. Units of the 17th Army began to arrive on Guadalcanal on 19 August to drive Allied forces from the island.Griffith, Battle for Guadalcanal, pp. 96–99; Dull, Imperial Japanese Navy, p. 225; Miller, Guadalcanal: The First Offensive, pp. 137–138.
Because of the threat posed by CAF aircraft based at Henderson Field, the Japanese were unable to use large, slow transport ships to deliver troops and supplies to the island. Instead, they used warships based at Rabaul and the Shortland Islands. The Japanese warships—mainly light cruisers or destroyers from the Eighth Fleet under the command of Vice Admiral Gunichi Mikawa—were usually able to make the round trip down "The Slot" to Guadalcanal and back in a single night, thereby minimizing their exposure to air attack. Delivering the troops in this manner prevented most of the soldiers' heavy equipment and supplies—such as heavy artillery, vehicles, and much food and ammunition—from being carried to Guadalcanal with them. These high-speed warship runs to Guadalcanal occurred throughout the campaign and came to be known as the "Tokyo Express" by Allied forces and "Rat Transportation" by the Japanese.Frank, Guadalcanal, pp. 202, 210–211.
The first Japanese attempt to recapture Henderson Field failed when a 917-man force was defeated on 21 August in the Battle of the Tenaru. The next attempt took place from 12 to 14 September, ending in the defeat of the 6,000 men under the command of Major General Kiyotake Kawaguchi at the Battle of Edson's Ridge.Frank, Guadalcanal, pp. 141–143, 156–158, 228–246, & 681.
In October, the Japanese again tried to recapture Henderson Field by delivering 15,000 more men—mainly from the Army's 2nd Infantry Division—to Guadalcanal. In addition to delivering the troops and their equipment by Tokyo Express runs, the Japanese successfully pushed through one large convoy of slower transport ships. Enabling the approach of the transport convoy was a nighttime bombardment of Henderson Field by two battleships on 14 October that heavily damaged the airfield's runways, destroyed half of the CAF's aircraft, and burned most of the available aviation fuel. In spite of the damage, Henderson personnel were able to restore the two runways to service, and replacement aircraft and fuel were delivered, gradually restoring the CAF to its prebombardment level over the next few weeks.Frank, Guadalcanal, pp. 315–3216; Morison, Struggle for Guadalcanal, pp. 171–175; Hough, Pearl Harbor to Guadalcanal, pp. 327–328.
The next Imperial attempt to retake the island with the newly arrived troops occurred from 20 to 26 October and was defeated with heavy losses in the Battle for Henderson Field.Frank, Guadalcanal, 337–367. At the same time, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto (the commander of the Japanese Combined Fleet) engaged U.S. naval forces in the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands, which resulted in a tactical victory for the Japanese. However, the Americans won a strategic victory as the Japanese navy failed in its objectives and the Japanese carriers were forced to retreat because of losses to carrier aircraft and aircrewmen.Hara, Japanese Destroyer Captain, 134–135. Thereafter, Yamamoto's ships returned to their main bases at Truk in Micronesia, where he had his headquarters, and Rabaul while three carriers returned to Japan for repairs and refitting.Hammel, Guadalcanal: Decision at Sea, pp. 44–45.
The Japanese Army planned another attack on Guadalcanal in November 1942, but further reinforcements were needed before the operation could proceed. The Army requested assistance from Yamamoto to deliver the needed reinforcements to the island and to support their planned offensive on the Allied forces guarding Henderson Field. Yamamoto provided 11 large transport ships to carry 7,000 army troops from the 38th Infantry Division, their ammunition, food, and heavy equipment from Rabaul to Guadalcanal. He also sent a warship support force from Truk on 9 November which included the battleships and . Equipped with special fragmentation shells, they were to bombard Henderson Field on the night of 12–13 November and destroy it and the aircraft stationed there in order to allow the slow, heavy transports to reach Guadalcanal and unload safely the next day.Morison, Struggle for Guadalcanal, pp. 225–238; Hammel, Guadalcanal: Decision at Sea, pp. 41–46. The 11 transport ships provided to carry the troops, equipment, and provisions included Arizona Maru, Kumagawa Maru, Sado Maru, Nagara Maru, Nako Maru, Canberra Maru, Brisbane Maru, Kinugawa Maru, Hirokawa Maru, Yamaura Maru, and Yamatsuki Maru. The warship force was commanded from Hiei by recently promoted Vice Admiral Hiroaki Abe.Hammel, Guadalcanal: Decision at Sea, p. 93.