This analysis of the Battle of Savo Island was prepared by the Naval War College. It is based on information from both Allied and Japanese sources which is wider and more complete than that available to writers on this subject up to this time. It endeavors to maintain, at all times, the viewpoint of the Commanders of the units involved on both sides. ![]()
Foreword
Complete information from all sources was not available to this analysis. This was especially true concerning Japanese information. Unfortunately, sufficient translators were not available to provide all of the additional translations which the progress of the analysis indicated were desirable. New facts and circumstances, therefore, may come to light, from time to time, which may change some of the analyses produced herein.
In view of the critical nature of this analysis an effort has been made in certain important situations to place the critic in the position of the Commander in order to obtain the latter's point of view. In employing this system it is realized that although the critic can often succeed in placing himself sufficiently near the position of the Commander for any practical purposes, in many instances he may not succeed in doing so.
Because of the nature of this Allied defeat and the numerous controversies which have arisen concerning it, a complete background has been provided. In addition, when the time comes to analyze the other battles in the struggle for Guadalcanal, this material will be available.
The Battle of Savo Island was a real test of existing Allied and Japanese night tactical concepts as well as of the combat ability in night action of the various Commanders on both sides. The pages of history have invariably revealed defects in command in similar situations, and it would have been surprising had such defects not appeared in this action.
As a result of battle lessons learned, and ass quickly applied, the ability of the Navy to conduct warfare steadily improved during the course of the war. As time went on the lesson so often forgotten--that the test of battle is the only test which proves the combat ability of Commanders--was relearned. The ability or the lack of ability of the various Commanders in the art of war became apparent. Valor alone was shown to be insufficient, for valor is not an attribute of only one race, but is an attribute and a hertitage of many races. The indispensable qualification for command, the art of war, was shown to be the ability in combat to apply the science of war to active military situations.
The present senior officers of the Navy are well aware of the reasons for changes in established doctrines and in the development of new ones. But this cannot necessarily be said of the Commanders of the future, who very probably will be inexperience in command in war.
Finally, all comments and criticisms are designed to be constructive. By indicating what appear to be sound and unsound decisions, and the apparent reasons for arriving at them, it is hoped to provide earnest thought among prospective commanders and thus to improve professional judgment in command.
ALL TIMES IN THIS ANALYSIS, EXCEPT DISPATCH TIMES ARE ZONE TIME (- 11)
DISPATCH TIMES ARE GREENWICH CIVIL TIME
Principal Commanders
American Commander Screening Group, CTF 62.6 Rear Admiral V.A.C. Crutchley, RN Commander Australia (Chicago) Group Captain Howard D. Bode, USN Commander Vincennes Group Captain Frederick Reifkohl, USN Commander San Juan Group, CTG 62.4 Rear Admiral Norman Scott, USN ** Commander Amphibious Force, CTF 61.2 or CTF 62 Rear Admiral Richmond K. Turner, USN Commander Allied Expeditionary Force, CTG 61; also CTG 61.1.1 Vice Admiral Frank J. Fletcher, USN Commander Aircraft South Pacific Force (COMAIRSOPAC), CTF 53 Rear Admiral John S. McCain, USN Commander Southern Pacific Area (COMSOPAC)
and Commander Southern Pacific Naval Forces (COMSOPACFOR)Vice Admiral Robert Ghormley, USN Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet (CINCPAC)
and Pacific Ocean Areas (CINCPOA)Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, USN *** Commander Allied Air Forces Southwest Pacific Area (COMAIRSOWESPAC) Major General George C. Kenney, (Air Corps) USA
Commanding General South Pacific Area (COMGENSOPAC) Major General Millard F. Harmon, (Air Corps) USA Commander Allied Naval Forces Pacific Area (COMNAVSOWESPAC) Vice Admiral Fairfax Leary, USN Supreme Commander Southwest Pacific Area (COMSOWESPAC) General Douglas MacArthur, USA Japanese Commander Cruiser Force Vice Admiral Gunichi Mikawa, IJN Commander Cruiser Division SIX Rear Admiral Aritomo Goto, IJN Commander Cruiser Division EIGHTEEN Rear Admiral Mitsuharu Matsuyama, IJN Commander 26th Air Flotilla Rear Admiral Sayayoshi Yamada, IJN Commander Southeast Area,
Commander 11th Air Fleet and
Commander Outer South Seas ForceVice Admiral Nighigo Tsukuhara, IJN Commander in Chief, Combined Fleet Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, IJN
The Battle of Savo Island is an action of singular interest to students of naval history for several reasons: It was the first occasion in which Japanese and Allied naval forces had engaged in night battle since the Allies had assumed the offensive; it was a serious tactical defeat to the Allied forces, and finally it was a classic example of a powerful night raid by surface forces with the attendant features of surprise and withdrawal. During the early operations of 1942 Japanese and Allied surface forces had clashed in several minor night actions but no night surface actions had occurred between cruiser forces of approximately equal strength. Introduction
The battle resulted from the seizure by the Allies of the Tulagi-Guadalcanal area of the lower Solomon Island sin order to protect the Allied lines of communications to Australia and New Zealand. These lines were being menaced by the expansion of the Japanese in that direction.1
In order to check this expansion and to contain the Japanese within the already occupied area, limited countering moves had been undertaken by the Allies. In the Battle of the Coral Sea, May 7th, the Allies had prevented entirely by carrier air action, the capture of Port Moresby by sea. In the Battle of Midway, June 3rd-6th, the Allies had inflicted, almost entirely by air action, such losses on the Japanese in aircraft carriers as to force the abandonment by them of planned advances into New Caledonia and the Fijis. However, within the Solomon Islands, the Japanese had continued to advance.2
On May 2nd they had overrun the island of Tulagi where they were attacked by an Allied carrier task force on May 4th, just before the Battle of the Coral Sea. On July 4th they had commenced building an airfield at Lunga Point, Guadalcanal Island. Actually, they were building this airfield, as well as others in the Solomon Island chain, primarily for the protection fo Rabaul which was to be one of the strong points of the Japanese southern perimeter.2
With the Allied seizure of Tulagi-Guadalcanal, the Japanese realized that failure to dislodge the Allies might seriously affect Japanese strategy in that area. They, therefore, put into force energetic counter-measures designed to dislodge the Allies form their precarious foothold. These counter-measures which began on August 7th were highlighted on the early morning of August 9th, by the night action known as the Battle of Savo Island.
The directive of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, issued by COMINCH to CINCPAC on July 2nd, 10942, put into effect the Allied plan of denying the New Britain-New Guinea-New Ireland Area to the Japanese. This plan assembled an Allied force in the South Pacific area under COMSOPACFOR for the purpose of seizing, in its first phase, the Santa Cruz Islands, Tulagi and adjacent positions. A Brief Narrative of the Battle of Savo Island
The Allies planned the above operations with the utmost secrecy. However, the Japanese Commander in the area knew that the Allies were reconnoitering frequently the Tulagi-Guadalcanal area, and that during August, the intensity of this reconnaissance had increased. He correctly assumed that the Allies would counterattack Japanese positions in the Solomons in the near future, though not as early as August 7th. However, he had not taken any special precaution, either of air search or of reinforcing outlying bases.
Meanwhile, COMSOPAPCFOR had organized an expeditionary force consisting of an Amphibious Force and an Air Support force, the latter composed of three single carrier task groups, to seize Tulagi and Guadalcanal. This force was to be supported by land-based support aircraft operating from islands in the SOPAC Area, as well as from SOWESPAC air bases.
The Allied Expeditionary Force successfully landed on Tulagi and Guadalcanal Island at daybreak on August 7th, having achieved complete surprise.
The Japanese immediately decided that it was necessary to drive the Allies out and employed their land-based air forces and their limited surface forces for this purpose. They conducted air attacks on the Allied transports and cargo ships at Guadalcanal during two successive days. On August 7th they launched two air attacks; on August 8th they launched one air attack. All of these attacks seriously interfered with the unloading operations, but they were otherwise ineffective.
Meanwhile, on August 7th, the Japanese Commander at Rabaul decided to attack the Allied shipping at Guadalcanal with surface ships as well as with aircraft. He therefore assembled a cruiser force consisting of five heavy cruisers, the Chokai, Aoba, Kako, Kinugasa, and Furutaka; of two light cruisers, the Tenryu and Tubari; and of one destroyer, the Yunagi, and at 1628 dispatched it, commanded in person by himself, to the Tulagi-Guadalcanal Area to destroy the Allied transports and cargo ships there. While this cruiser force was assembling off Rabaul, it was sighted at 1231 by allied bombers from SOWESPAC. This contact report reached COMSOPAC at 2400.
As this cruiser force moved south toward Guadalcanal, it was first sighted at about 1930, August 7th by the Allied submarine S-38 stationed off Cape St. George, New Zealand. The submarine was forced to submerge.
Upon surfacing at about 2010 the submarine incorrectly reported the composition of the force as two small and three larger vessels. This report was received by COMSOPAC at 0738, August 8th.Some three hours later or at 1025, August 8th, the cruiser force was sighted by an R.A.A.F. plane operating from Milne Bay, and was incorrectly reported as three heavy cruisers, two destroyers and two seaplane tenders or gunboats, Later on the same day, it was sighted at 1101 by another R.A.A.F. plane which reported it as two heavy or light cruisers and one unidentified vessel. The first report was received by COMSOPAC at 1845; the second report at 2136. The long delay in transmitting these reports denied COMSOPAC the opportunity of requesting an immediate attack by COMSOWESPAC planes. The Allied high command at Tulagi-Guadalcanal, incorrectly, decided that these ships were bound for Rekata Bay, there to set up an air base from which to bomb the Allied shipping in Iron Bottom Sound, commencing on August 9th.
Commencing at sunset each evening the transports and cargo ships of the Allied amphibious force were covered by a night screening disposition designed to meet Japanese surface ship attacks from all entrances to Iron Bottom Sound. The disposition was composed of an Eastern and Western Screening Group. The Western Screening Group which fought the Battle of Savo Island consisted of two anti-submarine and radar pickets, the Blue and Ralph Talbot, stationed west and north, respectively of Savo Island, and of two cruiser-destroyer support groups. One support group, the Australia Group, consisting of the Australia, Chicago, Canberra, Patterson and Bagley guarded the passage northeast of Savo Island.
During the night of August 8th at about 2055, the Commander of the Western Screening Group, in the Australia, left his group under the tactical command of the Commanding Officer, Chicago and stood into the Guadalcanal Area to attend a conference with Commander Amphibious Force and the Commanding General, First Marine division.
At this conference which was held at 2326, August 8th, Commander Amphibious Force decided to retire his force the following morning, because the carrier Commander had decided to retire, This would leave the amphibious forces without air cover or air support.
However, as many necessary supplies had not been landed, the Commander Amphibious Force decided to unload as much of the supplies as was possible throughout the night, and an effort was made to accomplish this.
After this conference, the Commander Western Screening Group remained in the Guadalcanal Area with the Australia, this reducing the Australia group by one heavy cruiser.
The Japanese Cruiser Force entered Iron Bottom Sound at about 0132, August 9th, having passed the Allied destroyer Blue without being discovered, At 0236 this force surprised the Australia Group and aided by aircraft flares dropped by its own cruiser planes, opened fire with both guns and torpedoes. Within a matter of minutes, the Canberra had bee heavily. Hit and was out of action (it was finally by Allied destroyer torpedoes at 0800); the Chicago had been torpedoed in the bow and had had her speed considerably reduced; the Bagley had fired four torpedoes ineffectively, and the Patterson had broadcasted the contact before engaging the two Japanese cruisers. The Patterson was lightly damaged in this akin, none of the sips of then Chicago Group inflicted abs important damage on the Japanese ships.During this phase of the action the Japanese Cruiser force broke up into three groups. One consisting of the, Aoba Chokai, Kako, and Kinigasa continued on towards the Vincennes group at twenty-six knots. It caught the Vincennes Group at 0100 by surprise and, employing both guns and torpedoes, succeeded in heavily damaging the three cruisers of that group. In accomplishing this the Chokai group passed under the stern of and along the starboard side of the Vincennes Group. Another group, consisting of the Tenryu, Yubari, and Furutaka passed along the port side of the Vincennes Group and employing guns and torpedoes increased the heavy damage caused by the first group. Both of these Japanese groups intermittently employed searchlights rather than star shells for illumination. As a result of the above damage, the Quincy sank at 0238, the Vincennes at 0250 and the Astoria at 1215. The third Japanese group consisting of the destroyer Yunagi turned away from the cruiser action and ineffectively engaged I a gun battle wait the retiring allied destroyer, Jarvis. Jarvis was sunk later in the day by air attack at about 1800, August 9th.
After this action, Commander Cruiser Force, because, because of a fear of Allied carrier-based planes, decided to retire rather than to remain for the purpose of destroying the Allied shipping at Tulagi and Guadalcanal. As he retired he engaged the Allied destroyer Ralph Talbot with the Tenryu, Yubari, and Furutaka.
The Japanese Cruiser Force, except for several hits, escaped from the entire action almost entirely unscathed. In its retirement, it succeeded in avoiding Allied search planes so that it received no damage from Allied air attacks. However, it was discovered by the allied submarine, S-38, on August 10th as a result of which the Kako was torpedoed and sunk.
The effects of this battle were serious insofar as the Allies were concerned. There was a shortage of heavy escort and bombardment ships in all sea areas and as the Allies were preparing to conduct the North African Invasion, as well as to conduct offensive operations in the Aleutians and to continue those already underway in the Solomons, the
loss of four heavy cruisers and one destroyer was immediately felt in all areas.The Japanese on the other hand grossly exaggerated the Allied losses in surface ships and informed the world and the Japanese people by press and radio of their claims.
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Footnotes
1. U.S. Navy at War 1941-1945, Official Report by Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King, USN, page 49.