Japan’s defeat in the bloody contest precipitated by the U.S. landing on Guadalcanal in August 1942 proved to be the turning point of the Pacific War. Even though the fighting on the island continued until the following February, its outcome had become evident to both sides before the end of the year. The strategic shift this signified was emphasized by a virtually simultaneous Allied success in northeastern New Guinea, where U.S. and Australian troops ejected the Japanese from Buna, on the Papuan Peninsula. The days when U.S. leaders scrambled to react to enemy initiatives were over. The United States and its Allies had forced Japan on the defensive.
At the Casablanca Conference of January 1943, Admiral Ernest J. King, U.S. Chief of Naval Operations, bludgeoned the British into accepting his proposal to increase pressure against Japan, on the condition that the primary effort of the Anglo-American alliance must remain to defeat “Germany first.” Three operations were authorized: the capture of the cornerstone of the Japanese position in the Southwest Pacific, the fleet and air base at Rabaul, near the northern tip of the New Britain in the Bismarck Archipelago; a subsequent offensive into the Central Pacific from Pearl Harbor (the former conducted principally and the latter exclusively by U.S. forces); and a British landing in enemy-occupied Burma, an undertaking later adjudged impractical. Details of the drive on Rabaul were settled in March. These called for Admiral William F. (Bull) Halsey, operating subject to “general directives” from General Douglas MacArthur, to command a thrust up the Solomon Islands chain and for MacArthur himself to lead a concurrent advance along the coast of New Guinea. The problems this rather woolly command structure might have caused were averted by the friendship that developed between the two men.
Although Halsey would have preferred to move faster, the time taken to build up MacArthur’s amphibious resources delayed the opening of the campaign for several months. Once unleashed, Halsey’s forces island-hopped rapidly through the Central Solomons, from Guadalcanal to New Georgia in early July and from there to Vella Lavella, bypassing bristling Kolombangara, in mid-August. That month, the Joint Chiefs of Staff decided that Rabaul need not be captured, after all; it, too, could be neutralized and bypassed. Still, in order to bring land-based air power to bear against the enemy stronghold as soon as possible, Halsey would have to establish a lodgement on heavily garrisoned Bougainville, the northernmost of the major Solomons, only 210 miles from Rabaul. On the morning of 1 November, the 3d Marine Division began landing on the western shore of the island around Cape Torokina on Empress Augusta Bay.
Surface support for the operation came from Rear Admiral Stanton A. (Tip) Merrill’s TF-39, consisting of the light cruisers Montpelier (CL-57) (flag), Cleveland (CL-55), Columbia (CL-56), and Denver (CL-58), and Destroyer Squadron 23—soon to become famous as the “Little Beavers”—eight vessels commanded by Captain Arleigh Burke. Before sunset, TF-39 knew that it was in for a fight. U.S. planes had spotted a Japanese cruiser-destroyer force on its way south from Rabaul.
In its essentials, the situation taking shape bore a marked resemblance to the one that eventuated in the Battle of Savo Island, when another Japanese cruiser-destroyer force, responding to the invasion of Guadalcanal, sank one Australian and three U.S heavy cruisers and exited almost unscathed. Enemy surface units had not attempted to interfere with any landings since Guadalcanal, but they had usually emerged with tactical honors in the numerous other night actions fought during the Solomons campaign. The Imperial Navy owed its success in these encounters in part to its own strengths and in part to U.S. weaknesses. Its forces trained rigorously in night fighting, a type of combat to which the prewar U.S. Navy had not devoted equivalent attention, and in the deadly Long Lance torpedo, it wielded one of the most effective naval weapons of World War II. The U.S. lead in radar, which Japanese cruisers and destroyers lacked, might have offset these advantages, but all too often U.S. commanders hesitated to act on radar contacts and came too close to enemy formations—within range of their Long Lances—before opening fire. Even the intrepid Burke experienced buck fever the first time his radar picked up a Japanese ship. Though the action ended successfully, he realized that the delay could have been disastrous. “The difference between a good officer and a poor one,” Burke concluded, “is about ten seconds.” Finally, U.S. commanders frequently waited until firing had begun before releasing their destroyers, thus depriving them of any chance to launch torpedoes at an unsuspecting enemy.
For all their similarities, however, the circumstances of the battles of Empress Augusta Bay and Savo Island differed in several crucial respects. First, at Savo the Allied cruisers had been taken by surprise; at Empress Augusta Bay aerial reconnaissance gave TF-39 ample notice of the enemy’s approach. Second, by late 1943 the U.S. radar edge had increased with the evolution of the station originally called “radar plot” into the combat information center (CIC), to which all relevant data were fed. Third—and most important—Merrill and Burke had given serious consideration to the problems of night fighting. Merrill had been drilling his cruisers in night battle tactics since spring and, on Burke’s recommendation, authorized his leading destroyers to begin their runs immediately upon contact; unless the enemy reacted, the cruisers would hold fire until their torpedoes had time to reach their targets. The result, while not perfect, presented “a refreshing contrast,” as Samuel Eliot Morison put it, to earlier cruiser actions.
The Japanese force, commanded by Vice Admiral Sen- taro Omori, approached Empress Augusta Bay from the northwest in three parallel columns. The northern column consisted of the light cruiser Sendai and three destroyers; the center, the heavy cruisers Myoko (Omori’s flagship) and Haguro-, and the southern, the light cruiser Agano and three destroyers. The U.S. task force was cruising in a line ahead with Destroyer Division (DesDiv) 45—four vessels under Burke’s personal command—in the van. Commander Bernard L. (Count) Austin’s DesDiv 46 brought up the rear.
The Sendai column showed on the Montpelier’s radar at 0227. Burke’s flagship, the Charles Ausbume (DD-570), registered the same formation three minutes later, and his division peeled off to attack its flank. The destroyers launched torpedoes at 0246. “My guppies are swimming!” Burke reported. Unfortunately, the Japanese spotted the U.S. ships at almost the same instant and swung away to starboard. Detecting the enemy turn on radar, Merrill ordered his cruisers to open fire at 0249. None of the destroyers’ torpedoes found their mark, but the Sendai was showered with 6-inch shells, and two of the destroyers following her, the Sami' dare and the Shiratsuyu, collided in the violent maneuvering attendant to such events. Meanwhile, at 0245, Austin’s DesDiv 46 made radar contact with the enemy ships and turned toward them to attack. Its luck was not good. A Japanese torpedo intended for the U.S. cruisers blew the stern off the Foote (DD-511), and her three division mates lost a chance to launch against the enemy cruisers when Austin’s CIC officer became convinced they were friendly.
While this was transpiring, Merrill’s cruisers were executing a series of disciplined, north-south countermarches, describing a sort of continuous figure-eight moving westward between the enemy and Empress Augusta Bay. The Japanese never really recovered from the confusion they experienced at the opening of the action, and at 0307 the Myoko, cutting through the Agano’s column, divested the destroyer Hatzukaze of her bow. A half-hour later, Omori decided that the time had come to go. In the course of the engagement, he had concluded that he was opposed by 7 heavy cruisers and 12 destroyers and believed he had sunk 3 of the cruisers—clearly, a good night’s work. Merrill did not pursue. Well aware that his was the only substantial U.S. surface force in the Solomons, he had never intended to do more than cover the landing, and he had accomplished that without losing a single ship. Burke’s and Austin’s destroyers polished off the Sendai and Hatzukaze, and might have sunk the Samidare and Shiratsuyu except for another case of mistaken identity, which allowed the crippled destroyers to escape.
With the opening of an airfield at Cape Torokina, the enemy fleet base at Rabaul soon became untenable. By 1 February 1944, close to 400 planes were flying from Bougainville, and on the 20th the Japanese abandoned the air defense of Rabaul. Three months earlier, the Navy had commenced its drive through the Central Pacific. The perimeter that Japanese leaders had expected to contain the U.S. counteroffensive was crumbling.
For further reading: Paul S. Dull, A Battle History of the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1941-1945 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1978); Samuel Eliot Morison, History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Vol. VI: Breaking the Bismarcks Barrier (Boston: Little, Brown, 1975); E.B. Potter, Admiral Arleigh Burke (New York: Random House, Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1990).
