Department of Defense (USMC) Photo 51728
Native guides lead 2d Raider Battalion Marines on a combat/reconnaissance patrol behind Japanese lines. The patrol lasted for less than a month, during which the Marines covered 150 miles and fought more than a dozen actions.
On 12 November, a multifaceted Japanese naval force converged on Guadalcanal to cover the landing of the main body of the 38th Division. Rear Admiral Daniel J. Callaghan’s cruisers and destroyers, the close-in protection for the 182d’s transports, moved to stop the enemy. Coastwatcher and scout plane sightings and radio traffic intercepts had identified two battleships, two carriers, four cruisers, and a host of destroyers all headed toward Guadalcanal. A bombardment group led by the battleships Hiei and Kirishima, with the light cruiser Nagura, and 15 destroyers spearheaded the attack. Shortly after midnight, near Savo Island, Callaghan’s cruisers picked up the Japanese on radar and continued to close. The battle was joined at such short range that each side fired at times on their own ships. Callaghan’s flagship, the San Francisco, was hit 15 times, Callaghan was killed, and the ship had to limp away. The cruiser Atlanta (CL 104) was also hit and set afire. Rear Admiral Norman Scott, who was on board, was killed. Despite the hammering by Japanese fire, the Americans held and continued fighting. The battleship Hiei, hit by more than 80 shells, retired and with it went the rest of the bombardment force. Three destroyers were sunk and four others damaged.
Department of Defense (Navy) Photos 80-G-20824 and 80-G-21099
In the great naval Battle of Guadalcanal, 12–15 November, RAdm Daniel J. Callaghan was killed when his flagship, the heavy cruiser San Francisco (CA 38) took 15 major hits and was forced to limp away in the dark from the scene of action.
The Americans had accomplished their purpose; they had forced the Japanese to turn back. The cost was high. Two antiaircraft cruisers, the Atlanta and the Juneau (CL 52), were sunk; four destroyers, the Barton (DD 599), Cushing (DD 376), Monssen (DD 436), and Laffey (DD 459), also went to the bottom. In addition to the San Francisco, the heavy cruiser Portland (CA 33) and the destroyers Sterret (DD 407) and Aaron Ward (DD 483) were damaged. Only one destroyer of the 13 American ships engaged, the Fletcher (DD 445), was unscathed when the survivors retired to the New Hebrides.
With daylight came the Cactus bombers and fighters; they found the crippled Hiei and pounded it mercilessly. On the 14th the Japanese were forced to scuttle it. Admiral Halsey ordered his only surviving carrier, the Enterprise, out of the Guadalcanal area to get it out of reach of Japanese aircraft and sent his battleships Washington (BB 56) and South Dakota (BB 55) with four escorting destroyers north to meet the Japanese. Some of the Enterprise’s planes flew in to Henderson Field to help even the odds.
On 14 November Cactus and Enterprise flyers found a Japanese cruiser-destroyer force that had pounded the island on the night of 13 November. They damaged four cruisers and a destroyer. After refueling and rearming they went after the approaching Japanese troop convoy. They hit several transports in one attack and sank one when they came back again. Army B-17s up from Espiritu Santo scored one hit and several near misses, bombing from 17,000 feet.