The Battle of Savo by Stanley E. Smith

Author:Stanley E. Smith [Smith, Stanley E.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Eschenburg Press
Published: 2017-06-28T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 11

THE PATTERSON was the first of the Southern Force warships to go into action. Instantly upon sighting the enemy cruisers, Commander Walker sent a signalman racing to the wing of the bridge. By blinker tube the message was repeated. “Warning! Warning! Strange ships entering harbor!”

It was 1:43 and Japanese torpedoes, fired five minutes earlier, were about to find targets. The destroyer, riding high on the port bow of the Canberra, immediately put her wheel hard left to bring main batteries to bear. At the same time gunners fired a starshell and Commander Walker ordered a torpedo spread.

His order went unheard in the roar of the destroyer’s gunfire. Even as the main battery let loose and the starshell threw a garish white light on Admiral Mikawa’s fast-moving force of ships, enemy gunners concentrated on the Patterson. The little ship was hit by return fire which smashed the No. 4 gun, put another gun out of action, and started a fire. The range to Mikawa was 2,000 yards, bearing 70 degrees relative.

Captain Mikeo Hayakawa of the Chokai barked the order that turned on the cruiser’s powerful searchlight. Now the Patterson was bathed in the ghostly beam. But this, instead of worrying her plucky gun crews, made them fighting mad. Several hits were scored on a forward enemy ship. Meanwhile, a party was organized to quell the blaze at No. 4 gun. Commander Walker’s guns kept on shooting as long as the enemy ships were in sight. Some 20 rounds of illuminating and 50 rounds of service ammunition was expended in this lopsided but fortunately brief encounter.

On the blazing Canberra’s starboard bow, the destroyer Bagley swung left on orders from Lieutenant Commander George Sinclair. Her speed was 25 knots. Even so, the attack had come so suddenly that the torpedoes couldn’t be readied in time for firing. Notwithstanding, in one minute—the elapsed time since the sighting of Mikawa’s force—the Bagley’s crew managed to insert primers and launch a spread of four fish. The estimated range at this point was about 3,000 yards.

Lieutenant John H. Gardiner, USNR, the Bagley’s JOOD (Junior Officer of the Deck) saw an explosion two minutes after the torpedoes were fired. This was nothing more than a “premature”—a warhead exploding midway on her run. For some unexplained reason, the Bagley remained in the area only a moment longer, then sheered off to the north-east at high speed. Later she was to remove Astoria’s survivors, when the Northern Force entered the action.

Lieutenant Commander A. F. White, the exec of the Patterson, was in the secondary conn when his ship was hit in the No. 4 handling room. After organizing repair parties to bring the fire under control, removing the wounded and tossing fiery debris over the side, White remained on deck for most of the night. The Patterson, hard hit in this initial moment of battle, was to remove 400 of the Canberra’s survivors in the next four hours.

E. K. Terrill, SK 3/c (Store Keeper Third Class) fought his way

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