Witness to Neptune's Inferno by David F. Winkler

Author:David F. Winkler
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781636244082
Publisher: Casemate
Published: 2024-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Photographed from a Japanese cruiser during the battle of Savo Island, USS Quincy (CA 39) is seen here burning, spotlighted by Japanese searchlights. Quincy would succumb to flooding. (Archives Branch, Naval History and Heritage Command, Washington, D.C.; NH 50346)

Quincy suffered a similar pummeling by shellfire. Illuminated by the cruiser Aoba, the cruiser found herself in the crossfire of the two advancing groupings, with Furutaka and Tenryu also scoring hits. Within moments the ship was a flaming pyre, but she kept fighting. Two torpedoes from Tenryu ruptured Quincy’s portside, but the cruiser’s heroic gun crews continued to return fire, with one round crashing into Chokai, just aft of Mikawa’s perch on the bridge. However, another torpedo and additional shells sapped the life out of Quincy, which lost its way as seawater poured into her hull.10

Likewise, searchlights found Vincennes. As with Quincy, Japanese shells raked the superstructure. Shells from Kako ripped into Vincennes’s aircraft hangar, setting the five stowed aircraft ablaze. A Vincennes shell damaged Kinugasa’s steering gear and turned off her search light, but the American warship’s flames provided ample illumination to attract a torpedo from Chokai, another from Yubari, and additional gunfire. By 0220, having set the three American heavy cruisers ablaze, Mikawa ordered his formation to a return to Rabaul via the north channel.11

Ralph Talbot blocked the path of the escaping Japanese flotilla and came in on the losing end of gun duels with the heavier armed Japanese. Fortunately, after absorbing four hits, the brave little destroyer was masked by a rain squall and would live to fight another day.12

Of the three cruisers of the northern group, Mikawa later observed that Quincy put up the most spirited defense. However, Quincy would be first to fall beneath the waves, sinking at about 0235. Such was the devastation absorbed by Vincennes that she would be second to go under just before 0300. Canberra, with her survivors picked off by Blue and Patterson, was finished off by a torpedo from Ellet at 0800. Astoria’s crew made a valiant effort to keep the cruiser afloat. Surviving the night with the assistance of Bagley, Astoria would see her last sunrise. At 1100 a magazine exploded. By noon the captain and remaining crewmembers were pulled off, and 15 minutes later the ship turned over to port and sank in what would become known as Ironbottom Sound.13

In summary, the Allies lost four cruisers and sustained damage on a fifth cruiser and two destroyers. In addition to the damage sustained on Mikawa’s flagship, two of his other cruisers suffered minor shell damage, and all of his ships had metal dented thanks to small-arms fire. Lloyd knew from experience that the defending ships should have better accounted themselves. During a night gunnery exercise embarked in Augusta back in 1937, the junior officer witnessed how the Asiatic Fleet flagship put shells on target by methodically firing “a three salvo ranging ladder in 500 yard increments by individual turrets.”14 Understanding that at night victory often goes to the side that

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