Friends of the page. It has been a very hectic and crazy week and I haven’t posted anything for a couple of days. So tonight an article from the vault about the Battle of Cape Esperance off Guadalcanal nearly 71 years ago. With the birthday of the US Navy coming up this weekend seems appropriate. Something new tomorrow as “My mind is a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives.” Peace, Padre Steve+
Naval battles between U.S. Navy and Imperial Japanese Navy surface forces around Guadalcanal in 1942 were almost always brief and bloody. The number of ships sunk in the area around Guadalcanal, Tulagi and Savo Island led to the area being nicknamed “Iron Bottom Sound.”
The battles around Guadalcanal occurred in a time of technical transition as radar became better at detecting ships and fire direction systems advanced. By October 1942 the U.S. Marines battling on Guadalcanal were fighting an enemy growing in numbers and felt the effects of the the predatory Japanese surface raiders that routinely bombarded their positions and endangered U.S. resupply efforts.
USS Helena
Since the Marine, Navy and Army Air Force Squadrons based on Guadalcanal maintained air superiority in the nearby waters during the day the Japanese were limited to night surface operations against the island, operations involving the reinforcement and resupply of Japanese Forces on the…
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