Assessing the Guadalcanal campaign years afterward, Turner deplored two unnecessary “defensive decisions” at the outset that “helped bring on months of hard and costly defensive and offensive fighting.” The first was Fletcher’s precipitate carrier withdrawal that prevented the Amphibious Force from completely unloading. It also caused the debacle at Savo by forcing Turner to summon Crutchley away from his cruiser group. The second was Vandegrift’s sudden resolve to form a defensive perimeter around Lunga, instead of eradicating the “nucleus” of opposition on Guadalcanal. Turner judged the First Marine Division, if properly deployed (that is, dispersed) around the huge island, fully capable of repulsing any attempt to secure a lodgment. In truth, both Fletcher and Vandegrift predicated their decisions on the belief the Japanese would soon reappear in great strength. Vandegrift most feared a massive counter-landing over the Lunga beaches to seize the airfield, and Fletcher understood only his flattops stood in the way of hostile carriers that had to support such an enormous undertaking.1
Vandegrift prefaced the 11 August message announcing his perimeter defense by stating the “position here [is] secure but feel that considerations not previously apparent should be presented.” He had a point. Ghormley and MacArthur had not looked much beyond the initial landing phase, but Nimitz, Fletcher, and Vandegrift independently recognized Japan would respond viciously. King and Turner seem to have assumed the seizure of Guadalcanal would open the way for Task Two, the advance to Rabaul’s periphery. Vandegrift’s decision to circle the wagons until Japan could be defeated at sea was so logical given circumstances at the time and so completely vindicated by subsequent events, only Turner ever questioned it. On the other hand, judgments of Fletcher’s handling of the carriers in the two weeks after the landing were harsh. He clearly failed to meet the expectations of some of his superiors (Ghormley the possible exception), who thought just having TF-61 in Sopac meant it could always dominate the waters surrounding Guadalcanal. Instead, “considerations not previously apparent” also applied to the carriers after Savo. Therefore it is vital to analyze Fletcher’s orders and understand the special conditions that pertained.2
On 10 August Ghormley repeated his warning of a “landing attack” against Cactus. Nimitz emphasized the “successful accomplishment” of Task One now hinged on preventing a landing assault on Guadalcanal. Ghormley was to “use carrier task forces as practicable in opposition.” MacArthur’s search planes must “detect and report movement in time and that when our carriers are in range of enemy aircraft their bases be bombed in such a manner as to effect maximum damage during such period.” In truth, MacArthur had too few resources to accomplish such formidable tasks. Comsopac issued a new directive on 11 August that dissolved the Expeditionary Force. TF-61 was to protect the Espíritu Santo–Nouméa line, support the Guadalcanal garrison by destroying the “hostile attack force,” and “cover movement of our aviation ground crews ground equipment and aviation supplies into Cactus area.” Ghormley hoped to give Fletcher “about 24 hours warning of hostile landing attack force moving against Cactus.”3
Ghormley well understood Fletcher faced no easy task. To Nimitz, he articulated his views on “island warfare,” a “tough nut.” Cactus required regular deliveries of supplies, equipment, and reinforcements, but Espíritu Santo, the nearest support base, remained only weakly developed and defended. Sopac must run supply ships through “very restricted waters” menaced by land-based air, subs, and surface raiding forces. Given adverse conditions in the initial landings, “We are lucky to have gotten out as much as we did.” Holding Guadalcanal in proximity of Rabaul was like having the “bull by the tail,” and the “bull doesn’t like it.” One solution was to get aircraft to Guadalcanal to protect the vast logistical effort necessary to sustain Cactus. On 10 August in the absence of firm word from Turner that the Lunga airfield was ready, Ghormley redirected the Long Island to Suva. “At any moment” an amphibious threat might appear, “and remembering Midway, we know that such an expedition will be heavily covered by air except this time it will be shore based air instead of carrier based air, leaving their carriers free to operate against ours.” The Japanese might hold off landing on Guadalcanal until their carriers came south. Ghormley deemed it vital to “exercise the greatest care in using [the U.S.] carriers to operate against surface forces protected by shore based aviation when the enemy might work a squeeze play and strike them with his carriers.”4
Callaghan did well relaying the concerns Fletcher raised on 27 July, for Ghormley’s assessment closely reflected Fletcher’s own thinking. Enemy carriers remained foremost in Fletcher’s mind, as he prepared to wage the big battle he must win to retain control of imperiled Cactus. No one realized Japan would begin by reinforcing Guadalcanal in a manner very difficult for carrier and land-based air alike to stop. Providing close air cover for transporting supplies and men to Cactus would prove most difficult. Fletcher could not simply station his few flattops off Guadalcanal indefinitely to make up for the absence of shore-based air. Pederson observed in 1944, “Carriers cannot be expected to do more than support the assault phase of an amphibious operation,” whereas the “lack of air facilities at Guadalcanal required the carriers to be in position to furnish support.” He recalled Fletcher fully realized the “defensive task of patrolling a given area was dangerous but the role was forced upon us by the urgency of the situation that then existed.” The Allies learned that lesson. In November during the Torch invasion of North Africa, a dedicated land-based air contingent swiftly deployed ashore.5
The withdrawal of the PBYs from Ndeni compounded the risk of exposing the carriers in advanced positions. McCain’s long-range searches now originated far to the rear, which drastically “shortened the margin of warning [TF-61] could receive of any impending attack.” Long delays persisted in forwarding search results. McCain’s 9 August summary (“all sectors negative”) did not go out until 0114 on the tenth. As soon as Fletcher could circumvent radio silence by flying messages ashore, he requested McCain to send “as soon as possible after completion searches,” the “negative and positive information and percentage of coverage.” In turn Ghormley explained to Leary and MacArthur, “[The]retired position [of ] our carriers while awaiting enemy attack with relation distance Rabaul to enemy objectives makes necessary they receive information [of ] enemy naval surface movements [at the] earliest moment.” The failure to coordinate carrier and land-based air constituted one of the gravest Allied weaknesses in the Solomons campaign.6
Before Fletcher could do anything for Cactus, he must refuel. On the afternoon of 10 August he was relieved to find the Platte and Kaskaskia, screened only by the Clark, five hundred miles from Guadalcanal and 150 miles southwest of Espíritu Santo. Kinkaid’s TF-16 fueled first, to the joy of the Grayson’s Lt. Cdr. Frederick J. Bell, who noted, “We were rapidly reaching the bottom of our fuel tanks.” Some destroyers had only 12–15 percent of capacity. The carrier aviators welcomed the rest. Constant flight operations on 7–9 August caused near exhaustion. Fletcher flew a message to Efate advising Ghormley that he anticipated completing fueling on the afternoon of 12 August and would remain southwest of Espíritu Santo “awaiting orders.” He requested the return of the destroyers lent to Turner and asked whether Efate still needed the fighter belly tanks. After the Kaskaskia and Platte left for Nouméa to refill from chartered tankers, he desired the Cimarron, which left Suva on the tenth after restocking, to meet him on the thirteenth to top off destroyers. Fletcher could take nothing for granted in the rickety Sopac logistical setup.7
At sunrise on 12 August while TF-11 fueled, two SBDs discovered a surfaced sub twenty-six miles south. Strangely, the I-boat at first stayed and fought but submerged after sustaining heavy damage. Fletcher detached the Grayson and Sterett to keep the sub down until dark to permit TF-61 to get clear. There were no further sightings that day. The interloper was the I-175 hunting transports withdrawing from Guadalcanal. Coming off second best, she limped to Rabaul. Allied intelligence read at least part of a situation report the I-175 subsequently radioed and deduced that a sub might have sighted the U.S. carriers. Fletcher received a Cincpac warning to that effect on 14 August.8
By 12 August TF-61 drained the Platte and Kaskaskia of 176, 212 barrels that brought most ships toward full capacity. Fletcher added the Gwin to escort the oilers safely clear. After detaching the Fueling Group, he proceeded southeast to meet the Cimarron the next noon 150 miles west of Efate. Because TF-61 required so much oil merely following a week of “almost normal cruising,” its regular resupply must be ensured. In a message delivered on 14 August, Fletcher requested the two oilers, after replenishing, be sent to another rendezvous with TF-61. In the meantime he would retain the Cimarron nearby. Fletcher’s status report, which Ghormley forwarded to Nimitz, raised new concern at Pearl over the Sopac oil situation. On 10 August Ghormley, incredibly, declined Cincpac’s offer of an additional oil shipment from the West Coast. Nimitz queried again whether more oil was necessary. He had to know immediately, “owing to long distance and time involved.” The latest figures of supply and consumption finally persuaded Ghormley he could experience another “serious fuel shortage” by mid September.9
Fletcher, marking time, did not expect to move the carriers very far. Nimitz chafed at this perceived inactivity, especially as intelligence continued to show the Japanese carriers remained at home. On 11 August (12 August in Sopac) McCormick remarked that TF-61 “still” occupied “a retired position presumably awaiting necessity for covering reinforcements to the Tulagi area.” Although Japan assembled “a strong striking force,” Nimitz told Ghormley it might not come south for seven to ten days, owing to the “need for logistics arrangements plus necessity assemble destroyer screen.” In that interval Ghormley was to employ “every means available” to “strengthen our position” at Guadalcanal “prior to arrival above force in area.” Carrier aircraft must furnish air cover “as long as necessary” while shore-based air afforded “maximum protection.”10
Perhaps distrusting Cincpac’s estimate, Ghormley never told Fletcher the carriers might not appear for at least seven days. Little seemed to be happening to organize the move of supplies and aircraft to Cactus. Ghormley’s diversion of the Long Island to Suva delayed the arrival of marine aircraft at Cactus for several days, but Vandegrift was not yet ready for them. Late on 10 August Turner finally declared the airfield could take fighters the next day. Ammunition and gasoline was available, but no aviation ground personnel. On the twelfth Vandegrift, eager for air support, reported, “Improved fueling facilities can be made available for fighters.” Declaring “imperative” the “early establishment of air” at Cactus, Ghormley ordered McCain to load all available high-speed transports with aviation supplies and personnel and rush them to Guadalcanal. The Long Island would then transport the planes to Cactus. She was to be at Espíritu Santo on 16 August and run the ferry mission soon afterward. McCain offered the good news that a PBY-5A amphibian actually touched down briefly at the Lunga airstrip.11
The Cimarron hove into view of TF-61 on 13 August, accompanied by six destroyers, the result of a fortuitous encounter the previous dawn with TF-62 southeast of Espíritu Santo. In turn Fletcher returned them to their former task forces and retained the Wilson and Aaron Ward to protect the Cimarron.12 Late that afternoon Efate, about 150 miles northwest, reported being shelled. Fletcher steered northwest to cut off the retreat of whatever force menaced the island. Just before sundown he learned actually Tulagi, 650 miles northwest, was attacked. He increased speed to twenty knots and directed the slower Cimarron group to meet him later roughly halfway to Guadalcanal. Overnight as TF-61 pounded northwest, no new information came from Tulagi or Guadalcanal. The daily Cincpac intelligence bulletin still opined all first-line carriers remained in Japan, but Fletcher took no chances. Departing before dawn on 14 August, SBDs searched two hundred miles west and north with negative results. Later that morning word finally came that the attack on Tulagi the previous evening was only a brief raid. Fletcher dropped to fifteen knots but continued northwest until he confirmed Tulagi was safe. Subs caused the ruckus. The I-123 bombarded Lunga on the morning of 13 August, and the I-122 assailed Tulagi that evening.13
Fletcher informed his task group commanders that should they run into enemy warships, TF-61 would divide into Wright’s Surface Attack Group (one battleship, five heavy cruisers, one light cruiser, and four destroyers) and Noyes’s Air Attack Group with the three carriers and eleven destroyers. Wright’s chief mission was “defense of carriers against surface attack,” presumably at night, but he might be employed on “special” missions if required. Fletcher, however, could ill-afford such ventures. The carriers needed those ships for protection. Sopac suffered from the lack of a dedicated surface force to react to small or medium scale efforts to land troops and supplies at Guadalcanal, but it was impractical for TF-61 to furnish it.14
Near sundown on 14 August, with no further alarms, Fletcher broke off to rejoin the Cimarron 325 miles southeast of Guadalcanal. In the absence of a direct threat to Cactus, he seized the opportunity to fuel in case the next batch of chartered tankers was also tardy. The Chester Sun reached Nouméa on 11 August, a day ahead of schedule, but two more tankers supposed to arrive on the thirteenth failed to show. The Platte drew oil from the Chester Sun on 14 August, but TF-62 and TF-44 took their share, while empty Kaskaskia awaited another tanker “due today or tomorrow.” Lacking destroyers, Ghormley retained the Gwin and Clark to escort the Fueling Group. Light cruiser San Juan with Rear Adm. Norman Scott (senior cruiser flag officer with TF-61) awaited the opportunity to return to the carriers. At sunrise on 15 August Fletcher encountered the Cimarron group and directed all destroyers to top off. In 11.5 hours the oiler serviced no fewer than seventeen cans. Cdr. Russell M. Ihrig, her captain, proudly reported to Comserforpac the “very great improvement” made “in the technique of fueling at sea and in the reduction of the time involved.” When the Cimarron came out to the Pacific in April 1942, “The average time between completing pumping to one destroyer and commencing pumping to another was approximately 45 minutes.” Now that interval averaged twenty minutes. The Cimarron routinely fueled two ships at a time despite “fairly radical course changes.” Because “the pumping rate is fairly constant,” Ihrig judged any further gain “can be made only by reducing the time of approach and connecting up.” Destroyer skippers rapidly increased their skill. “Cruiser time is still too great,” although “roughly halved as experience has been gained.” Underway refueling progressed enormously since the dark days of December 1941. Morison misunderstood, because he only witnessed the process following that marked improvement.15
After sundown on 15 August Fletcher detached the Cimarron, with more than half her oil, and a destroyer to Efate to stand by for Comsopac orders. He cruised toward the center of the Coral Sea, just as in March and April, and passed about three hundred miles south of Guadalcanal. TF-61 would keep within twelve hours of strike range (two hundred miles) of Cactus, except when actually fueling. The Cimarron delivered a message to Comsopac advising Fletcher’s intention to linger in the vicinity of familiar Point Corn, 325 miles south of Guadalcanal, “awaiting developments and your orders.” Some ships ran low on food. “Will transfer provisions if necessary so should be able to remain in area not over 3 weeks.” The full force must refuel about 19 August, a process that must occur every six to seven days to ensure TF-61 never was so low in oil as on 10 August. Fortunately the oil deficit at Nouméa greatly eased. The tanker Ghormley diverted from New Zealand appeared on the fourteenth and replenished the Kaskaskia, while the two tardy tankers hove in the next day to top off the Platte. At the same time the fleet oiler Sabine neared Suva.16
On the evening of 15 August four APDs slipped into Lunga with supplies and aviation support personnel in the form of 120 untrained but willing sailors from CUB-1. The slow William Ward Burrows, carrying the actual marine ground crews, would only reach Efate on 17 August. With rations in great shortage and the marines living largely on captured food, Turner desired the Alhena and Fomalhaut go in “as soon as possible,” followed by the Fuller and Zeilin with additional base defense troops. Subs and aircraft hit Tulagi and Guadalcanal “without any apparent hindrance,” while “surface vessels may be expected at any time for the purpose of blockading the port and bombarding the positions ashore.” Turner wanted McCain to institute daily antisubmarine PBY patrols around Cactus beginning 16 August and conduct “offensive sweeps” with B-17s up the Solomons to deter surface raids. Fletcher was to maintain a squadron of carrier fighters over Lunga for six hours every day. Each large ship going into Cactus should have two escort destroyers. It is unclear whether Turner actually expected Fletcher to park the carriers off Guadalcanal and provide this escort on demand. Ghormley admitted that “hostile subs and aircraft” cavorted “quite freely” off Guadalcanal and tasked McCain to fly the antisubmarine patrols and bomber sweeps. However, he said nothing to Fletcher about fighter patrols or destroyers he knew the carriers could not supply. Vandegrift’s own marine squadrons would partially mitigate that grave situation, but their deployment might be further delayed. On 13 August the Long Island’s captain rated his marine fighter pilots too inexperienced to go into Cactus. Ghormley reacted in fury. “I need fighter planes at Cactus now and have counted on those in Long Island as available.” Nimitz, who bore much of the responsibility for not having planes ready for Cactus, replied the pilots were carrier-qualified. McCain offered to provide a leavening of pilots drawn from VMF-212 at Efate. Fletcher and McCain were to furnish air cover when the Long Island, light cruiser Helena, and two destroyers left for ferry mission to Lunga.17
By sunrise on 16 August TF-61 neared the end of the westward leg of its patrol southwest of Guadalcanal. Fletcher heard nothing to indicate the APD unloading at Cactus suffered any harm. After the Saratoga launched a routine search, he headed southwest to keep beyond seven hundred miles of Rabaul and avoid being sighted. Strong air patrols kept watch for subs. All carrier searches were negative. The only word of enemy contact came at 1300. McCain placed a tender and destroyer off southeast New Georgia, 375 miles north of TF-61. The Airsopac flyers actually sighted the small Gizo Invasion Force setting up a base in New Georgia for four float planes. That afternoon Ghormley advised Fletcher that Scott would bring out the Platte and Kaskaskia, screened by the San Juan, Clark, and Gwin, to meet him the morning of 18 August seventy-five miles southwest of Espíritu Santo. The Long Island task group was to depart Efate on 17 August, “or as soon thereafter as possible,” bound for a launch point sixty miles southeast of San Cristóbal and 220 miles from Lunga. Fletcher anticipated refueling, then covering the Long Island’s reinforcement mission. Overnight he retraced his route three hundred miles south of Guadalcanal. At the same time the destroyer Oite, racing out of Rabaul, brought the first reinforcements to Guadalcanal. No one from the Allied side ever saw her deliver 113 sailors of the Yokosuka 5th Special Landing Force to Tassafaronga west of Lunga and depart. Late on the morning of 17 August, with no hint of enemy contacts, Fletcher swung southeast to meet Scott near Espíritu Santo.18
That evening the Long Island advised she would attain the fly-off position at 1500 on 20 August. The next two supply runs to Cactus were to comprise the McFarland with aviation supplies on the afternoon of 21 August, and the Alhena and Fomalhaut the next day with food and ammunition. Running the blockade to Cactus, Ghormley explained to King, Nimitz, and MacArthur, risked “excessive loss of shipping,” unless supply ships had strong escorts and close carrier air support. That, however, risked carrier fighters and destroyers that Fletcher would need in “next few days.” Between 19 and 21 August Japan could unleash a major amphibious attack, supported by four carriers and four battleships. Ghormley minced no words. “A determined enemy carrier attack against our carriers while planes of latter are protecting ships in Cactus area might spell disaster,” for Fletcher’s carriers constituted “the principal defense of this area and of our lines of communication from U.S. to Australia and New Zealand.”19
Profoundly shocked the United States actually seized the initiative, Yamamoto nonetheless realized the real opportunity to turn the table and avenge Midway. Like Nimitz in April, he recognized by seizing and holding such an advanced position, the enemy must expose himself. His means would be the Advance Force (Second Fleet) under Kondō and Nagumo’s diminished carrier striking force (Kidō Butai). On 8 August Yamamoto combined the two fleets under Kondō into the Support Force, to “support” the “cleaning out” of the Solomons. In turn Kondō coordinated planning with Tsukahara, in charge of the Southeast Area as well as Base Air Force, and Mikawa’s Eighth Fleet (Outer South Seas Force). Yamamoto canceled the Indian Ocean commerce raiding expedition assembling in Burma and redeployed its two heavy cruisers, one light cruiser, and seventeen destroyers to distant Truk. Once these “decisive battle forces” prevailed in the Solomons, Port Moresby came next. Combined Fleet headquarters would shift to Truk, the better to exercise overall control. Although confident, Yamamoto at least took the new threat seriously. Fretting about delays to the New Guinea offensive already under way, Imperial General Headquarters dismissed the Solomons invasion as a nuisance because of the exaggerated air claims on 8 August and the only too true Savo victory. Consequently Tokyo assigned a token nine thousand troops to reconquer Tulagi and Guadalcanal. The army provided the elite Ichiki Detachment (twenty-four hundred) under Col. Ichiki Kiyonao and Maj. Gen. Kawaguchi Kiyotake’s 35th Brigade (six thousand). Ichiki’s troops were being shifted from Saipan to Truk, while the Kawaguchi Detachment waited on Mindanao. The navy furnished the Yokosuka 5th Special Landing Force (six hundred). Optimists wondered whether the Solomons even required all these men, who might better be used for the Port Moresby assault.20
Kondō was ready to go, but Nagumo’s carrier fleet roiled after the loss of five carriers and three hundred aircraft that spring. Many surviving aviators had been fighting since Pearl Harbor and desperately needed rest, but circumstances compelled most to remain and season the many rookie pilots. On 14 July in a major fleet restructuring, the First Air Fleet became the Third Fleet. Each carrier division now contained two big carriers and a small one with mostly fighters. Nagumo’s own 1st Carrier Division comprised the Shōkaku, Zuikaku, and Zuihō; Admiral Kakuta’s 2nd Carrier Division comprised the Junyō, Hiyō (a converted liner like the Junyō), and Ryūjō. With greater emphasis on defense, the air complement of the six carriers rose to three hundred planes (141 fighters, ninety carrier bombers, and sixty-nine carrier attack planes). As an integral surface component, the Third Fleet counted two fast battleships, four heavy cruisers, and a destroyer squadron. Yamamoto recognized the failure to detect approaching enemy aircraft was largely responsible for the defeat at Midway. In early August Nagumo’s flagship Shōkaku received Type 2 air search radar, as installed in the battleship Ise just before Midway. History might have been quite different had the Akagi been so equipped on 4 June. Only the Shōkaku, Zuikaku, and Ryūjō were ready to go. Even to bring them to full strength of 177 planes (seventy-eight fighters, fifty-four carrier bombers, and forty-five carrier attack planes) required stripping the other carriers.21
On 11 August Kondō’s Advance Force departed Kure with four heavy cruisers, the old, formidable twenty-five-knot battleship Mutsu (in place of two older, fast battleships in refit), one light cruiser, and five destroyers. The sleek seaplane carrier Chitose and five destroyers came south separately. Renewed U.S. activity in the northern Pacific caused jitters should there be a reprise of the Doolittle raid. Poco Smith’s Aleutian cruiser force bombarded Kiska on 8 August, while the light cruiser Boise raided the picket line east of Japan. On 12 August searchers discovered one Boise float plane adrift only 450 miles east of Honshu. Suspecting an air attack, Yamamoto swiftly redeployed Kondō east of the Bonin Islands and mobilized aircraft and subs for defense. Kakuta’s 2nd Carrier Division rushed its remaining planes to bases in eastern Japan. Worries of a carrier raid soon subsided. Kondō resumed his voyage, arriving at Truk on 17 August, the same day as the Chitose force. Nagumo sailed on 16 August to Truk with the Shōkaku, Zuikaku, and Ryūjō, two fast battleships, two heavy cruisers, one light cruiser, nine destroyers, and four fast fleet oilers. To be in on the kill, Yamamoto followed the next day with his Main Force of battleship Yamato, converted carrier Kasuga Maru, and three destroyers. The odds tilted more in his favor after 15 August, when the IJN finally instituted major revisions in Naval Codebook D. The change just prior to Midway had not frozen out Allied code breakers very long, but this one nearly shut the door at a very significant point of the Pacific War.22
On 11 August Nimitz offered King, Ghormley, and MacArthur details of the enemy striking force about to be unleashed in the “near future.” Careful analysis discerned the “close association” between the Second and First Air (Carrier) Fleets and fleet commanders in the Bismarcks-Solomons area. Intelligence deduced the carrier force now comprised the Shōkaku, Zuikaku, Ryūjō, and Hōshō, along with two battleships and four heavy cruisers. The Second Fleet included two fast battleships, four heavy cruisers, a converted seaplane tender, and two destroyer divisions. This estimate was remarkably accurate, differing mainly in the substitution of the Mutsu for the battleships Haruna and Kongō and the absence of venerable Hōshō, relegated to training. However, U.S. intelligence did not detect the substitution of Third Fleet for the First Air Fleet until November 1942.23
Nimitz had deployed three carriers and one fast battleship to the South Pacific. Taking into account the Wasp’s unreliable turbines, he informed King, Ghormley, and Fletcher on 6 August of his intention to send Murray’s TF-17 (Hornet) south in about ten days to relieve Noyes’s TF-18 “on station.” Fletcher would briefly command all four carriers at once, an unprecedented concentration of U.S. naval air power. After waiting five days (and absorbing the news of Savo), King demurred. This plan “seems to me to unduly expose Hawaiian area because relief on station will involve absence of carrier group for some 12 to 15 days.” He asked Nimitz to look into rotating carriers, “So that at all times at least one such group will be within say 1200 miles of Pearl except when extraordinary circumstances warrant otherwise.” King did not consider Watchtower an “extraordinary circumstance.” His reluctance to commit TF-17 was yet another example of holding something back, of not going all-out even in operations he himself initiated. Inevitably he urged that, “In view [of ] Japanese concentrations that appear to be directed toward Rabaul,” Nimitz consider shifting three to five old battleships to Tongatabu. McCormick wryly noted, “Cincpac will probably not desire to do that.” Nimitz explained the South Pacific kept Japan too busy to launch a major attack even against Midway. A simple carrier raid was more possible, but highly unlikely. Even so, retaining one carrier group to counter a Midway strike risked having this carrier sunk “without compensating damage to enemy.” Nimitz lacked the necessary logistical framework to supply the old battleships in the South Pacific. “Doubt BB usefulness unless we can operate them in close support [in the] Cactus area,” which he certainly would not do. The carriers and fast battleships, in concert with shore-based air, must do the job. “While developments next few days may change my opinion I believe that maximum carrier strength will be needed in South and that this can be obtained best by an overlapping relief of carrier task forces on that station.” Nimitz compromised by summoning to Pearl TF-1, then at sea exercising with TF-17, “For possible use against landing attack this area.” No slow battleships would go south “unless so directed by you.”24
Nimitz was delighted when comint revealed the high level of alert in Japan over the Boise’s foray. That clever feint seemingly caused the whole 2nd Carrier Division to remain on homeland defense and delayed deployment of the other carriers to Truk. On 14 August (15 August in Japan), Layton opined all the flattops stayed in homeland waters, and “no movement of carriers to other areas will take place within the next week.” That day Nimitz was gratified when King approved sending TF-17 south. On 17 August Murray sailed with the Hornet, two heavy cruisers, a light cruiser, six destroyers, and a fleet oiler. Likewise fast battleships South Dakota and Washington should be in Sopac by mid September. Understandably Ghormley made the pitch to keep all four carriers for the foreseeable future, but Nimitz disapproved. The Wasp must return at the “earliest date consistent with military situation existing on arrival [of ] TF 17,” but her air group could remain as replacements. That was already necessary. Fletcher reported on 17 August the Saratoga and Enterprise alone required thirty-six planes to regain authorized strength.25
The Cincpac intelligence bulletin Fletcher read on 16 August placed the Hiyo, Junyō, and Zuihō one thousand miles east of Tokyo (hence the slight concern of a Midway raid), but the other carriers were “still in Japan.” The commander in chief of the Second Fleet might be near Saipan, with “slight indications” he was going south. That pleasing scenario sketched apparent hesitation in committing carriers to the South Pacific, where the Pacific Fleet was concentrating all its main battle assets. The change in the Japanese navy cipher sounded the one cautionary note. The Greybook groaned. “Our hopes of reading their important traffic in the near future is remote.” In fact Nagumo’s Kidō Butai left southern Japan at the same time that particular Cincpac intelligence bulletin circulated. The Hiyō and Junyō actually trained in the Inland Sea, and the Zuihō was in port. Only their aircraft staged to eastern Japan. Kondō (commander in chief, Second Fleet) already neared Truk. Unlike at Coral Sea and Midway, Allied radio intelligence now stayed one or two steps behind the Japanese, making the defense of Guadalcanal all that much harder. However, its shortcomings paled to insignificance when compared to the incredible intelligence failure Japan experienced over Guadalcanal.26
By mid August Tokyo chafed to begin its Solomons counteroffensive. Only the Ichiki Detachment reached Truk, with the Kawaguchi Detachment due on 23 August. Equally disturbing, the Ichiki Detachment rode two old army transports capable of just nine knots that would need five days to cross the eleven hundred miles to Guadalcanal. That delay might waste the best opportunity to finish off the invaders once and for all, for the U.S. attack teetered on disaster. Most of the invasion troops had apparently withdrawn. The remnant at Lunga had not yet got the all-important airfield up and running. Japan must act decisively before the Allies could rebound. Truk enjoyed an abundance of destroyers, giving Mikawa the idea of dispatching the Ichiki Detachment in two echelons (the KI Operation). On 15 August he directed Rear Adm. Tanaka Raizō, commanding the 2nd Destroyer Squadron, to deliver these troops to Guadalcanal. Six destroyers (the “Volunteer Force”) were to embark Ichiki and nine hundred lightly equipped men, depart Truk the morning of 16 August, and land them the night of 18 August at Taivu Point twenty miles east of Lunga. Ichiki would strike overland for the airfield. Ichiki’s Second Echelon (fifteen hundred men with artillery) would leave Truk on 16 August in the two army tubs, escorted by light cruiser Jintsu and two patrol boats, and disembark at Taivu Point on the evening of 22 August. Mikawa designed the route to keep the convoy well clear of search planes ranging northeast from the troublesome Allied air base at Rabi on Milne Bay. He believed Rabi was the nearest Allied airfield to Guadalcanal. Ignorant of the air base on Espíritu Santo, he thought searches from that direction only flew out of distant Efate. Three destroyers from the Chitose force would beef up the convoy escort on 18 August. The rest of the Second Echelon convoy, transport Kinryū Maru with five hundred landing force sailors and two patrol boats, would catch up on 19 August. Closing from the west, Mikawa’s flagship Chōkai, Gotō’s 6th Cruiser Division (three heavy cruisers), and two destroyers covered Tanaka’s right flank. The 5th Air Attack Force pounded Lunga and stepped up searches in the southern Solomons. Should U.S. carriers be discovered, Tanaka was to pull back and wait until Combined Fleet destroyed them.27
The counteroffensive proper (KA Operation) was to commence on 24 August, when two battalions of the Kawaguchi Detachment left Truk. By then Kondō’s Support Force would be poised north and east of Guadalcanal. After Ichiki seized the airfield, Zero fighters would advance there on 27 August, the day before Kawaguchi landed. After mopping up Guadalcanal, Kawaguchi would retake Tulagi by amphibious assault. Other troops were to seize Port Moresby. Japanese optimism grew unbounded. On 16 August Mikawa’s staff estimated the U.S. force at Lunga numbered just two thousand dispirited troops who might flee to Tulagi at any time. The next day they speculated Lunga might only require the Ichiki First Echelon and the Guadalcanal garrison acting in concert, freeing the naval landing sailors for New Guinea. A rude surprise waited at Guadalcanal, where Vandegrift’s eleven thousand crack marines were dug in with artillery and tanks.28
Late on 17 August, en route to his next fueling rendezvous off Espíritu Santo, Fletcher received the first definite warning of “enemy forces indicated assembling.” Citing the daily Cincpac intelligence bulletin that the Shōkaku, Zuikaku, and Ryūjō might “shortly” venture south, Ghormley added the Second Fleet of perhaps two battleships, four heavy cruisers, and numerous destroyers could be in the Bismarcks-Solomons region by 21–22 August. A convoy “shortly” to depart Truk was to meet another force on 21 August, with Guadalcanal the “probable final destination.” He told Fletcher to expedite refueling. A more detailed Cincpac assessment the morning of 18 August revealed crucial elements of Japanese plans to reoccupy Guadalcanal but missed other equally important aspects. Three heavy cruisers and screening destroyers, thought to have left Kavieng on 16 August, would reprise the Savo night attack. The actual Invasion Force evidently sortied from Truk in two echelons, possibly to unite on 18 August 425 miles southeast of Truk and seven hundred miles northwest of Guadalcanal. The lead element comprised perhaps three transports carrying “Jap marines.” The second convoy, loaded with “Army shock troops,” departed Truk the morning of 17 August. Cincpac suspected there was a covering force of three or four heavy cruisers, plus destroyers. The assault on Guadalcanal could occur as “early as 20 August, but actual date is not indicated.” Despite tremendous success in uncovering plans for the KI Operation, Pearl never discovered the Volunteer Force destroyers crammed with Ichiki’s First Echelon that neared Guadalcanal. Conspicuously absent was any mention of carriers that were already at sea.29
Patiently waiting for the enemy offensive to develop, Fletcher attended to immediate concerns. On 18 August he effected rendezvous with Scott and the Fueling Group seventy-five miles southwest of Espíritu Santo. The San Juan resumed her place in the screen of TF-18, and Scott superseded Wright in command of the Surface Attack Group. Fletcher hoped to complete fueling all three task forces on 18 August, but strong winds and rough seas did not permit. By sunset TF-11 and TF-16 had finished, except for the North Carolina, which had oil to spare and indeed fueled one destroyer. The carriers stood out northwest of Espíritu Santo to cover the Long Island task group coming from Efate. Near midnight, unseen and unsuspected, the six Volunteer Force destroyers successfully deposited Ichiki’s advance force at Taivu.30
That day Fletcher also bid farewell to Col. Mel Maas, who transferred to the Platte for passage to Efate. Following the Savo battle, Maas ailed from a throat infection and bronchitis. When he felt better, he judged it high time to “be moving on,” because it looked like TF-61 faced “a long indefinite patrol job.” He was eager to undertake an inspection tour in the South and southwest Pacific and resume his duties in Congress. It is worthwhile to quote Maas’s impressions of Fletcher written at the close of his tour of duty in the Saratoga: “Vice Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher. The tops. Finest type Admiral. Experience, brains, exceptional ability. Human, an American in the finest sense. Knows fundamentals of naval tactics and employment. Better than a genius. A man of intelligence. Marked for a 4-star Admiral. 4.0.” This remarkable evaluation, by an independent observer, a marine aviator present during all the crucial TF-61 command decisions, offers powerful rebuttal to the critics who claimed Fletcher manifested timidity and incompetence during the Guadalcanal landings.31
Unaware Japanese reinforcements already slipped into Cactus, Ghormley promulgated Sopac Op-Ord 2–42. TF-61 received TF-44 to join “soonest possible.” Fletcher’s primary task remained the destruction of “hostile vessels prior to their arrival in and while in the Cactus-Ringbolt Area.” Turner’s TF-62 was to “defend seized area” with the marines and “expedite movement food and ammunition into Cactus-Ringbolt area.” Aside from supporting the defense, McCain’s TF-63 was to get the marine aircraft to Cactus as soon as possible and “extend scouting to northwest and north” by moving PBYs back up to Ndeni. Ghormley could offer “no positive info as to presence of carriers with hostile force,” but “such presence,” he cautioned, is “considered highly probable.” Cincpac intelligence was not yet ready to agree. Early on 19 August Crutchley with the Australia, Hobart, and destroyers Selfridge, Bagley, and Patterson departed Nouméa to the west to meet TF-61 the next day south of Guadalcanal. Given that Ghormley knew TF-61 fueled northeast off Espíritu Santo prior to seeing Long Island task group safely well southeast of Guadalcanal, he should have routed Crutchley east of New Caledonia and north past Espíritu Santo. On the morning of the nineteenth Fletcher dispatched two SBDs to Espíritu Santo to deliver a message explaining where he was and what he would be doing.32
At 0815 on 19 August while the Platte and Kaskaskia fueled TF-18, a plain language message squawked, “Hostile vessels bombarding Tulagi.” One of McCain’s B-17s identified the intruders as three destroyers and a sub. Three destroyers from the Volunteer Force tarried in Cactus waters to prevent “the escape of enemy troops.” The Hagikaze and Kagerō intermittently shelled Tulagi while the Arashi traded shots with coastal guns at Lunga. Enemy warships brazenly maneuvering in daylight off Cactus struck another bitter blow to the U.S. Navy’s pride. When they appeared off Guadalcanal without prior warning, Fletcher was 450 miles southeast covering the Long Island, too far away to intervene. Many not understanding the situation (and some who did) held it against him. At noon two B-17s broke up the party, blasted the Hagikaze, and jammed her rudder. To the delight of the marines, the stricken destroyer limped out of the area accompanied by the Arashi.33
That afternoon TF-18 finished fueling and released the Platte and Kaskaskia and two destroyers to Efate. While moving northeast to contact the Long Island task group, Fletcher had twenty-eight SBDs sweep southwest to northeast to 250 miles, nearly to San Cristóbal. Kinkaid considered this “extensive” search “well founded,” for the bombardment of Tulagi “well might” presage “an attempt at reoccupation.” Later that day the boxy profile of the Long Island, crowded with marine planes, materialized four hundred miles southeast of Lunga. The entire force turned northwest at fifteen knots, bound for the fly-off point the following afternoon. Other than raiders gamboling between Tulagi and Guadalcanal, sighting reports that afternoon revealed a seaplane tender at Rekata Bay on Santa Isabel, and two cruisers, two destroyers, and a small craft anchored off Shortland. The Cincpac daily intelligence bulletin placed the 2nd Destroyer Squadron in the Rabaul area (Tanaka’s Second Echelon convoy actually steamed southeast from Truk); a heavy cruiser, seaplane carrier Chiyoda, and four or five destroyers in the Truk area (Kondō was already there with a much stronger force); and part of an air group at Gasmata in New Britain (its flying boats actually flew from Rabaul and Shortland). The Hiyō, Zuihō, and Junyō supposedly remained in home waters, “But may move soon.” However, Cincpac found “no concrete indications” the Shōkaku, Zuikaku, and Ryūjō had left Japan, but “possibility [of an] undetected move to south exists.” Of course Nagumo sailed three days before. That afternoon Turner shared with Vandegrift daunting news that “strong enemy shock troops and naval support may be enroute to arrive within next 3 days,” but he promised support with “our maximum strength.” Vandegrift responded that evening with the clearest report yet of what actually transpired. All enemy ships were destroyers, one set afire by a B-17. He was unaware Ichiki confidently tramped westward to storm Lunga.34
At dawn on 20 August the Enterprise furnished a dozen TBFs and six SBDs to search northwest to two hundred miles. Six Avengers extended their sectors to 260 miles to cross Guadalcanal, Tulagi, Florida, and eastern Santa Isabel. The Mackinac and light minelayer Breese reached Ndeni to resume the vital PBY search missions 650 miles northwest. At 0759 a B-17 placed an “enemy force” twenty miles southeast of Savo, that is, between Lunga and Tulagi. At that time TF-61 was 250 miles southeast and could hustle into strike range if necessary. No additional reports reached Fletcher until 1020, when Ghormley advised the enemy cruiser spotted southeast of Savo now retired northwest at twenty-five knots. Only then did the Enterprise relay the results of her morning search. One aircraft surprised a surfaced sub fifty miles north, but it alertly dived before the plane could attack. The contact was a unit of the 13th Submarine Division (I-121, I-122, and I-123) patrolling east of San Cristóbal. North of Savo another Enterprise plane came across a “Kako-class” heavy cruiser retiring at twenty knots, obviously the same warship the B-17 reported. Another B-17 confirmed a “cruiser” passed north through Indispensable Strait between Santa Isabel and Malaita. The thrice-sighted warship was the Kagerō. After shelling Tulagi around sunrise, she loosed a few rounds into the Lunga perimeter and, harassed by search planes, pulled out.35
At 1300, an hour short of the fly-off point near San Cristóbal, TF-61 encountered a suspicious radar contact twenty-five miles south. No attack eventuated, but one Wasp SBD chased a flying boat north beyond San Cristóbal. It is not known if Slonim’s radio intelligence team picked up enemy aircraft transmissions (there certainly were some). Fletcher remained vigilant. The Big E’s afternoon search, two hundred miles northwest, sought enemy activity off Tulagi and Guadalcanal and surface forces that might close for a surprise night attack. Soon the thirty-one marine aircraft from the Long Island winged northwest to the Cactus airstrip. With no enemy ships present off Guadalcanal, Fletcher turned southeast to cover the Long Island’s retirement. The only sighting that day other than the “cruiser” retiring from Savo was five ships at Shortland.36
Later that evening with the Long Island safely clear, Fletcher maneuvered southward toward a new rendezvous with TF-44 the following noon 250 miles southeast of Lunga. McCain arranged for six APDs to join the tender McFarland set to run supplies into Tulagi and Guadalcanal that day. At dawn on 22 August a slower convoy of the Alhena and Fomalhaut and three destroyers was to come in and clear out by sunrise on 23 August. Declaring this mission “essential repeat essential to continuation of defense,” Turner requested “all possible protection” when his ships approached and remained at Cactus. Fletcher or McCain could “turn this unit back temporarily if essential to safety but every effort should be exerted to get this shipment through.” Thus Fletcher anticipated operating close to Guadalcanal the next few days. On the afternoon of the twentieth, Ghormley cautioned a powerful assault against Cactus could begin anytime up to 23 August. Yet the Cincpac daily bulletin again listed no change “in estimated CV locations,” placing all carriers in or near home waters. That afternoon Nimitz forecast a huge increase in the number of destroyers thought in or en route to the Bismarcks-Solomons area. They “may be employed for quick transport and infiltration [of ] troops.” Therefore, “Carrier aircraft must be employed to prevent landings particularly if attempted prior to arrival enemy carriers.” Of course, Nimitz, Ghormley, and Fletcher all remained unaware the Japanese already accomplished such “quick transport and infiltration” of men to Guadalcanal. Vandegrift first became suspicious on 20 August after learning one of his patrols ambushed a small force of Japanese soldiers east toward Taivu Point. Hitherto the marines only encountered naval troops.37
Twenty August, when Sopac won the first heat in the frantic race to reinforce Cactus, shone in the long calendar of the Guadalcanal campaign. The planes from the Long Island roared low over Lunga and to the cheers and tears of their fellow marines set down on Henderson Field, christened in honor of Maj. Lofton R. Henderson, a marine squadron commander killed at Midway. The next installment of Japanese reinforcements, coming by slow boat, would have to run the gauntlet of Fletcher’s carriers, McCain’s Airsopac, and Vandegrift’s newly arrived Cactus Air Force. Nonetheless, a substantial portion of the Combined Fleet (“a force only slightly less powerful than that at Midway”) had come south to ensure the safe passage of the Second Echelon convoy. The resulting carrier battle could decide the campaign.38
Shortland-based flying boats, ranging nearly as far as Espíritu Santo, scouted ahead of Tanaka’s Second Echelon convoy creeping southeast from Truk. On the morning of 20 August, with the convoy 425 miles and two days out of Guadalcanal, one Shortland searcher made a chilling discovery. First, a cruiser and two destroyers appeared sixty miles east of San Cristóbal, then twenty miles beyond, a carrier, a cruiser, and two destroyers. A U.S. carrier force located within six hundred miles of the Second Echelon convoy caused uproar at Rabaul and Truk, particularly as the Americans supposedly gave up on Guadalcanal. With the high command already in a tizzy, a second U.S. carrier materialized nearby. The flying boat covering the adjacent sector found one carrier, four cruisers, and nine destroyers 240 miles southeast of Tulagi. The two contacts were seventy miles apart, and the carriers did not resemble each other. Indeed, the Long Island group was the object of the morning sighting, when the Wasp SBD chased away the intruder. That afternoon the second search crew glimpsed one of Fletcher’s carriers. These powerful forces lay just beyond land-based air strike range. With no friendly ships within three hundred miles, Tanaka felt particularly exposed. Gotō’s three heavy cruisers and a destroyer advanced to Rekata Bay 130 miles northwest of Lunga, while Mikawa’s flagship Chōkai and a destroyer cruised east of Buka. However, Kondō’s Advance Force had come only as far as Truk, seven hundred miles northwest of Tanaka. Nagumo’s incoming Kidō Butai was two hundred miles beyond Kondō. Invoking orders to withdraw in the event a U.S. carrier turned up, Tanaka turned north that night.39
The unanticipated arrival of two enemy carriers boded ill for Combined Fleet’s plans. Yamamoto at first thought they set their sights on the Second Echelon convoy and ordered Kondō to concentrate his Support Force and hurry south to protect Tanaka. Kondō canceled Nagumo’s scheduled fueling stopover and set a new rendezvous the next morning 120 miles east. Having come east all the way from Burma via Borneo, the 7th Cruiser Division (Kumano and Suzuya) likewise skipped Truk to join the Kidō Butai at sea, but its six accompanying destroyers had to go there for fuel. That evening Kondō sailed from Truk with five heavy cruisers, one light cruiser, the Chitose, and two destroyers. He left the battleship Mutsu behind until the six destroyers could screen her. Insufficient fuel was available at Truk, which severely dislocated the fleet’s logistical plans. Late on 20 August, after learning from the Guadalcanal garrison that twenty carrier-type aircraft landed at Lunga, Yamamoto changed his mind. Now it seemed the U.S. carriers simply ferried those planes and entertained no designs against the Second Echelon convoy, which evidently remained undiscovered. His paramount goal was to deny the enemy effective use of Guadalcanal’s airfield until he could retake it. That night he ordered all commands to destroy the Lunga air base through air attack and ship bombardments. Hopefully the Ichiki would finish the job before the Second Echelon convoy drew within strike range. The arrival of the marine planes and Yamamoto’s reaction set the course of the rest of the Guadalcanal campaign. Base Air Force orchestrated another comprehensive search for 21 August to ferret out carriers should they linger. To give the Support Force time to assume covering position, Tsukahara also postponed Tanaka’s arrival at Taivu Point two days to 24 August, after which any opposition at sea should be gone.40
On 21 August Fletcher looked to a major assault against Cactus commencing possibly that day. McCain’s lead element of six APDs and the McFarland was to arrive that evening and Turner’s group the next day. At 0522 the Saratoga intercepted a message from Vandegrift announcing a “strong raid by enemy east [over the] Tenaru River.” At least two warships were in support. With TF-61 some 375 miles southeast, only McCain’s B-17s could help Guadalcanal. (As it turned out, the weather prevented them from finding targets there.) TF-61 closed Guadalcanal at twenty knots. On the way Fletcher would collect Crutchley’s TF-44 at 1230 when 270 miles from Lunga. Vandegrift explained the situation. Beginning 0330 Japanese troops, strength “uncertain,” assailed the perimeter from the east across the Tenaru (actually Ilu) river, while enemy ships (“type uncertain”) withdrew before dawn. Hugely outnumbered, Ichiki’s nine hundred men impaled themselves on strong defenses. Vandegrift did not doubt he could defeat the present assault but deeply worried about future efforts. “If not prevented by surface craft enemy can continue night landings beyond our range of action and build up large force. Request every means available be used to prevent this.”41
A tragic attack by two jumpy Wasp search SBDs against the Mackinac, 140 miles north at Ndeni, elicited Ghormley’s rebuke to Fletcher: “Insure all units your command informed location own units in operating area.” At 0852 Fletcher advised if enemy ships remained off Tulagi and Guadalcanal, he would strike at 1330 from 250 miles southeast of Lunga. Action that day looked distinctly possible should the Japanese reinforce their attack. At 1034 Fletcher rang up twenty-four knots. An hour later he learned from Cactus that Tulagi had not been threatened and that enemy troops at Lunga “fled eastward.” Marines, supported by tanks, swept across the Ilu river and killed nearly eight hundred Japanese, including Ichiki. Gladly acknowledging much more favorable circumstances at Cactus, Fletcher reduced speed at noon to fifteen knots. Crutchley’s TF-44 hove into view right on time. Fletcher forwarded the Selfridge to Noyes, incorporated the two Australian cruisers and the Bagley and Patterson into his own TG-61.1 (TF-11), and gave Crutchley the TF-11 cruisers in place of Wright. However, he retained Scott, slightly junior to Crutchley, in charge of the whole Surface Attack Group. Doubtless he was concerned over differences in doctrine between the two navies and wondered whether that might have played a role at Savo.42
That afternoon Fletcher learned that a PBY late in the morning came across four cruisers and one destroyer 225 miles east of Buka and within three hundred miles of Cactus. The shadower later advised the enemy steamed north at eighteen knots. Should those Japanese be playing possum and later reverse course, they could storm Tulagi harbor after midnight. Meanwhile, a Wasp SBD shot down a flying boat fifteen miles ahead of TF-61. The Kawanishi had warned base at 1045 of U.S. ships, types unknown, distant 530 miles and headed southwest at twenty knots. Its last transmission, at 1116, was simply: “We are engaged in aerial combat.” Slonim’s radio intelligence team probably monitored its messages, indicating the enemy knew Fletcher’s location.43
Laying out his battle plans, Fletcher considered whether to rush cruisers and destroyers to defend Lunga and Tulagi that night, as Vandegrift and others wanted. At twenty-five knots, a surface group could reach Savo a few hours after midnight. However, such sketchy details as Fletcher gained of the Battle of Savo offered little confidence in the present night fighting capability of his force, given the acute lack of training and possible faulty doctrine. Narrow waters, where surrounding high mountains could block radar, were no place to be at night with the current scratch team, especially with Japan’s demonstrated high ability in night fighting. Fletcher cautioned his captains that because of the “extremely poor performance” of their 5-inch night illumination “star shells,” they must “rely on search light illumination.” Cincpac also noted the “sizeable increase [of the enemy’s] previous Dog Dog strength,” now thirty to thirty-five destroyers, and pointedly reminded Sopac of the enemy’s boast of “quote superior night torpedo technique unquote,” that soon “may be up for test.” Thus Fletcher felt disinclined under the present circumstances to take such a surface night fighting exam, where his air strength could not come into play. “Unless we obtain further information from Cactus,” he would search at dawn from south of Guadalcanal’s southeast tip and seek enemy ships near Lunga. The Saratoga would search, the Wasp have a strike group ready, and the Enterprise would assist in the combat air patrol and contribute strike planes “whenever operations permit.”44
In any event, Fletcher did not want to run smack into a surface force waiting in ambush. With commendable caution, he gave Boscoe Wright an ad hoc group of four heavy cruisers and six destroyers to advance twenty miles ahead after sunset and “prevent night attack [against] this force.”45 Wright was to rejoin at dawn southeast of Cape Henslow. During the late afternoon of 21 August, no additional sighting reports reached Fletcher. According to the Cincpac daily intelligence bulletin, six heavy cruisers and associated destroyers (led by commander in chief, Second Fleet) and two submarine divisions either had reinforced fleet forces in the Bismarcks or were en route. The Zuihō, Hiyō, and Junyō trained off Honshu, whereas Pearl still had “no indication other CV’s have departed Japan.” Based on sightings on the twentieth, MacArthur estimated naval forces between Bougainville and Guadalcanal numbered three heavy cruisers, one light cruiser, five destroyers, one converted seaplane tender, and other auxiliary ships. Evidently the great offensive against Cactus had not yet materialized. Vandegrift definitely thought so, eagerly informing the six inbound APDs and the McFarland that all hostile ships departed before sunrise and that his search planes found none within seventy miles. “Conditions warrant entering” for “speedy unloading,” particularly as the marines were down to one day’s “baker ration.” Ghormley concurred. He ordered the Alhena and Fomalhaut to proceed ahead with two destroyers. Fletcher and McCain were to “provide maximum practicable air coverage,” while the two cargo ships unloaded stores on 22 August and the following day when they cleared out. Such support, Ghormley conceded, should be “consistent with your assigned tasks,” which for Fletcher, of course, was to be ready to meet the major effort against Cactus. Soon afterward Vandegrift asked, because of the ongoing battle at Lunga, that the Fomalhaut’s entry be delayed. Turner obliged by having her peel off southeast of San Cristóbal, while the Alhena and Helm trailed two destroyers to Tulagi.46
While TF-61 closed Guadalcanal, visibility decreased. The combat air patrol investigated several suspicious contacts. Near sundown, Fletcher set course 295 degrees at sixteen knots. Wright’s screening group raced ahead into the deepening gloom. Once twenty-two miles beyond the main body, the six destroyers formed a line spaced three miles apart; the cruisers deployed in pairs five miles astern. That evening Ghormley complained to Fletcher of “enemy landing forces last night [in] Cactus area” and pointedly reminded him both Cincpac’s 20 August message and his Op-Ord 2–42 decreed carrier aircraft must prevent such actions. Later that night he described the attack on Vandegrift’s perimeter on the night of 20–21 August as an amphibious assault by a well-equipped force from two ships, type unknown, and again implied Fletcher let them skip through. Simultaneous with Ghormley’s second message, Vandegrift radioed a summary of the destruction of the Ichiki Detachment. Prisoners revealed they left Truk on 16 August in six destroyers and came ashore three days later thirty kilometers east of Lunga. No more troops in fact reached Guadalcanal after that day, but several thousand more were on the way.47
Yamamoto and his commanders endured a highly frustrating 21 August. A strong force of twenty-six torpedo-armed land-attack planes and thirteen Zeros unsuccessfully hunted the waters around and south of Guadalcanal. From messages sent by its missing flying boat, Base Air Force concluded U.S. carriers patrolled the southern Solomons, but beyond strike range. Kondō’s Advance Force joined briefly with Nagumo’s Kidō Butai southeast of Truk, then separated while Nagumo fueled from his oilers. Nagumo advised that as of sunset on 23 August, he would be three hundred miles northeast of Lunga. He presumed his three carriers would remain undetected, for the flying boats he thought searched out of Efate should already have turned home. Kondō planned for the whole Support Force to cover Tanaka’s landing on the twenty-fourth with the standard panoply of the Japanese naval battle: separate task forces of surface ships preceded by subs fanning out ahead in scouting lines to spot the enemy and catch him unaware. Plowing southward from Japan, seven I-boats from the 1st Submarine Squadron aimed for the 160-mile-long “A” deployment line that veered northeast from 130 miles east of Guadalcanal into the waters east of Malaita and northeast of San Cristóbal. Two subs from the 3rd Submarine Squadron coming from Rabaul, and a third boat from Truk, were to assume the “B” deployment line, a sixty-mile line running east to west from 160 miles southwest of Guadalcanal. They could intercept forces approaching from the Coral Sea. At the present time, though, only the old I-121, I-122, and I-123 scouted east of San Cristóbal. Once the other subs moved into position, they were to switch northwest to the waters adjacent to Guadalcanal. Mikawa therefore reimposed Tsukahara’s orders for the Second Echelon convoy to reach Guadalcanal the evening of 24 August. Tanaka nosed back around into the same northerly approach as before. A Japanese unit reported two U.S. transports and a light cruiser 130 miles southeast of Guadalcanal. In night combat off Lunga the Kawakaze fired torpedoes at the two destroyers but did not bother the six APDs and seaplane tender already at Lunga and Tulagi. Her stern blown off, the Blue still floated. Thought by the Americans to be a motor torpedo boat rather than a warship, the intrepid Kawakaze never revealed a definite radar contact—another example of the U.S. Navy’s unreadiness to fight a night surface action.48
Preceded by Wright’s Screening Group, Fletcher cautiously advanced northwest through the darkness toward the waters south of Guadalcanal. The weather on 22 August was raw, with rough seas, occasional squalls, and gusty southeast winds. Fourteen Saratoga SBDs searched from west to northeast two hundred miles to see what transpired. By dawn TF-61 drew within seventy-five miles of Cape Henslow and 120 miles from Lunga, from where the carriers could strike anything found at Tulagi and Guadalcanal or environs. The Saratoga also launched Don Felt to fly directly to Henderson Field and check out the runway. Fletcher carefully considered the advantage of a convenient base where his aircraft could take temporary refuge if they could not easily return to the carriers. That would considerably extend their strike range. Felt’s personal judgment of the situation at Cactus was crucial. He also took along for transmission a message to bring Ghormley up to date. Noting the 20 August sub sighting and recent encounters with patrol planes, Fletcher declared his belief that TF-61 was “sighted from time to time” and asked if Comsopac could confirm it. Yet again he complained “communications [are] most unsatisfactory,” with sighting reports “received very late.” The Saratoga’s radio facilities had definitely not improved. Fletcher acknowledged Vandegrift’s request for close support at night to prevent the enemy from landing troops, but “consider it inadvisable to send cruisers and destroyers into Cactus nightly.” Lastly he cautioned that TF-61 “must retire on 24th for fuel and redistribution of provisions.” To retain his readiness to steam at high speed and fight, he intended to keep to his schedule of refueling about every six days.49
At sunrise the Screening Group fell back to the TF-61 main body. With his disposition reformed, Fletcher turned southeast after having approached within ninety-five miles of Lunga. Geography and wind direction dictated his carriers should keep to the east, with more freedom to maneuver, instead of passing south of Guadalcanal. Initial search contacts revealed only one enemy ship anywhere near Guadalcanal. Two Saratoga SBDs overtook the Kawakaze tearing northwest beyond Malaita and strafed. Felt returned with the news Fletcher hoped to hear. Henderson Field could shelter and service a carrier strike group if necessary. Felt promised the marines the Sara would deliver necessary communication supplies the next day. In the meantime Turner hustled the Alhena and Helm to Tulagi, with the Fomalhaut to come in the next day. Again the lack of ship contacts signaled the much feared counteroffensive was probably at least another day off. Fletcher signaled Noyes and Kinkaid that TF-61 would hold the current southeasterly course until 1130, then swing east. By dawn on 23 August he wanted to be east of Malaita and 120 miles northeast of Lunga to flank a southward thrust from Truk. Later that morning radar discovered a bogey fifty-five miles northwest and closing. A skillful intercept by the combat air patrol destroyed a Kawanishi flying boat in the midst of heavy squalls twenty-six miles southwest of TF-61. Fletcher assumed the enemy once more knew his location. That afternoon twenty Saratoga SBDs searched the sector northwest-east to two hundred miles. Scott used the relatively tranquil interlude to detail the tactical organization of his Surface Attack Group of one battleship, six heavy cruisers, three light cruisers, and eight destroyers.50
At 1630 after clearing San Cristóbal, Fletcher turned north toward his planned operating area east of Malaita. The Cincpac daily intelligence bulletin again proffered “no positive indications to show change in carrier locations,” but noted an “undetected departure recently” of the “inactive” Zuikaku, Shōkaku, and Ryūjō “subsequent to 16 August should not be disregarded.” That was not particularly helpful. Actual contacts that afternoon were again remarkably sparse. The only worrisome sighting was a cruiser two hundred miles northwest of Guadalcanal, though its reported course and speed of twenty-four knots aimed directly for the Santa Cruz Islands, the Mackinac’s roost. Even though the enemy cruiser was nearly five hundred miles away, McCain ordered the Mackinac and Breese to clear out that evening after refueling the PBYs but return to Ndeni the next day to continue servicing the all-important search. At 1710, fifty miles southeast of San Cristóbal, the feathery white streak of a torpedo wake bubbled between the Enterprise and Portland in Kinkaid’s TF-16, then the fish broached the surface. Lookouts in TF-18 on the port side of the task force likewise sighted a torpedo wake, thought possibly from another sub. The elderly I-121 escaped after an audacious if unsuccessful attack. After dark Fletcher took precaution against surprise attack of the surface variety by stationing Crutchley with the Australia and several destroyers west of TF-61. He also prepared another situation summary to Ghormley and McCain for the Saratoga to fly to Cactus the next morning. It advised the TF-61 searches conducted from south of Guadalcanal yielded only the one destroyer north of Malaita that speedily withdrew. The carriers downed another flying boat and encountered a sub southeast of San Cristóbal, more proof Fletcher’s location had to be well known to the enemy. With hostile carriers probably en route, he recommended Ghormley arrange for TF-61 to refuel on 25 August “with 3 tankers if possible.” The whole business should require less than a day.51
That night in response to the message Felt delivered that morning to Cactus, Ghormley laid out for Fletcher the latest estimates that “point strongly to enemy attack in force on Cactus area 23–26 August.” One or two battleships, ten heavy cruisers, five light cruisers, ten or eleven destroyer divisions, and a great number of subs skulked within six hundred miles of Rabaul. Sixty fighters and sixty to one hundred bombers operated from airfields in the New Britain area, with more on the way. The enemy had enough troops available to overwhelm Vandegrift’s marines. The “presence of carriers possible but not confirmed,” whereas the “only evidence sighting you” was the Cincpac message of 14 August noting a possible sub contact. Ghormley conceded radio communications were “not satisfactory,” but “making every effort to improve.” Acknowledging it was “important” to refuel TF-61, he desired it be done “soonest possible and if practicable [with] one carrier task force at a time retiring for that purpose.” To that end the Platte, Cimarron, and two destroyers would, by the morning of 24 August, be loitering 125 miles northwest of Espíritu Santo and 350 miles southeast of Lunga. They would again keep at least ten miles apart to prevent one sub from targeting both. The Kaskaskia was unavailable, but the Sabine and a destroyer had reached Espíritu Santo on the twenty-second. Two oilers were ample, though, if Fletcher refueled his task forces one at a time. Of course the enemy must cooperate and allow him to do so.52
The Guadalcanal garrison radioed Rabaul late on 21 August that the Ichiki First Echelon was “practically annihilated” in a futile assault against Lunga. Such grim news required confirmation, but the counteroffensive continued to evolve. Because of severe storms, Tsukahara reluctantly canceled the planned bombing raid on 22 August against Lunga. He concluded his missing flying boat fell to a carrier southeast of Guadalcanal. By noon Tanaka’s Second Echelon convoy, zigzagging southeast at nine knots, drew within four hundred miles of its objective. Mikawa’s inability to refuel at sea forced him to take two heavy cruisers and a destroyer to fuel at Shortland, while Gotō with the other two heavy cruisers and two destroyers took his place west of the convoy. Some three hundred miles north of Tanaka, Kondō’s entire Support Force pushed southward into the prevailing trade winds and would close within two hundred miles of Tanaka before the next dawn. The 7th Cruiser Division finally caught up with Nagumo, while the Mutsu and six destroyers left Truk in hopes of joining Kondō’s Advance Force in time to fight. In view of the weather and the manifest danger of the Lunga-based planes, Tsukahara proposed that Nagumo’s carriers knock out the airfield on 23 August and then deliver close air support to Tanaka on the twenty-fourth during his final approach to Taivu Point. Fully aware of his vulnerability, Tanaka vigorously seconded the request. Yamamoto preferred not to risk the Kidō Butai’s premature exposure, but he did authorize Nagumo to strike Lunga on the twenty-fourth if other air and surface forces failed to neutralize the air base. Now only one day remained before the grand offensive to retake the Solomons truly commenced.53
Fletcher’s performance from 10 to 22 August elicited sharp criticism. “Since the initial landing,” McCormick complained on 19 August, “not much of anything has been done by our Task Forces.” He certainly reflected Nimitz’s own acrid opinion. Cincpac’s report of 24 October 1942 averred that from 9 to 23 August, cruisers and destroyers “bombarded Guadalcanal and Tulagi almost nightly with impunity.” Fletcher left the door open because of his misguided efforts to “conceal the carriers,” by keeping “well to the south out of contact range of hostile aircraft.” Hence, “None of the many small groups of Japanese ships that operated in the close waters between Tulagi and Guadalcanal was attacked by either carrier air groups or by our surface ships.” Moreover, the Japanese took advantage of the respite to mass “powerful forces,” while “simultaneously restricting the flow of supplies and armament” to Cactus. “Every chance should be taken to strike and destroy separated units of the Japanese Fleet. There were opportunities up to 24 August to strike small Japanese forces. Had these been grasped, the main effort by the Japanese on 24 August might have been delayed or have been made with a smaller force.” Stung by the message describing two large destroyers shelling Lunga on 19 August, Rear Adm. Ted Sherman, on the Cominch staff, wondered how the enemy even got through to Cactus. “I can’t understand what our CV’s are doing to let that happen. I think our CV task forces are being very poorly handled.” Historians likewise disapproved of what they perceived as Fletcher’s strange inertia and disinclination to fight. Richard Frank described how the “record of Fletcher from Savo Island to the Eastern Solomons shows he drifted from prudence to paralysis.”54
Fletcher’s superiors manifestly preferred bold action to disrupt the enemy buildup, which, however, actually took place at distant Truk. Prior to the approach of the Second Echelon convoy, only a few destroyers and subs roamed the lower Solomons. Nimitz erred in describing almost nightly bombardments by cruisers and destroyers, and “many small groups” of enemy ships off Tulagi and Guadalcanal.55 Sporadic shelling by a few elusive destroyers and subs frustrated the U.S. Navy and bruised its ego but hardly constituted a decisive threat to marines. From 9 to 23 August, Japan only managed, using swift destroyers and stealth, to land one thousand lightly equipped infantrymen, whom Vandegrift’s dug-in marines outnumbered ten to one.56 A few destroyer-loads of infantry could not overrun the First Marine Division. That required artillery and other heavy weapons, plus many more men and supplies that only transports could bring. First, the Japanese must destroy or neutralize Fletcher’s carriers.
Fletcher’s only actual “bold” course of action between the landings and the approach of the enemy carriers would have been to raid Rabaul or Truk. No other targets of consequence existed nearby, certainly nothing that could have delayed the counteroffensive or whittled it down ahead of time. To go after Rabaul or Truk meant relinquishing shore-based air support and confronting the effective air search network certain to detect TF-61 long before it could strike. North of the Solomons, Fletcher was blind beyond his own limited air search and vulnerable to a trap sprung by his fiercest foes, the undiscovered enemy carriers. Any or all of these alternatives posed grave danger, without the corresponding opportunity to inflict comparable loss to the enemy. It risked seriously weakening TF-61 prior to the appearance of Nagumo’s Kidō Butai. A severe defeat at that juncture would have cost Guadalcanal.
In the two weeks following the Savo action, only two options existed: recklessness or a perceived inactivity. Fletcher properly preserved his force and prepared for battle, while at the same time offering Cactus limited support. Committing cruisers and destroyers from TF-61 to some sort of static defensive patrol off Tulagi and Lunga simply was not wise. Nor could the carriers linger off Guadalcanal providing fighter cover. Former marine staff officer and historian Herbert Christian Merillat, certainly no admirer of Fletcher, recognized in his postlanding strategy the “classic role of a ‘fleet in being.’” The U.S. carriers kept “their enemy counterpart at a cautious distance from the embattled island until one side or the other should find an occasion propitious for forcing the other into a ‘decisive battle.’” Although “few marines were aware of it,” Merillat thought, “they had reason to be grateful to the American carriers’ distant prowling.” Those flattops, “so long as they lasted,” provided “distant cover for the movement of supplies and reinforcements to Cactus.”57 At that point in the Guadalcanal campaign, Fletcher’s ostensible “inaction” served the Allied cause far better than the alternative.