OT: The Battle of Savo Island

[Atrocities]

LINK

Battle of Savo Island

The Battle of Savo Island was a naval battle of the Pacific Campaign of World War II, fought on August 9, 1942, between cruiser squadrons of the Imperial Japanese Navy and the Allied naval forces.

The Japanese were concentrating on supporting land operations on the Kokoda Track in New Guinea, but reacted quickly to the Allied attack on the Solomon Islands. Vice Admiral Shigeyoshi Inoue dispatched planes from Rabaul in New Britain to attack the beachheads and strike the warships and transports supporting the operation. In addition a task force of seven cruisers (Chokai, Aoba, Furutaka, Kako, Kinugasa, Tenryu, and Yubari) and one destroyer, under the command of Rear Admiral Gunichi Mikawa, was sent to make a surface attack.

Mikawa's squadron slipped past the destroyer picket Ralph Talbot and at 01:00 on 9 August 1942, off Savo Island, they saw the Allied "Southern Group", comprised of the Australian and US heavy cruisers Canberra, Australia and Chicago), and two destroyers. The group was commanded by the British Rear Admiral Victor Crutchley, who was attached to the Royal Australian Navy.

Some time afterwards, crew members on Canberra spotted unidentified vessels; the commanding officer, Captain Frank Getting, was called to the bridge, and gun crews took up "action stations". Canberra sped up and turned to position itself between the intruders and unarmed troopships. At 1.44 am, as the ship's gunners were attempting to aim, the port side of the ship was hit with a massive and highly accurate burst of shell fire. Although the sending of warning message had been ordered, a Japanese shell destroyed the radio room before it could be sent. Within a few minutes the Canberra had been hit at least 27 times and was on fire amidships.

In a short space of time, the Japanese ships had also severely damaged Chicago with torpedo attacks and 8-inch gunfire. Chicago was also unable to respond or warn the two other Allied squadrons in the area of the Japanese presence.

Fifteen minutes later, the Japanese engaged a second American squadron, the "Northern Group" of three cruisers (Vincennes, Astoria and Quincy) and two destroyers, commanded by Captain Frederick L. Riefkohl. With an advantage due to an unintended enveloping manuever, Vincennes, Astoria, and Quincy were quickly sunk by heavy gunfire.

Aoba was damaged, and Chokai sustained several hits from Quincy and Astoria, blowing off one of her turrets and killing 34 men. She had to return to Rabaul for repairs.
Quincy settling by the stern, illuminated by Japanese searchlights
Enlarge
Quincy settling by the stern, illuminated by Japanese searchlights

Canberra was so badly damaged that it had to be evacuated and sunk by gunfire from Allied ships. Getting and 83 other crew members died as a result of the attack.

The Battle of Savo Island was the most complete and humiliating defeats that the US Navy ever suffered and, as a result, the Allied warships and transports were withdrawn to the New Hebrides. From 15 August all supplies sent to Guadalcanal came by high-speed transports while Allied land-based planes from the New Hebrides flew frequent covering missions.

My Grand Mothers brother was gunner on the USS Astoria and did not survive the battle. I stubbled across this page purely by accident and it sent shivers up my spine. Now I know what happened to his ship and thanks to other info from this page, I know that he died from his wounds and was barried at sea. - My Grand Mother always thought he was eaten by the sharks, but that was not true thankfully.

[Atrocities]

List]List of US Ships lost during WWII

[Parasite]

Thanks to your Grand Uncle for serving his country! Honor goes to him and his family.

I have a book, "Guadalcanal - Decision at Sea", it tells of the battles off the island from 13-15 November in great detail. It is the third book in the series. Perhaps the first one might contain information on the Savo Island battle. It is "Guadalcanal - Starvation Island" by Eric Hammel. The second is about the carrier battles. The one I read contains a blow by blow account of the nights listed. Names, positions, maneuver, fire and timing are all there.

If you think the SEIV AI is bad, read this book. It shows how some of the battles went down back then. It includes some great gems like assigning the only DD with modern fire control to fire star shells for the fleet. The ship with surface radar is put last in the column, and has no ability to advise others because the front ship is just off the scope and radio silence is in effect for them. Once the admiral yells "Cease Fire, Cease Fire" when his ship starts firing on a friendly ship, but forgets he has the microphone open and transmits to the whole fleet in the middle of battle.

[Kana]

Atrocities said:
List]List of US Ships lost during WWII

Great Link...

Now compare those ship losses with ships in a Space Empires game? I wonder if there is a list for Japanese losses...I didn't look. SJ might want to check out the link, and look at some of the sublinks to individual ships, IE the carriers and such...

Kana

[Renegade 13]

I hadn't realized the US lost so many ships in the course of the war, especially carriers. That's a lot of ships.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Yeah.

[El_Phil]

Wooden topped carriers vs Kamikazes will do that. Especially against the smaller escort carriers.

[Emperor's Child]

As odd as this seems, my Grandfather was a captain on one of those merchant ships at guadacanal during the first battel for Salvo Island, so your Grandmother's Brother likely saved his life.

Ironic note: The US Marines always regard Guadacanal as an example of how the Navy left them unsupported on enemy ground. They often forget that, betwen the various naval battles in and around the area, the combined US / Aussie naval forces lost 5 men for ever three that were lost on the island in combat.

[Emperor's Child]

Parasite said:
If you think the SEIV AI is bad, read this book. It shows how some of the battles went down back then. It includes some great gems like assigning the only DD with modern fire control to fire star shells for the fleet. The ship with surface radar is put last in the column, and has no ability to advise others because the front ship is just off the scope and radio silence is in effect for them. Once the admiral yells "Cease Fire, Cease Fire" when his ship starts firing on a friendly ship, but forgets he has the microphone open and transmits to the whole fleet in the middle of battle.

This is that "Fog of war" thing that most people just don't get. We often are lulled into assuming that our understanding of how a battle transpired from reading it in a well-researched book is how it occurred. But in fact the people who were there at the time usually had a small fraction of the information about what was happening around them, were sleep deprived, given lots of new equipment they are not familiar with, and under lots of stress. These are conditions that you just can't model or have a good understanding of unless you have experienced them yourself, yet are very central to the decisions made at the time. Yes, the decisions look pretty dumb from the 20/20 hindsight perspective, but it is pretty standard fare for actual combat.

[Hunpecked]

Excellent post by Emperor's Child. As much as I hate giving control of my fleets to the AI, I have to admit that SE IV's strategic battle option is better than manual combat at simulating the inevitable "friction of war".

In SE IV terms, the battle of August 9, 1942 was fought between a Japanese "fleet" with max fleet and ship modifiers (the ships had operated together for some time; the crews were highly trained in night fighting) and an Allied "fleet" with minimal fleet/ship modifiers (essentially a scratch force of ships with little night fighting training). The Japanese also had superior "combat sensors" (oversize binoculars & lookouts chosen for night vision, vs buggy radar and ordinary optics).

The old Japanese CRs in the battle carried fewer 8" guns than the Allied CRs, but had overall weapon superiority thanks to their "Long Lance" torpedo mounts (longer range, higher speed, and bigger warhead than Allied torps). Atrocities' quote doesn't mention them, but in fact the four Allied CR lost were sunk by torpedo hits. Kako was also a victim of torpedoes; the day after the battle it was sunk by a US submarine.

The action off Savo Island is difficult to model on the SE IV battle map. Certainly the fleets should start at close range (as if entering the system square through adjacent sides), and the Japanese would definitely fire first. Unfortunately in SE IV one side is nearly always annihilated, which wasn't the case at Savo Island. However, if both fleets have "Don't get hurt" orders, I can see them breaking off after one (involuntary) round of combat.

So who wants to do a WW II Pacific Theater mod for SE IV?