80 years ago...

November 14, 2022

Saturday through tomorrow, the 80th anniversary of the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Battle_of_Guadalcanal

Some highlights:

The Friday the 13th Naval Battle. A scratch group of US cruisers and destroyers (the covering forces for the USS Enterprise carrier group and a transport task force) turns back a Japanese bombardment group of two battleships and a few destroyer divisions. Described in official reports as "a barroom brawl with the lights shot out," command and control is lost early on both sides (both US admirals are killed early, one - Rear Admiral Norman Scott - by friendly fire from the USS San Francisco), and the battle devolves into a chaotic melee that to this day defies description (literally - there's no coherent history of the battle). The US forces, at savage cost (all but two destroyers and a cruiser are disabled), turn back a vastly superior Japanese force, and disable a Japanese battleship (sunk later in the day).

The 15th November battle: the rest of the Enterprise covering group - two battleships and four destroyers - head to Guadalcanal to fend off another attempt by the Japanese at a bombardment. All four destroyers are sunk or disabled early, as is the USS South Dakota, leaving the USS Washington to face the Japanese group alone. Washington, well-led and commanded by Rear Admiral Willis "Ching" Lee, proceeds to devastate the sole Japanese battleship, IJN Kirishima, in one of only five times in the war battleships faced each other (the others being: Bismarck vs. Hood and Prince of Wales, Bismarck vs. Nelson and King George V, Scharnhorst vs. Duke of York, and the Battle of Surigao Straits, where six old American battleships (five raised from Pearl Harbor) obliterated IJN Fuso in the best kind of fight there is: manifestly unfair.