The Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands

On 26 October 1942, north of the Santa Cruz Islands, several hundred kilometres east of Guadalcanal, the fourth carrier battle of the war was fought. Rear Admiral Thomas Kinkaid’s two American carriers – the Hornet and the Enterprise – clashed with four carriers of the Japanese Combined Fleet commanded by Vice Admirals Chūichi Nagumo and Nobutake Kondō. As in the Coral Sea, at Midway and in the Eastern Solomons, the ships of the two sides never sighted each other; the whole battle was fought by aircraft. The Japanese sank the Hornet and badly damaged the Enterprise, while their own carriers Shōkaku and Zuihō were seriously damaged. On paper it was a clear Japanese victory. In reality it cost Japan so many experienced carrier airmen that her carriers played no further part in the fighting for Guadalcanal.

A fleet waiting for the airfield to fall

In October 1942 the Japanese prepared their third and largest attempt to recapture Guadalcanal. The 2nd “Sendai” Division was shipped to the island, and its attack on Henderson Field was planned for the second half of the month. Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto sent into the waters north of the Solomon Islands the strongest fleet since Midway. It left Truk around 11 October and cruised east of the archipelago, waiting for news that the airfield had fallen. It was then to destroy any American ships that tried to come to the marines’ aid, and above all the American carriers.

In practice the fleet was commanded by Kondō. His Advanced Force, with the heavy cruiser Atago as flagship, included the carrier Jun’yō, converted from a passenger liner, and Rear Admiral Takeo Kurita’s support group with two battleships, the Kongō and the Haruna. Nagumo’s Main Body consisted of the carriers Shōkaku (flagship) and Zuikaku and the light carrier Zuihō. Ahead of them sailed Rear Admiral Hiroaki Abe’s Vanguard Force with the battleships Hiei and Kirishima. A fifth carrier, the Jun’yō’s sister ship Hiyō, had to turn back to Truk on 21 October after an engine-room fire. The remaining four carried a little over 200 aircraft.

The Japanese land offensive did not go to plan. The march of Lieutenant General Masao Maruyama’s main force through the jungle fell further behind day by day, and when the battle for Henderson Field finally began, one night attack after another broke against the positions of the marines and Army soldiers. On the morning of 25 October a mistaken report that the airfield had been captured reached the fleet; it was later withdrawn. Despite the defeat on land, the fleet remained at sea in the hope of a decisive battle with the American carriers.

Kinkaid’s two carriers

At that point the Americans had little in the Pacific to set against this armada. The Saratoga, torpedoed at the end of August, was under repair, and on 15 September a Japanese submarine had sunk the Wasp. Only the Hornet remained in the South Pacific – the same ship that had carried Doolittle’s bombers in April and fought at Midway in June. The Enterprise, damaged in August in the Battle of the Eastern Solomons, left Pearl Harbor after repairs only in mid-October. On 24 October the two groups joined up north-east of Espiritu Santo as Task Force 61 under Kinkaid, who flew his flag in the Enterprise. The carriers were accompanied by the new battleship South Dakota, heavily armed with anti-aircraft guns. Between them the two carriers had about 170 aircraft.

Overall control lay with Vice Admiral William Halsey in Nouméa, who had taken command of the South Pacific Area a week earlier. Instead of waiting for the Japanese near Guadalcanal, he sent his carriers far to the north, beyond the Santa Cruz Islands, to take the Japanese fleet in the flank.

25 October: a strike into empty sea

At about 11 a.m. on 25 October an American Catalina flying boat from the base in the Santa Cruz Islands spotted the Japanese carriers. They were, however, some 355 nautical miles away, just beyond the range of carrier aircraft. Kinkaid headed towards them at top speed and after 2 p.m. launched 23 aircraft, but the Japanese, knowing they had been spotted, turned north. The American strike returned after dark without finding its target and lost several aircraft in landing accidents.

During the night the two fleets began to close again. At about 3 a.m. on 26 October a radar-equipped reconnaissance Catalina located the Japanese once more, but its report reached Kinkaid more than two hours late. Halsey, following the reports from Nouméa, then sent his commanders a terse order that passed into US Navy legend: “Attack – repeat – attack.” Kinkaid judged the sighting out of date and, instead of launching a strike at once, sent out scouts at dawn.

The morning of 26 October: strikes pass in the air

At 6.45 a.m. an American scout aircraft sighted Nagumo’s carriers; a quarter of an hour later a Japanese scout found the Hornet group. The Japanese were quicker. By 7.40 a.m. a first wave of 64 aircraft had taken off – Aichi D3A dive bombers, Nakajima B5N torpedo bombers and Zero fighters – under Lieutenant Commander Shigeharu Murata, the same man who had led the torpedo bombers over Pearl Harbor. At about the same time two American Dauntless scout bombers from the Enterprise dived unseen on the Zuihō and hit her with both their bombs. The light carrier could no longer recover aircraft. Between 8.10 and 8.40 a.m. the Shōkaku and Zuikaku launched a second wave, led by Lieutenant Commander Mamoru Seki. More than a hundred Japanese aircraft were flying towards the American carriers.

The Americans were about twenty minutes behind. Lacking the fuel for a lengthy form-up, their aircraft set off in three small groups, one after another. At about 8.40 a.m. the two strikes passed each other in the air, and fighters from the Zuihō fell on the Enterprise group, shooting down several aircraft, including that of the air group commander. The first group from the Hornet, led by Lieutenant Commander William Widhelm, did reach Nagumo’s force, however. At 9.27 a.m. its dive bombers, attacking without fighter cover, hit the Shōkaku with three to six bombs. Her flight deck was reduced to wreckage, and Nagumo’s flagship was out of the war for many months. The other American groups failed to find the carriers and attacked Abe’s ships instead: the heavy cruiser Chikuma took several hits and had to turn back to Truk.

The death of the Hornet

At 8.55 a.m. radar detected the incoming Japanese aircraft. There were 37 Wildcat fighters in the air, but fighter direction failed: inexperienced fighter-direction officers and crowded radio channels meant that only a few of them intercepted the attackers before they struck. The Enterprise happened to be hidden in a rain squall, so the full weight of the first wave fell on the Hornet. Between 9.10 and 9.20 a.m. the ship was hit by three bombs and two torpedoes, and two burning Japanese aircraft crashed into her, one into the funnel and signal bridge, the other alongside. With her engines stopped and no power, the carrier was engulfed in flames. Murata was killed in the attack; many of his torpedo bombers did not return.

By 10 a.m. the crew, with the help of destroyers, had brought the fires under control. The wounded were transferred to the escorts, and the heavy cruiser Northampton began preparing to take her in tow. This took a long time; only after 2.30 p.m. did the Hornet get under way under tow at five knots.

The attack on the Enterprise

Meanwhile the Enterprise was recovering aircraft from both carriers when, at 9.30 a.m., radar detected the second Japanese wave. Airmen running out of fuel began ditching next to the destroyers. One damaged torpedo bomber came down in the sea beside the destroyer Porter, and moments later the ship was struck by a torpedo – according to most researchers fired accidentally from the sinking American aircraft. The badly damaged Porter had to be sunk by gunfire.

The second Japanese wave, convinced that the Hornet was already sinking, struck the Enterprise group after 10 a.m. Dive bombers hit the carrier with two bombs and dropped a third just alongside. Forty-four men were killed, and the forward aircraft lift jammed in the up position. A quarter of an hour later the torpedo bombers from the Zuikaku arrived. One of them, in flames, crashed into the bow of the destroyer Smith; the explosion of its torpedo and the fire killed 57 sailors. The destroyer’s captain steered her into the wake of the South Dakota, which helped put out the fire, and the Smith returned to the formation, firing with her surviving guns. The Enterprise evaded every torpedo with skilful manoeuvring. The anti-aircraft fire of the force, especially that of the battleship South Dakota, was so dense that more than half of Seki’s nineteen dive bombers were lost, including their leader.

At 11.21 a.m. the strike from the Jun’yō arrived, the carrier having come within attack range together with Kondō’s force. Its bombers again failed to hit the Enterprise, though a near miss further damaged her hull; bombs did, however, strike a gun turret of the South Dakota, wounding among others the battleship’s captain, and the anti-aircraft cruiser San Juan. Kinkaid, with one carrier sunk or crippled and the other damaged, and convinced that the Japanese had at least one untouched carrier, ordered a withdrawal to the south-east at 11.35 a.m. The Enterprise managed to recover 57 of the 73 aircraft that were airborne; the rest ditched beside the escorts, and their crews were picked up.

The Hornet’s last hours

The Japanese still had two operational carriers – the Zuikaku and the Jun’yō – and launched further strikes, this time against the lone Hornet under tow. At 3.20 p.m. torpedo bombers from the Jun’yō arrived; one torpedo struck the carrier amidships, undoing the repairs to her electrical systems and giving her a list of more than ten degrees. Captain Charles Mason ordered her abandoned; by 4.30 p.m. the destroyers had taken off her crew. Strikes from the Zuikaku and again from the Jun’yō hit the sinking hulk with two more bombs.

Halsey, informed that towing was impossible and that the Japanese fleet was approaching, ordered the Hornet to be sunk. The destroyers Mustin and Anderson fired several torpedoes and more than 400 shells into her, but the carrier, ablaze from stem to stern, still did not capsize. With the Japanese ships already close, the destroyers withdrew at about 8.40 p.m. Late in the evening Kondō’s and Abe’s forces reached the scene. The Japanese reportedly considered taking the wreck in tow as a prize but judged it impossible; the destroyers Makigumo and Akigumo finished her off with four torpedoes. The Hornet sank at 1.35 a.m. on 27 October. She was the last large American fleet carrier (not counting light and escort carriers) sunk by the enemy in the war. The Japanese ships pursued the retreating Americans for a while, but given the enemy’s head start, night attacks by Catalinas and their dwindling fuel they turned back; by 30 October the fleet was back at Truk.

The balance

Both sides claimed victory and both overestimated the enemy’s losses. The Japanese reported sinking three American carriers, a battleship and several other ships; the Americans were convinced they had hit two large carriers, a battleship and several cruisers. In reality the Americans lost the carrier Hornet and the destroyer Porter, while the Enterprise, South Dakota, San Juan and Smith were damaged. The Japanese did not lose a single ship, but the Shōkaku and Zuihō had to return to Japan for lengthy repairs and the Chikuma to Truk. According to the estimates usually cited, about 260 Americans and some 400–500 Japanese were killed.

The real reckoning of the battle, however, concerned the airmen. The Americans lost 81 of their 175 aircraft but only 26 pilots and aircrew, because most of those shot down or ditched were picked up. The Japanese, according to tallies based on their own records, lost 99 of about 200 aircraft and 148 pilots and aircrew – more than in the Coral Sea (90), at Midway (110) or in the Eastern Solomons (61). The leaders of both morning waves, Murata and Seki, were killed, along with, in all, two dive-bomber group leaders, three torpedo squadron leaders and a dozen or more leaders of smaller units. Nearly half the crews of the Japanese torpedo bombers that took part in the battle were killed. After the four carrier battles of 1942, at least 409 of the 765 elite carrier airmen who had taken part in the attack on Pearl Harbor were dead. Japan, with its narrow training system and no trained reserves, had no one to replace them. Masatake Okumiya, air staff officer of the Jun’yō, recalled watching for the returning aircraft after the morning attacks: few came back, each riddled with bullets, and the only surviving bomber leader was so shaken that at times he could not speak.

On the American side the situation was very difficult. In the whole Pacific only two fleet carriers remained: the damaged Enterprise and the Saratoga, still under repair. In the South Pacific the Enterprise was the only carrier left – as she withdrew, her crew hung a sign on deck reading “Enterprise vs Japan”. Patched up in Nouméa, with a defective lift and repair crews still on board, she put to sea again after only two weeks.

Place in the war

Santa Cruz was the last tactical victory of the Japanese carriers. The Japanese were left masters of the battlefield, sank more ships and had more operational aircraft, but the battle was fought at a moment when the land offensive on Guadalcanal had already failed – there was nothing to exploit. Nagumo, who won his last victory in it, admitted that it was a tactical win but a “crushing strategic defeat”, because in the face of American industrial superiority Japan needed to win every battle overwhelmingly. In November he was moved to a shore command. The American historian Eric Hammel summed it up: Santa Cruz was a Japanese victory, and that victory cost Japan its last, best chance of winning the war. Others, such as John Prados, argue that the battle should be judged separately from the campaign – and on that view it was a clear Japanese success, leaving Japan for several weeks the only side with operational carriers in the Pacific.

For the rest of the fighting for Guadalcanal the Japanese carriers practically never returned to those waters: the Zuikaku, without airmen, was sent back to Japan, and only the Jun’yō remained in the area. From then on both sides had to rely on battleships and cruisers in night actions, and the fate of the island was decided in mid-November by the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, in which aircraft from Henderson Field and from the repaired Enterprise sank most of the Japanese reinforcement convoy. Japanese carrier aviation spent the whole of 1943 rebuilding; when it again entered a major battle, in the Philippine Sea in June 1944, its young, poorly trained airmen fell in droves. The Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands, like Midway, showed that in carrier warfare what counts is not only the hulls sunk but above all the men who cannot quickly be replaced.