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Naval battle of the Pacific Campaign of World War II

The Battle of Savo Island, also known as the First Battle of Savo Island and in Japanese sources as the First Battle of the Solomon Sea (第一次ソロモン海戦, Dai-ichi-ji Soromon Kaisen), and colloquially among Allied Guadalcanal veterans as the Battle of the Five Sitting Ducks, was a naval battle of the Solomon Islands campaign of the Pacific War of World War II between the Imperial Japanese Navy and Allied naval forces. The battle took place on 8–9 August 1942 and was the first major naval engagement of the Guadalcanal campaign and the first of several naval battles in the straits later named Ironbottom Sound, near the island of Guadalcanal.

The Imperial Japanese Navy, in response to Allied amphibious landings in the eastern Solomon Islands, mobilized a task force of seven cruisers and one destroyer under the command of Vice AdmiralGunichi Mikawa. The task forces sailed from Japanese bases in New Britain and New Ireland down New Georgia Sound (also known as "The Slot") with the intention of interrupting the Allied landings by attacking the supporting amphibious fleet and its screening force. The Allied screen consisted of eight cruisers and fifteen destroyers under Rear AdmiralVictor Crutchley, but only five cruisers and seven destroyers were involved in the battle. In a night action, Mikawa thoroughly surprised and routed the Allied force, sinking one Australian and three American cruisers, while suffering only light damage in return. Rear Admiral Samuel J. Cox, director of the Naval History and Heritage Command, considers this battle and the Battle of Tassafaronga to be two of the worst defeats in U.S. naval history, with only the attack on Pearl Harbor being worse.

After the initial engagement, Mikawa, fearing Allied carrier strikes against his fleet in daylight, decided to withdraw under cover of night rather than attempt to l

Beginning in the 1920s, Japanese naval planners were envisioning a scenario for war with the United States that would require “attrition operations,” historian Ian Toll wrote in “The Conquering Tide.”

In 1942, in response to the American amphibious landings in the eastern Solomon Islands on August 7, plans were hatched by Japanese Admiral Gunichi Mikawa for a nighttime raid into Savo Sound with the goal of destroying the vulnerable American transports and cargo ships screening the Allied landing force.

Throughout the night and early morning of August 8 and 9, the Japanese column slipped into the channel between Savo and Guadalcanal undetected. By 1:31 a.m., Mikawa issued a signal. “Every ship attack.”

Among those battered awake by 5- and 8-inch shells was 19-year-old Navy Signalman 3rd Class Elgin Staples of Akron, Ohio, aboard the New Orleans-class cruiser USS Astoria.

“Peppered along her length by 25mm machine-gun fire … One heavy projective struck the barbette of turret No. 1, knocking the weapon out of action and killing all personnel in the area,” Toll wrote. “Another slammed home in the No. 1 fireroom, and a third stuck a kerosene tank on the starboard side amidships, spilling blazing fuel across the well deck.”

Swept into the air and out to sea from the concussive blasts, Staples found himself dazed, wounded by shrapnel to his legs, but alive — thanks to the M1926 inflatable rubber life belt strapped around his waist.

“I began treading water, trying to stay calm as I felt things brushing against my legs, knowing that if a shark attacked me, any moment could be my last,” he later wrote. “And the sharks weren’t the only danger: The powerful current threatened to sweep me out to sea.”

Rescued nearly four hours later by the destroyer USS Bagley (DD-386), Staples and other survivors were ordered to return and try to salvage the heavily damaged Astoria, which was now attempti

Gunichi Mikawa (29 August 1888 – 25 February 1981) was a Vice-Admiral of the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War II, leading the Japanese 8th Fleet.

Biography[]

Gunichi Mikawa was born on 29 August 1888 in Hiroshima, Japan. Mikawa joined the Imperial Japanese Navy in 1910 and rose to the rank of Vice-Admiral by 1940, and in 1941 he took part in the Attack on Pearl Harbor as the commander of the Support Force. Mikawa then took charge of the Japanese 8th Fleet based at Rabaul in the Southweest Pacific, and his fleet became embroiled in a number of naval battles off Guadalcanal in 1942, including the victroy at the Battle of Savo Island. He was later based in the Philippines in command of both air and naval forces, and after the Battle of Leyte Gulf in 1944 he was reassigned to shore duty. He retired in May 1945 and lived a quiet life until dying at the age of 92 in 1981.