Man-Oh-Man I have been watching a multi-part video series on Youtube The navy battle has been an Amateur Night. "Comedy" Show. I am not making fun of anybody, just a descriptive. But what a bummer. Somewhat analogous to what The US Army went through in North Africa i suppose. Most troops were new...not stupid or cowardly... just inexperienced. A lot of Commanders/Officers were still fighting WW1 tactics.....then again, in their defense, RADAR and Aircraft Carriers were rather new things. Some ships had vastly Better or Worse RADAR than others, and it seems many commanders really did not understand the technology all that well. NOBODY had fought WW2 yet. Communication between planes and ships was awful. Scout planes often gave vague messages that were never updated. Admirals gave orders like......Northern half of attack-force fire East and Southern half fire West..... but many of the ships had no idea what half of the force they were in. It was an unmitigated mess. The USA had NO Idea...or just could not admit...how excellent and far-ranging Japanese torpedoes were. Much of The US Navy was very inexperienced, and i am sure they were learning fast. Trial by fire i suppose. The Japanese had problems of their own as well. I really had no idea how close the USA Navy came to being "Defeated" at Guadalcanal. The Cruisers and Destroyers seemed to be struggling the most.
You will have to look through his list, but they all have "Guadalcanal" in the title. https://www.youtube.com/c/Drachinifel/videos
Samuel Eliot Morison can answer all of your questions including night fighting radar and the long lance
I remember reading some years ago about the Guadalcanal campaign and was particularly interested how the US forces held on the what became known as Henderson Field. One aspect was how the groundcrew were under continual fire from Japanese forces who got to, at times, to the perimeter of the airfield while the ground crew under fire prepared their aircraft for their aircrew to mount counter strikes. This paper gives an insight to the campaign generally but also gives an in depth account of the defence of Henderson Field, an airfield which vital to hold to ensure that the Japanese did not have the Solomon Islands as the capability to strike further south in the Pacific. https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA600662.pdf Holding out on Henderson Field, Guadalcanal – World War II Today .
This surprised me: Over time, the Cactus Air Force adopted hit-and-run tactics.43 They dove at steep angles of attack and strafed Japanese bomber formations perpendicular to their axis of approach. This technique minimized US exposure to Japanese fire and produced good results.44 US pilots only selectively engaged in dogfights early in the defense of Henderson Field, but Lieutenant Colonel Joe, Bauer changed this philosophy on October 23, when he told his men, "when you see Zeros, Dogfight 'em."45 That is really fighting the others guy's fight. The Wildcats could handle Zeros pretty handily when they kept their speed and altitude up. The Japanese pilots' philosophy was attack, attack, attack. The Americans countered with tactics, teamwork and radios. I'm a little ashamed to say I wasn't surprised to see that Col Bauer was shot down in 1942. He was awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously Harold W. Bauer - Wikipedia
Many myths have been debunked surrounding the naval battles of Guadalcanal since Samuel Eliot Morison's landmark history of the naval campaign was published in 1949 as part of his series, History of United States Naval Operations in World War II. I will do a subsequent post soon addressing some of the myths. A recent book bringing to light the latest research on the topic is, Learning War: The Evolution of Fighting Doctrine in the U.S. Navy, 1898–1945 by Trent Hone. The late James Hornfischer's Neptune's Inferno: The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal is also highly recommended. The most recent issue of Naval History Magazine focused on the naval battles of Guadalcanal and the greater Solomons Campaign and featured two well-researched and well-written articles (one of which by Trent Hone) which are currently available to read for free on the US Naval Institute website: Guadalcanal Quintet by Trent Hone Reversal of Fortune by Captain James P. McGrath III (USN retired) I have been to Guadalcanal many times, the Guadalcanal Campaign (and the entire Solomons Campaign) is the area of the war I specialize in, and I actually lead tours to the battlefields there. The attached photograph will be of interest to readers of this thread. The view is from atop Hill 73 on Guadalcanal looking towards Savo Island. This area of water off the north coast of Guadalcanal is a war cemetery just as hallowed and sacred as any CWGC and ABMC cemetery. The Sealark Channel, or Iron Bottom Bay as it was commonly called during the war (today universally known as Ironbottom Sound) because of the dozens of Allied and Japanese ships and aircraft sunk there during the campaign, is the final resting place of thousands. Some of the naval battles of the campaign took place across great distances away from Guadalcanal, such as the Battle of the Eastern Solomons and Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands, but the vast majority of the actions happened at very close-range in a small area close to Guadalcanal - in the waters between Savo and Guadalcanal (the area in the attached photograph) - hence why this area was given the nickname, Iron Botton Bay. Most people are quite shocked to learn how small of an area and how close to shore many of the naval battles occurred. Most people after reading the books tend to envision these battles happening across wide swaths of ocean like a lot of the other naval actions of the Second World War. If you have seen HBO's The Pacific, the scene showing the Marines up on a hill having a front-row seat to and watching the Battle of Savo Island was very well-done and accurately depicted, and my photograph is from similar vantage point.
