EARLY ON THE MORNING of November 15, four transports arrived at Espiritu Santo with wounded sailors and marines from Guadalcanal. One of the transports, the President Jackson, carried seven seriously burned men from the San Francisco who did not survive the trip. Admiral Turner’s McCawley was among this newly arrived group, too. Shortly after his arrival, he sent an aide to summon the acting commander of the San Francisco. Lieutenant Commander Schonland took the Helena’s motor whaleboat to the McCawley and was met at the gangway by Turner’s flag lieutenant, who promptly told Schonland that his superior wanted to see not him, but the officer who was on the San Francisco’s bridge during the battle. The boat returned to the cruiser and came back with McCandless, who met with Turner and tendered his report.
The San Francisco continued to Nouméa, where Admiral Halsey came aboard to inspect the damage and give tribute to his men. Schonland met him at the top of the gangway. The damage-control officer must have recovered some of the pride he had lost after Kelly Turner’s rebuff when Halsey gripped him by the shoulders and said, “Men like you, Schonland, are going to win this war.”
Chick Morris, the young officer from the Helena, went into Nouméa town, “a quaint place, small and very French, but to us it was a metropolis,” he wrote. “We did the shops, where under the Cross of Lorraine, the insignia of the Free French Government, you could buy almost anything American. We strolled past little movie houses. But what we wanted most was to look at the flowers and the small French houses with their tiny backyard gardens. And so before long we were outside the town proper and climbing a hill that overlooked the harbor.
“It was damned good to be walking on solid ground again. You went slowly, appreciating every step, almost tasting the earth with your feet through the soles of your shoes. All those days, weeks, months of ocean, and now something brown and firm that you could pick up in your fingers and look at—that you could feel and smell. And because it wouldn’t last, you have the most aching desire to keep walking, walking, walking, just to feel it under your feet.
“The flowers were lovely. The little cottages with their gay little yards were lovely. The sun and the warmth and even the sight of the sea from the top of the hill were lovely. We soaked it up in silence.”
Morris thought of a girl in Boston and his folks in New Hampshire. He then found a small Catholic church high on a hilltop. He wasn’t a deeply religious man, but as he studied how the sun played on an old stained-glass window, he was moved to go inside.
The sanctuary was dimly lit, barely revealing the cobwebs in the hand-hewn wooden rafters. The basso tones of an old wheezing organ gently vibrated in the floor. An old lady knelt praying at the altar, where candles burned. Morris took a seat in a pew and lost track of time. “Down below in the harbor our ship lay quietly at anchor after slugging her way through a large part of the Japanese fleet, and we owed it to her and ourselves, I felt, to kneel for a moment and say thanks.
“How long I stayed there I don’t remember. Not long, probably. I prayed, I think. I knelt and thought of guns thundering in the dark, of ships burning and men shouting as they leaped into the oily water. A prayer of thanks and gratitude was hidden somewhere in those thoughts, if not put into words. And I was on my knees, whether praying or not, when I became aware of the sunlight again.
“The sun had fingered a row of windows which before had been in darkness, and now in bright golden bars it filled the church with warmth and light. I looked up at the windows, and one in particular held my attention. You looked at it because you had to—because in a strange way it beckoned.” From where Morris sat, “the streaming sunlight clearly illuminated the inscription on the glass, beneath a haloed figure whose face and outstretched hands shimmered with light. It read: ‘St. Helena.’ ”
MEN LIKE THIS WOULD win the war, and Admiral Halsey appreciated it. But as he reviewed the circumstances of the Juneau’s loss, he found his anger rising: Why hadn’t Captain Hoover stopped to rescue survivors? Halsey was arriving at some severe conclusions about the Helena skipper’s suitability to command. He ordered him to report to his headquarters.
Hoover’s decorations included two Navy Crosses, with a third (a second gold star) to follow after the events of Friday the thirteenth were duly considered. His destroyers had braved massive explosions at Coral Sea to save survivors of the sinking Lexington. His ship had been instrumental in two naval victories. But when Halsey got wind of what had happened, not even the sympathy and concurrence of Admiral Nimitz himself would save him.
“Despite this officer’s magnificent combat record … I questioned him very thoroughly in the presence of Miles Browning and a VA [vice admiral] and my opinion that he had made an error in judgment was strengthened. I later visited his ship and thought I sensed a deterioration of morale. I called a conference of a VA and RA [rear admiral] and my chief of staff and discussed this matter. They concurred in the opinion I had formed, in that this cruiser skipper was no longer fit for command in his then condition. I accordingly detached him from his ship and ordered him to report to CinCPac.”
So wrote Halsey in a manuscript draft of his memoirs, at least. In the eventual published version, he took less ownership of this decision. In the revised and published account, it was no longer he who interrogated Hoover. That job fell to his advisers—Jake Fitch, Kelly Turner, and Bill Calhoun, he said. They determined that Hoover had done wrong and recommended his detachment. “Reluctantly, I concurred,” Halsey wrote. “I felt that the strain of prolonged combat had impaired his judgment; that guts alone were keeping him going; and that his present condition was dangerous to himself and to his splendid ship. In this conviction, I detached him with orders to CINCPAC.”
But the difference between draft and publication is interesting as an illustration either of the state of Halsey’s memory, of the genuineness of his regret, or of his candor regarding his approach to leadership. The sympathetic concern Halsey professed for the captain’s well-being was not borne out by the severity of his remedy. Halsey would regret that remedy soon enough.
WHEN THE JUNEAU’S LAST RAFT was finally located on the open sea, it contained but a single survivor, Allen Heyn. He was built like a weight lifter, a strapping young man with a broad face and black hair and a gap between his front teeth. Brought aboard the seaplane tender Ballard, he didn’t need long to regain his senses and tell his grim story, though a shark had done its best to remove all witnesses, taking a fist-sized bite out of his left buttock. Three more survivors, Joseph Hartney, Victor James Fitzgerald, and Lieutenant (j.g.) Charles Wang, found by a seaplane, had the good fortune to reach San Cristobál under propulsion of a heavy squall that had foiled several attempts by Catalina flying boats to land and retrieve them.
With Wang severely wounded and delirious, Hartney and Fitzgerald had sustained themselves with good seamanship, by singing Irish folk songs, and by the imperative to tend faithfully to their gravely wounded shipmate. When their raft entered a lagoon on San Cristobál, they scarcely had the strength to paddle ashore. At ebb tide they grounded themselves on a coral ledge, and slept. When they awoke, the tide was carrying them the rest of the way in, and on the white sand beach where they landed was a freshwater stream that literally saved their lives. Found by natives, they passed into the care of a German-born copra planter who had no love for the Japanese.
On the nineteenth, a Catalina pilot reported ten men in a raft at 11–13 South, 11–59 East. Several ships were sent for them, and six men were rescued from rafts that originally held thirty. The final tally of Juneau survivors stood at ten after the sinking, not including O’Neil and the three corpsmen transferred to the San Francisco. Killed or forever missing were 683 men of a crew of almost seven hundred. As a Navy Department official would explain to a bereaved relative, “Efforts consistent with the paramount tactical necessities of the time were made to rescue as many survivors as possible. That these efforts were not successful in the case of many gallant officers and men is deeply regretted by the Nav
y.”
FOR THE JAPANESE, it was becoming increasingly clear that Guadalcanal had become their Stalingrad. That was the opinion of Matome Ugaki, and though all such comparisons are inexact, there was no denying that in their zeal to advance the Japanese had stretched themselves beyond the nourishment of their supply train and exposed themselves against an enemy who was proving to be absolutely implacable in defense. The extent of the disaster of the previous two nights was now in full view.
When Kondo’s procession of cripples returned to Truk harbor on November 17, Ugaki was watching from the decks of the Yamato. “It was lonely indeed that we couldn’t see Hiei and Kirishima among them,” he wrote in his diary. When Hiroaki Abe came on board the Yamato, he looked crestfallen. With a bandage swathing his lower jaw, he sorrowfully reported the loss of two ships. As Ugaki saw it, “He seemed to suffer especially for his sunken Hiei. He even confided that he thought he would have been better to have gone down with Hiei. I can well appreciate how he felt.” A fiction, however, was concocted to keep spirits up. “Morale was lifted as it became almost certain, as a result of an investigation conducted by the advance force, that two or three enemy battleships had been sunk,” Ugaki wrote in his diary. For the first time, a pattern was set: The proud IJN was reduced to consoling itself with fantasy. Ashore, the marines would learn that their Japanese opponents had been informed that New York and San Francisco had fallen to Japanese invasion forces.
The Juneau’s survivors were still fighting the descent into madness at sea when Kelly Turner wrote Halsey to recommend a posthumous Medal of Honor for Dan Callaghan, who “by his daring, determination and tactical brilliance prevented [the Japanese] from accomplishing their mission.” Turner wanted the slain admiral decorated “for distinguishing himself conspicuously by gallantry and intrepidity at the risk and cost of his life above and beyond the call of duty.” Similar recommendations, duly acted on in time, were made for Bruce McCandless and Herbert Schonland for bringing the San Francisco through the maelstrom that night. Turner wrote that “THE BEHAVIOR OF THE SHIP’S COMPANY IS BEYOND PRAISE, NOT ONLY FOR BRAVERY BUT ALSO FOR EFFECTIVENESS. FOR FIGHTING THEIR SHIP WELL AND EFFECTIVELY, FOR BRAVERY BEYOND THE CALL OF DUTY. AND FOR OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE IN ACTION ON NOVEMBER 12–13, I RECOMMEND THAT THE SAN FRANCISCO BE THE FIRST VESSEL IN THE NAVY TO RECEIVE THE CITATION ANNOUNCED BY ALNAV 2381 FOR OUTSTANDING SHIP.”
Navy Secretary Frank Knox wrote to Halsey two days later, “sPEAKING FOR THE NAVY AS A WHOLE, I WANT TO EXPRESS TO YOU THE FEELING OF PRIDE AND SATISFACTION THE ENTIRE SERVICE FEELS IN THE GREAT VICTORY WON BY YOU AND YOUR MEN.… ” Halsey replied, “MY DEEP THANKS FOR YOUR INSPIRING MESSAGE. I AM PASSING IT ON TO THE HEROIC MEN WHO DID OUR FIGHTING. sOPAC OFFICERS AND MEN OF THE ARMY, NAVY AND MARINE CORPS RECOGNIZE NO DIVISION INTO SEPARATE SERVICES. WE ARE ALL IN THE UNITED sTATES SERVICE HERE. AS COMMANDER OF THAT SERVICE IN THIS AREA I GRATEFULLY ACCEPT YOUR TRIBUTE TO ITS HEROES WITH A SENSE OF HUMILITY FOR MYSELF AND GREAT PRIDE FOR THEM.”
Nimitz wrote, “wE HAVE ADMIRATION BEYOND EXPRESSION FOR THE UNSWERVING OFFENSIVE SPIRIT OF YOUR FIGHTING FORCES AND THEIR ABILITY TO STRIKE DOWN THE ENEMY WHILE ABSORBING HIS BLOWS. wE REGRET DEEPLY THE LOSSES YOU HAD TO TAKE BUT THEY WERE GLORIOUSLY NOT IN VAIN.” For the marines on the ’Canal, Frank Jack Fletcher’s decision to withdraw the carriers seemed a lifetime ago. The Marine Corps’ final verdict on the fighting Navy’s importance to the campaign was rendered by the general who stood with his men since the first landings, Archie Vandegrift. “wE BELIEVE THE ENEMY HAS SUFFERED A CRUSHING DEFEAT. wE THANK LEE FOR HIS STURDY EFFORT LAST NIGHT. WE THANK KINCAID [SIC] FOR HIS INTERVENTION YESTERDAY. OUR OWN AIRCRAFT HAVE BEEN GRAND IN ITS RELENTLESS POUNDING OF THE FOE. THOSE EFFORTS WE APPRECIATE BUT OUR GREATEST HOMAGE GOES TO SCOTT, CALLAGHAN AND THEIR MEN WHO WITH MAGNIFICENT COURAGE AGAINST SEEMINGLY HOPELESS ODDS DROVE BACK THE FIRST HOSTILE STROKE AND MADE SUCCESS POSSIBLE. TO THEM THE MEN OF CACTUS LIFT THEIR BATTERED HELMETS IN DEEPEST ADMIRATION.” The Navy had earned nothing less. When it was all said and done at Guadalcanal, three sailors would die at sea for every infantryman who fell ashore.
In a speech to the New York Herald Tribune Forum on November 17, President Roosevelt lamented the loss of his former naval aide Dan Callaghan. “During the past two weeks,” FDR said, “we have had a great deal of good news and it would seem that the turning point in this war has at last been reached.”
On the nineteenth, Major General Alexander M. Patch, the commander of the U.S. Army’s Americal Division and the successor to General Vandegrift, arrived on Guadalcanal and delivered the best gift the 1st Marine Division ever received during their tenure in the South Pacific: the news that their tour of duty was near an end.
1 “ALL NAVY” BULLETIN.
39
On the Spot
ON BOARD THE SAN FRANCISCO, HALSEY DECORATED MANY OF THE crew who had distinguished themselves, Jack Bennett among them. As the lieutenant junior grade’s name was called, Halsey said into the standing mike, “Step closer, son.” The words reverberated through the public-address system. When Halsey fixed the Navy Cross onto his shirt, its sharp pin stuck into Bennett’s flesh, and Bennett was keenly aware of the microphone inches from his mouth. “I knew that any sound of pain I uttered would also boom out over the speakers,” Bennett wrote. “I was already scared and now I had to grit my teeth and remain silent as the admiral continued trying to close the clasp, finally giving up when he saw the blood seeping through my shirt.”
The repair supervisors at Nouméa, determining that the Sterett needed structural work, made plans to send her back to Pearl. “No sooner had the repair team left,” Cal Calhoun wrote, “than we were told that Admiral Halsey himself was coming aboard to inspect our damage.” No one could have failed to recognize the bushy eyebrows, the strong chin, or the direct gaze that bespoke confidence and strength. “He shook hands with each of us,” Calhoun wrote, “and asked to be shown all of our battle damage.” Halsey listened intently as Captain Coward cataloged the cost, human and material, extracted by each hit. “From time to time he simply shook his head as we described events,” Lieutenant Calhoun wrote. By the end of the briefing, Halsey had tears in his eyes. In a low voice, he told Coward and his senior officers how proud he was of them.
“I wish I could recall his exact words,” Calhoun wrote, “but I do remember some of his thoughts—he regretted that he had to send destroyers against battleships but was sure that the small ships would do their utmost; he was amazed that any destroyer could absorb eleven shell hits (three of which were fourteen-inch projectiles) and still steam away from the action under her own power; he was profoundly moved by the many stories of heroism, and by the mute but eloquent evidence of punishment and sacrifice that was apparent at every turn as he toured the ship. Finally he thanked us, with a sincerity that added a special quality to his words, and said, ‘God bless you!’ We stood there filled with admiration, respect, and pride and watched him climb into a waiting jeep and drive off. It was an unforgettable, once-in-a-lifetime occasion. To those of us who witnessed it, Admiral Halsey’s name will always lead the list of inspirational combat leaders of World War II.”
ON NOVEMBER 22, Admiral Halsey shared his thinking with Nimitz concerning his decision to relieve Gil Hoover:
After analysis of the situation presented, I consider that the commanding officer, Helena, senior officer present in the task group, committed a serious and costly error in the action which he took; specifically:
a) He should have made radio report of the torpedoing at once. Radio silence, as a measure of concealment, had ceased to be effective since the enemy was in contact. Only positive action to keep him submerged could be expected to delay his report.
b) He should have instituted offensive action, together with, or closely followed by, rescue operations, utilizing at least one of his destroyers.
His failure to take prompt action on the above lines was further aggravated by lack of any follow-up to insure that senior commands
were informed of the Juneau’s loss. Commander South Pacific was first apprised of this fact as a result of his own inquiry into Juneau’s status when she was not included in the arrival report of the group.
…
In view of the above circumstances, I have this date relieved Captain G. C. Hoover of his command of the USS Helena, and ordered him by dispatch to proceed by the first available government air transportation and report to Commander-in-Chief for reassignment.
Canny, cautious, and discerning, Admiral Spruance picked up on an assumption that underlay Halsey’s censure—that Hoover had had the means at hand to attack the enemy submarine. He asked Hoover for comment, asking specifically whether his two destroyers had functioning sonar systems. Hoover conceded that both the Fletcher and Sterett had working sound gear, though the latter was badly damaged. He added that he felt the need to bring damaged ships safely home outweighed the uncertain gain of searching for survivors of a vessel that had exploded so violently. Hoover emphasized the dangerous nature of the waters he was transiting, pointing to the dispatch the Juneau sent him that morning, notifying him of the threat of enemy aircraft and urging him to ask for prompt support from the Enterprise task force. He mentioned that neither the Helena nor the San Francisco had planes on board to hunt submarines.
But the merits of arguments no longer mattered. The fix was in. According to Bin Cochran of the Helena, the brawling and ill-tempered Captain Miles Browning, Halsey’s chief of staff, had argued fiercely for Hoover’s relief and later bragged about having Hoover sacked. Cochran, like most of his shipmates, held Hoover in high esteem for the coolheaded manner in which he had led the ship through two ferocious actions. Browning impressed people less.