Once the Japanese found American marines had invaded Guadalcanal they began a fierce campaign to dislodge them from the island. The Imperial Japanese Navy’s role in this effort was to destroy the enemy’s landing force and supply the Japanese army units fighting not only the Americans, but also the jungle.

Vice Admiral Gunichi Mikawa led the first major attempt (Japanese army and naval aircraft had struck first but they lacked the numbers and firepower to drive off the Americans), from Rabaul on August 7, 1942.  In late afternoon the heavy cruiser Chokai (flying Mikawa’s flag) leading light cruisers Tenryu and Yubari, and the destroyer Yunagi, sailed out of Simpson Harbor. Four hours later they rendezvoused with Cruiser Division 6, increasing the task force by an additional four heavy cruisers.

The three allied forces (Australian and American) guarding the waters around Savo were, combined, on paper, more powerful than the Japanese task force that approached the area that would soon be known as Iron Bottom Bay (or Iron Bottom Sound.) The Northern Force, closest to Florida, consisted of three heavy cruisers and three destroyers. The Southern Force, just off the Canal, had a similar complement. The Eastern Force, which would not be involved in the engagement, consisted of two cruisers and two destroyers. The heavy cruisers mounted 8 and 5-inch guns in a variety of complements, depending on the class and nationality. The destroyers, an all-American show, carried 5-inch guns and an array of torpedoes. The Americans also had the advantage of radar although it, and its potential, were fairly new to the sailors using this wondrous weapon, so while it gave them the capability to see over the horizon, it was still an imperfect instrument.  What the Japanese brought to the engagement was a startling, and very successful, introduction to the Long Lance torpedo.

This was not the name that the Imperial Japanese Navy gave this deadly weapon; that title, ironically, came from noted naval historian Samuel Eliot Morrison. The Long Lance was a brute, a 24” diameter at its bulbous nose, nearly 30 feet long; it weighed almost 3 tons and carried an explosive payload a shade over half-a-ton. It was described as “the most lethal torpedo in the world.” Later versions saw the Type 93 modified to carry a human pilot—the Kaiten manned torpedo, but for now this unconventional torpedo was going to be used in a most conventional way: to sink enemy ships. While most torpedoes were driven by compressed air, a means of propulsion that left a bubbly trail right back to the sender, the Type 93 used compressed oxygen. Air is only about 21% oxygen and is inert. Oxygen can be explosive. It was discovered after a series of tests that if the Type 93 started its engine with compressed air and then switched over to oxygen, the likelihood of explosion as the torpedo was launched was greatly reduced. Its speed, when launched, was phenomenal—the Type 93 could travel about twelve miles at top speed, 49 knots or approximately 25 miles at 36 knots. Both American and British torpedoes were smaller, slower and had only the fraction of the range. Torpedoes used by the U.S. Navy the first two years of the war were unreliable; the exploder and depth regulating mechanism often failed to function as designed. The Americans had decided that torpedo tubes aboard anything larger than a destroyer were a waste of space and armament so only the smaller vessels carried torpedo tubes. At one time, as unlikely as it seems, even some battleships had underwater tubes but then the sight of big guns swinging into action dazzled the navy brass, and they were removed.

Every Imperial Japanese Navy vessel that steamed to meet the combined fleet in the darkness around Savo Island carried torpedoes. Not all were Long Lance because these monsters required special tubes and other equipment and at least two of the vessels, the Tenryu and the Yunagi, were as yet unfitted. But 52 of the 62 torpedo tubes aboard the Japanese vessels carried the Long Lance. A weapon, any weapon, no matter how much potential it promised is only as good as the warriors that employ it, and unfortunately for the crews of the H.M.A.S. Canberra, U.S.S. Quincy, U.S.S. Vincennes, and U.S.S. Astoria, the Japanese sailors were very, very good.

Before the war, the Japanese navy had practiced night fighting religiously. They had also conducted aggressive maneuvers in severe weather that resulted in the loss of men but reinforced the ability to fight in a coordinated fashion regardless of the circumstance. Japanese optics were substantially better than American, as were Japanese star shells, which illuminated enemy ships at night. In comparison during the Battle of Savo Island, only six of the forty-four star shells fired by American vessels worked. The Japanese also used searchlights to their fullest advantage, sometimes blinding the crews of opposing ships. The tactic when approaching an enemy force at night was simple; get within torpedo range, utilize these weapons first, and then engage with guns.

In the early morning of August 9, 1942 the stage was set in the waters around Savo Island. At 0043, the U.S.S. Blue, a Craven Class DD, was spotted by the lookouts on the lead Japanese ship, the Chokai. Mikawa ordered a course adjustment, and the Japanese fleet slipped between the Blue and the U.S.S. Ralph Talbot. Minutes later Mikawa was notified that there were enemy ships south of Savo Island. The Americans and Australians are not aware of the enemy’s approach. Mikawa ordered torpedoes and independent fire as the Japanese closed on the unsuspecting combined fleet at 1,400 yards a minute.  Captain Toshikazu Ohme remembered the action. “Soon after we passed around Savo Island, we sighted your southern force of cruisers. About two minutes after sighting we fired torpedoes and then opened with guns.” It was the Imperial Navy’s classic tactic, and it worked splendidly that day.

Two torpedoes struck H.M.A.S. Canberra and shells destroyed her bridge, killing or wounding everyone at their station. She was out of the fight before having time to get into the fight. U.S.S. Patterson was trapped by enemy searchlights and struck several times. U.S.S. Chicago, a Northampton Class heavy cruiser, had a portion of her bow blown off by a Long Lance. After six minutes, Mikawa turned on the Northern Force, who, inexplicably had not been warned of the enemy’s approach.

Astoria found out the hard way, falling not to the torpedoes of the enemy but gunfire. Set on fire, she became a beacon for every Japanese gun close enough to get a shot in. U.S.S. Quincy was next, dealt a lethal blow from a combination of torpedoes and shellfire. She managed to get off nearly two-dozen rounds but only one of these was telling, striking Chokai’s operations room.

Vincennes soon found herself the object of the enemy fleet. She was just to starboard of the burning Quincy when two torpedoes struck her.  And then the shells came.  “We were heavily hit,” Captain Frederick Riefkohl of the Vincennes reported. “Shells landed all around the bridge. The barrage continued as we turned, then as we swung right with the torpedo hits, an additional one or possibly two, struck at the same time, and all power went off the ship.”

By 0240 it was over. Mikawa ordered a withdrawal. The Chokai had been roughly handled as well as the Tenryu (she would be torpedoed the next day and sunk), but the Imperial Japanese Navy had handed the combined forces of the Royal Australian Navy and the United States Navy a defeat. Mikawa could have pushed his way to the virtually undefended landing fleet; but he chose to disengage. That could be identified as a victory of sorts by the allies. In fact, it gave the marines on the Canal a reprieve, and made all the difference in the world to the future of Guadalcanal.