Staggered, Bloodied but Unbowed After the morning’s attacks Enterprise had suffered significant damage, but still able to put up a fight defensively and conduct air ops. The number two elevator, aft most on the flightdeck, was temporarily stuck in the down position, leaving a large, square hole just forward of the arresting gear. Forward, just aft…
Overnight: 25-26 October During the night, crews on the Hornet positioned aircraft on the flightdeck if the prospects of a night strike by moonlight made themselves present. In the meantime, PBY Catalina’s, using the first crude airborne radar sets, continued to try to locate the Japanese fleet in the darkness. Shortly after midnight, one PBY…
OK — entering the homestretch of the Solomons Campaign. Before we get to the final sea battles of that campaign, we need to go back and capture the Battle of Santa Cruz for the pivotal impact it had on the campaign. Part I is presented here with II and III to follow in the coming…
The next four posts will cover the invasion of Bougainville and are provided via guest author CINCLAX.– SJS The Last Spoke in the Cartwheel Strategic Progress Before the Guadalcanal operation (Watchtower) even began in August 1942, it had been decided to neutralize the Japanese bastion of Rabaul by moving up the Solomons one step at…
The next offering comes via CINCLAX – and is a truly detailed review of the ground action in New Georgia as we begin to move – slowly, hesitantly and with great inefficiency (at first) from the precarious foothold established at Guadalcanal. The Japanese will come to learn, as did the Germans on the other side…
On its face, it was innocuous enough a simple administrative traffic providing notification of an inspection by a senior officer of some outposts: ON APRIL 18 CINC COMBINED FLEET WILL VISIT RXZ,R–, AND RXP IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE FOLLOWING SCHEDULE: 1. DEPART RR AT 0600 IN A MEDIUM ATTACK PLANE ESCORTED BY 6 FIGHTERS. ARRIVE RXZ…
Thus far, and not surprisingly so, the conversation has focused on the naval forces – afloat and ashore, at work in the Solomons. Today we go a wee bit joint and talk about land-based air and its contribution. We are all (or should be) pretty familiar with the inter-service rivalry that sprung up pre-war between…
Guest writer Chuck Hill joins us this week with Part II of his detailed write-up on the surface action off Guadalcanal in November 1942. Lots of lessons to be applied to today (see the roll-up at the end). BTW – whilst composing this submission he became a grandfather, so we lift a major league ‘mazal…
Guest blogger Chuck Hill checks in with the first of two parts of the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal (12-13 November). We are less than a month out from the attack at Pearl Harbor and Allied forces are on the move – in Europe, Africa, Asia and the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. But so too are…
CINCLAX checks in with a strategic summary of where the players stand at this point in the Solomons Campaign. As we will see here and in detail later ths week with the Battles of Santa Cruz and Guadalcanal I & II, this is still a very close run deal with either the Japanese or Allied…
