75 years ago today, worst Naval Defeat in US History...

75 years ago today, in the early morning hours of 09 August 1942, the US and Australian forces supporting the Guadalcanal Invasion were attacked by a task force of IJN cruises and soundly defeated. Four of the six allied cruisers were sunk or sinking, one was heavily damaged, the Allied invasion force was forced to leave the area without unloading most of the supplies, ammunition and heavy equipment, and a large number of troops. This left the Marines ashore cut off and in a precarious position. The Naval Battle of Savo Island is generally regarded as the greatest defeat ever suffered by the US Navy.



HMAS Canberra-scuttled



USS Astoria C-34-sunk



USS Quincy CA-39-sunk



USS Vincennes-CA44-sunk



USS Chicago CA-29-damaged two torpedoes and shell fire.

 

I remember reading a rather through account of the battle many years ago, as a young man and and the reaction it caused. If possible I found it literally hurt to read it and image how terrible it musts have been for all the Allied crews. You don not expect near equal forces, at least in numbers, to be so one sided . Terrifying.

 

There is some justice to this claim. Yes we lost more tonnage and lives at Pearl Harbor, but we were essentially under peace time conditions and at some considerable disadvantage (that we were is in itself serious question). At Salvo Island we were on full alert, expecting a possible action and on roughly equal terms. Pearl Harbor was a stab in the back, Salvo was a embarrassment.

 

Naval Historian Samuel Elliott Morison called it so;
Here's a paper on Hyperwar that calls it so "The Battle of Savo Island was the worst open-sea defeat in United States naval history. Over a thousand sailors were lost, four heavy cruisers were sunk, and a severe blow was dealt to our military ego."; HyperWar: Disaster at Savo Island, 1942
There is an article published by The US Naval Institute, Savo Island: The worst defeat, Captain George William Kittredge, USN (ret), Naval History Magazine, August 2002, that states the same. I can provide you the link if you're a subscriber (I am) you can read it for yourself. Here's a blog from U.S.Fleet Forces by Admiral J.C. Harvey on the action where he states; "By the end of the first battle of Savo Island, the Japanese sank four Allied cruisers – the CANBERRA, VINCENNES, ASTORIA and QUINCY – seriously damaged a number of destroyers, and killed over 1,000 Sailors. Conversely, five Japanese ships were slightly damaged with less than 100 killed.
In less than one hour the Japanese inflicted the worst defeat at sea the U.S. Navy has ever experienced."
Archived U.S. Fleet Forces Command Blog (2009-2012): A Fatal Lethargy of Mind
There's a list as long as my arm of books on Guadalcanal and the Naval battles in the vicinity that state the same, but the wording is so similar I suspect they're parroting Morison, but I have neither the time nor inclination to list them one by one.
So I feel I'm on fairly solid ground concerning my statement.

 

I always remember as a kid watching the National Geographic special "Lost Fleet of Guadalcanal". I remember the narrator calling Savo Island one of the worst defeats as well.

Rivitng stuff either way. That special and the book by Robert Ballard really got me hooked on the war in the Pacific. Seeing the wrecks of the Quincy, Atlanta, Canberra, Kirishima....

Makes me want to re-read Neptune's Inferno now.

 

I have Richard Newcomb's book on Savo. No doubt Newcomb been superseded by more modern studies, but it's still an astonishing and discreditable story. Savo is like Singapore or the Petersburg Crater, one of those catastrophes that leaves you not only appalled but somewhat ashamed of and embarrassed for the military force you're reading about. Was Savo "the worst?" I am skeptical of superlatives, but for the USN it certainly ranks way, way down there. Pearl Harbor was a surprise attack during what we thought was peacetime, but Savo happened eight months into the war and the units and commanders concerned had less excuse than those at Pearl.

 

Personal prejudices tend to trump war warnings 9 falls out of 10.

 

If it is not the "worst", it is very very close. 4 heavy cruisers(3 American, 1 Australian) sunk, and the loss of over 1,000 Allied sailors' lives. First Guadalcanal might come close or surpass in lives lost, but ship losses were destroyers and light cruisers, besides, there the Americans were engaging a vastly superior Japanese naval force.

You should remember, that in those eight months of war, there were few surface actions between the naval combatants(almost, if not, all, taking place in February and early March). There was a resounding "success"(DesDiv57's night attack at Balikpapan), and a string of losses that were chalked up inept foreign leadership, Japanese numerical supremacy, or both. So, in a straight up fight, the US naval commanders believed that they could be expected to get the better of the Japanese. Unfortunately, complacency and overconfidence, not to mention the "fog of war", conspired to give the Americans a reality check that night.

 

QFT!

 

Mackenzie J Gregory, Officer of the Watch aboard HMAS Canberra that fateful night, wrote several articles about that night for his website "Ahoy - Mac's Web Log"
The list: Ahoy - Mac's Web Log - H.M.A.S. Canberra and the Battle of Savo Island