Naval Battle of Guadalcanal: first night

13 November 1942, Ironbottom Sound, off Guadalcanal

Tactically indecisive; American strategic victory

Vice Admiral Hiroaki Abe brought the battleships Hiei and Kirishima to shell Henderson Field ahead of a big convoy. Rear Admiral Daniel Callaghan met him in the dark at about 1:45 a.m. with five cruisers and eight destroyers in a single long column. Callaghan's flagship had no modern radar, his orders were confused, and the two forces ran into each other at point-blank range. In a melee lasting about forty minutes ships fired on anything near them, friend or foe. Callaghan and his captain were killed on San Francisco's bridge, and Rear Admiral Norman Scott on Atlanta's. Four American destroyers were sunk, Atlanta was scuttled, and later that morning I-26 sank the damaged Juneau, killing the five Sullivan brothers among almost all her crew. The Japanese lost two destroyers, and Hiei, hit by some 85 shells and with her steering wrecked, was finished by aircraft and scuttled that evening: the first Japanese battleship lost in the war. Abe called off the bombardment. Henderson Field kept flying, and its planes went after the convoy the next day.