Tag Archives: USS Vincennes

The Worst Night in U.S. Navy history at 80

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USS Quincy (CA-39) photographed from a Japanese cruiser during the Battle of Savo Island, off Guadalcanal, 9 August 1942. Quincy, seen here burning and illuminated by Japanese searchlights, was sunk in this action (NH 50346).

Known today as the Battle of Savo Island British RADM Victor Crutchley’s Task group 62.6 cruiser and destroyer covering force, subordinated under U.S. ADM Richmond K. Turner for the amphibious landings at Guadalcanal, seemed mighty on paper: three Australian and five American cruisers, 15 destroyers, and some minesweepers.

The thing is, most were huddled around the beach and those that weren’t were separated into a number of smaller groups including:

  • Two tin cans on radar picket (USS Blue and USS Ralph Talbot)
  • A Southern cruiser group with the heavy cruisers HMAS Canberra and USS Chicago along with the destroyers USS Bagley and USS Patterson; and…
  • A Northern cruiser group with the heavy cruisers USS Vincennes, USS Quincy, and USS Astoria along with the destroyers USS Helm and USS Wilson.

Running a barricade to defend the landing beaches and ‘phibs, this immediate force of five Allied heavy cruisers and six destroyers– equipped with radar!– seemed a good match for Japanese VADM Gunichi Mikawa’s incoming striking group from Rabaul and Kavieng of five heavy cruisers (Chokai, Aoba, Furutaka, Kako, and Kinugasa) two light cruisers (Tenryu and Yubari) and the destroyer Yunagi.

Seemed.

However, ineffectively deployed into three separate and spread-out forces against Mikawa’s unified squadron, the Australian-American task group was sleepwalking with fatigued crews in the dark without properly using their radar (which was so new that tactics were still being developed for its use) and largely ignoring aerial spotting reports that should have warned the force while the Japanese, skilled in night fighting and armed with formidable Long Lance torpedos, took the Allies out with almost spooky ease, pounded to the seabed while fixed under the gaze of enemy searchlights.

Battle of Savo Island, 9 August 1942. cruisers USS Astoria (CA-34), USS Vincennes (CA-44), USS Quincy (CA 39) shown torpedo attack and shellfire from the Japanese cruisers. by John Hamilton NHHC

Japanese cruiser Yūbari shines searchlights toward the northern force of Allied warships during the battle of Savo island

Heavy cruiser Furutaka during the Battle of Savo Island.

“Night Battle of Savo Island by an unknown Japanese artist.”

In the short pre-dawn hour between 01:31 of 9 August 1942, when Mikawa ordered “Every ship attack” and 02:20 when he ordered them to retire, Vincennes, Quincy, Astoria, and Canberra were all mortally wounded while Chicago and two destroyers were very seriously damaged. Only two Japanese cruisers were damaged but could still make it back to base.

It was a mauling, an execution by large caliber shells at point blank range.

Canberra was hit at least 24 times. Astoria took 65 hits. Vincennes was struck an estimated 74 times. They were the first ships to be sunk in what today is named “Ironbottom Sound.”

HMAS Canberra’s last moments off Savo Island, 9th August 1942

Hits sustained by Astoria at the Battle of Savo Island off Guadalcanal on August 9, 1942

The Allies suffered at least 1,077 killed and missing while the Japanese a mere 58. 

Some 500 no doubt traumatized survivors of the lost American cruisers would be held under Marine guard at Treasure Island for weeks with orders not to talk about the defeat– something that only hit the papers back home nearly three months later. After all, nothing stays secret forever. 

James D. Hornfischer’s Neptune’s Inferno: The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal, covers this sad tale in great detail. See chapter “The Martyring of Task Group 62.6” in particular.

An interesting conversation on the battle from the Australian point of view– Canberra was the RAN’s largest warship loss in any conflict– the Naval Studies Group at the University of Canberra held a panel of Dr. Greg Gilbert, Vice Admiral Peter Jones, and Dr. Kathryn Spurling to discuss the engagement a few years ago.

Knitting an island back together

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In 1859, the U.S. Army began construction on a Third System masonry fort on Ship Island in the Mississippi Sound with the idea of covering the approaches to Lakes Borgne and Ponchartrain– the back door to New Orleans. As far as shipping was concerned, he who controlled Ship Island held the strategic key to both Mobile Bay and the Mighty Mississippi, or so it was thought.

Fort Massachusetts

By January 1861 when Mississippi seceded, little had been accomplished in the shifting sands of the barrier island and the local greycoats sailed out the 12 miles from Biloxi to take over the unfinished works. Soon, the venerable steam frigate USS Massachusetts would come along and run the interlopers off, making it one of the first of the Union seacoast defenses seized by the Confederacy to be recaptured when the Stars and Stripes was run up in September.

Soon, the island would be packed with nearly 8,000 men of the 4th Wisconsin, 8th New Hampshire, 8th Vermont, 6th Michigan, 21st Indiana; 12th, 13th, 14th and 15th Maine; 12th Connecticut, and 26th & 31st Massachusetts.

Farragut used the island for a base and it proved a stepping stone to capture New Orleans in early 1862. One of the first African-American infantry units, the Second Louisiana Native Guard would call the mosquito-infested, yellow-fever ridden island home for a longer period of time.

2nd Louisiana Native Guard Company Formation on Ship Island

The Native Guard, working with the shallow-draft sloop-of-war USS Vincennes, raided nearby Pascagoula in a sharp skirmish in 1863.

After that, the island was used as a POW camp for captured rebels and blockade runners.

Due to the nature of the camps, poor sanitation and an influx of disease would claim at least 153 Confederates and 230 bluecoats. The former were interred near their stockade in the middle of the island while the latter buried closer to what is now Fort Massachusetts.

The horseshoe-shaped fort itself was only completed after the Civil War and in many ways is unique. With the conflict over and brick forts shown to be ineffective against rifled naval guns, it was soon reduced to a caretaker status just after 1866.

The graves of the U.S. troops were moved to what is now Chalmette National Cemetery, which was founded in 1864 to house Union dead.

Chalmette

The graves of the Confederates were left on the island and, in 1969, Hurricane Camille sliced a path through Ship Island, dividing the thin strip of sand and sea oats in half. The split, deemed “Camille Cut” for obvious reasons, crossed over the site of the rebel graveyard.

Now, a $400 million plan — the second largest environmental restoration project in the 100-year history of the National Park Service–  has united the two sides of the island back together into one. The sand replenishment will take about three years, and once that work is complete, dune grass and other vegetation will be planted on what was the Camille Cut to help stabilize it.

As for the Confederates, they are considered buried at sea but a marker at Fort Massachusetts remembers them.