How S.F.’s namesake warship survived a ‘suicide’ mission
In November 1942, the heavy cruiser San Francisco, flagship of an outgunned and outnumbered American task force, was ordered to stop a much stronger Japanese armada that was steaming toward the U.S.-held island of Guadalcanal. The Japanese planned to pulverize an all-important airstrip, Henderson Field, land thousands of troops and destroy any U.S. ships that opposed them.
As recounted in the previous Portals, the San Francisco’s captain, Cassin Young, told the task force’s commander, Rear Adm. Daniel Callaghan, that the mission amounted to “suicide.” Callaghan, a San Francisco native, replied, “I know, but we have to do it.”
The night of Friday, Nov. 13, was hot and moonless as the Japanese force under Rear Adm. Hiroaki Abe and Callaghan’s ships approached each other. At 1:30 a.m., the powerful new radar on one of the U.S. cruisers, the Helena, picked up the locations of the enemy force, between 27,100 and 32,000 yards away.
The Japanese did not possess this high-powered radar, so Callaghan temporarily had the advantage of surprise. But as James Hornfischer writes in “Neptune’s Inferno: The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal,” Callaghan was a traditionalist who “placed his faith in people, not in technics.” He did not order
his destroyers to launch their torpedoes, nor did he maneuver his ships to cross the enemy’s “T” — the classic maneuver in which a line of warships sails at 90 degrees across the front of a single file of approaching ships, allowing it to fire broadsides at the enemy.
But if Callaghan had squandered the tactical advantage the radar had given him, he still had a deadly surprise to spring on the Japanese.
At 1:40 a.m., the enemies collided — almost literally. Two Japanese destroyers suddenly emerged from the dark, forcing the lead ship in the American column, the destroyer Cushing, to veer hard to port to avoid running into them. Callaghan now gave his last meaningful command, ordering his ships to change course 90 degrees to the left, into the middle of a widely dispersed Japanese force that included two battleships.
Callaghan never issued a written battle plan, and exactly what the U.S. admiral was thinking has been lost in the fog of war. But consciously or not, he was pursuing an incredibly audacious strategy: It was, one observer said, like Tennyson’s “Charge of the Light Brigade.”
As Hornfischer writes, “It is possible the order (to turn directly into the Japanese force) reflected Callaghan’s recognition that, confronted with battleships, cruisers could prevail only at point-blank range, where even a battleship’s heavier armor was no proof against 8-inch fire.”
Five minutes later, the Japanese destroyers opened fire. The Americans returned fire, their targets so close that they could aim by sight. One of the most vicious battles in naval history had begun.
Japanese searchlights suddenly stabbed through the night and illuminated U.S. ships. Seconds later high-explosive shells found their mark, ripping apart bulkheads and turrets. But the searchlights also allowed the American gunners to see their adversaries. A Japanese destroyer was riddled by fire from the San Francisco and other ships. Within minutes, it was a burning hulk.
American sailors on the destroyers Cushing and Laffey looked up to find Adm. Abe’s flagship, the battleship Heiei, sailing directly at them. As it surged past the Laffey’s fantail, “so close (Lt. Cmdr. William) Hank could have hit her with a slingshot,” the destroyer’s gunners raked the upper structure of the 37,000ton behemoth with cannon and machine-gun fire. Sailor John H. Jenkins ran to a 20mm gun whose operator had been killed. Wrapping his arms around the corpse and using it as a shield, he fired a clip into the battleship’s portholes.
The withering fire from the Laffey, the San Francisco and other U.S. ships hit home. Abe was wounded by shrapnel in the face, the Heiei’s captain was also wounded, and Abe’s chief of staff was killed.
The destroyers had momentarily “blinded the Cyclops,” in one sailor’s words, but the battle was just beginning. The light cruiser Atlanta was struck by torpedoes, then devastated by fire from the San Francisco, which in the chaos had mistaken the U.S. ship for a foe. The salvos killed Adm. Norman Scott. Several other U.S. vessels were also left sinking or burning.
Just before 2 a.m., the Japanese battleships and U.S. cruisers encountered each other. Callaghan ordered, “We want the big ones!” It was his last command. Seconds later, the San Francisco was struck by fire from both battleships. The third salvo from the Heiei sent four 1,400-pound shells crashing into the cruiser’s bridge, killing Callaghan and Capt. Young.
In all, 45 shells rocked the San Francisco. But the wounded flagship returned fire, claiming at least 18 hits, including a crucial one that damaged the battleship’s steering gear.
Just 24 minutes after the battle had begun, the gunfire faded away over Iron bottom Sound. Adm. Abe had lost only two destroyers, but he had been wounded and the Heiei’s upperworks were blazing, preventing it from being maneuvered properly. Unsure how large a force he was facing and worried the dawn would bring U.S. air strikes, he canceled the planned bombardment of Henderson Field and retired.
The American losses were much larger. Six ships were sunk and four others heavily damaged; only two were still capable of fighting. The worst loss was the cruiser Juneau, which sank after being torpedoed. Seven hundred men died, many succumbing to shark attacks. Almost 1,500 Navy personnel were killed in the engagement, compared with an estimated 550 to 800 Japanese.
But if the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal was a tactical defeat for the Americans, it was a strategic victory. The Japanese battleships had failed to put Henderson Field out of action. American planes sank the Heiei the next day. And in the next two days, U.S. ships and planes inflicted such grievous losses on the Japanese fleet that Tokyo abandoned the campaign to retake Guadalcanal. It was the turning point in the war in the Pacific.
The San Francisco returned to Mare Island Naval Shipyard in Vallejo for repairs. On Dec. 17, its crew was given a tickertape parade. Some 75,000 people lined Market Street as the procession of sailors, some in hospital robes and walking with crutches, stretched out for a mile. A Chronicle reporter wrote, “They gave this city a strange feeling of humility and sadness, and at the same time its greatest thrill in many a year . ... It was the quietest parade this city has ever seen.”
Adm. Daniel J. Callaghan and three men who helped save the ship — Lt. Cmdrs. Bruce McCandless and Herbert E. Schonland, and boatswain’s mate Reinhardt J. Keppler, who fought fires below decks and ministered to the injured before dying of his own wounds — were awarded the Medal of Honor.
The San Francisco returned to action, ultimately earning 17 battle stars, making it one of the most highly decorated ships of World War II. Its memorial, at Lands End, stands on the great circle route from San Francisco to Guadalcanal.