August 9, 1942...Maj. Gen. Sir Charles Barrowclough, a future
Chief Justice of New Zealand, is given command of the short-lived
3 NZ Division in New Zealand.

     In North Africa, Gen. Bernard Freyberg is named acting
commander of 13 Corps, as 8th Army shuffles the lines.

     The Desert Air Force notes 15,400 sorties for July 1st
through 27th, all in direct support of 8th Army. Fleet Air Arm
Albacore biplanes hammer mechant ships at Matruh by night, while
more modern aircraft hound Rommel's supply lines. The British are
reinforced by 16 South African squadrons, but have still lost 113
aircraft in July.

     The situation on Malta is now desperate, as official
calculations show that food and fuel will be completely exhausted
in four weeks. Movie theaters save electricity by staying pitch-
dark. Soap is rationed to half a pound per person per fortnight.
A family gets a gallon of kerosene a week. There are no
replacement shoes or clothing, and no beer. The island has been
hammered by 154 days of continual day and night bombing, 10,000
houses lie in ruins, nearly 100 churches gutted.
     The governor, Lord Gort, who led the Dunkirk evacuation and
earned a Victoria Cross in World War I, is now faced with
surrender. Gort has even written the document.
     However, plans are in hand to relieve the crisis. Massing at
Gibraltar is a convoy codenamed "Pedestal," consisting of 59
warships and 14 merchant ships. South Africa's Vice Adm. Neville
Syfret will lead this force from the battleship HMS Nelson.
Joining her are her sister HMS Rodney, and three large carriers,
HMS Victorious, HMS Eagle, and HMS Indomitable, Britain's first
multi-carrier task force. A fourth carrier, HMS Furious, will
separately deliver 38 Spitfires to Malta.
     This mass of guns and armor is the muscle to protect 14
merchant ships, the fastest that can be found, loaded with 85,000
tons of cargo, mostly flour. 11 are British, two American (Santa
Elisa and Almeria Lykes), and the last an American ship with a
British crew, Texaco's large, fast tanker, SS Ohio, one of the
largest in the world. She has been handed over to Britain's Eagle
Oil Shipping Co. and their Capt. Dudley Mason. Ohio has been
specially prepared for this mission, her engines placed on rubber
housings, the ship given extra 3-inch and 5-inch AA guns. She is
loaded with 11,500 tons of kerosene and diesel fuels, enough to
keep Malta's stoves and Spitfires working until December. If Ohio
does not reach Malta, the island will have to surrender. Ohio may
carry the balance of the war in her holds.

     Off Guadalcanal, the night is oppressively hot, broken by
periodic rain squalls, as Japan's Vice Adm. Gunichi Mikawa's
Striking Force plows through the sea, undetected.
     Five Allied cruisers, four American, one Australian, steam
back and forth in two groups, three in the Northern, two in the
Southern, patrolling the waters. In the Southern Group, HMAS
Canberra changes watch at 11:45 p.m. Sublt. Mackenzie Gregory
takes the conn. Surgeon Lt. Kenneth Morris lies on a mess table
to take a nap. Stoker Second George Faulkner is in his final
minutes of duty in the after engine room. Able Seaman Stephen St.
George, in Y turret's handling room, takes off his anti-flash
gear to play cards with his pals.
     Behind Canberra is USS Chicago, under Capt. Howard Bode, in
temporary command of Southern Force. The overall boss, Rear Adm.
Victor A. Crutchley, VC, has gone with his flagship, HMAS
Australia, to confer with the top Allied brass. Bode is fast
asleep.
     The Northern Force consists of USS Vincennes, USS Quincy,
and USS Astoria. Capt. Fred Riefkohl of Vincennes commands this
force. He does not know Crutchley has left. Crutchley hasn't told
Riefkohl. On Quincy, QM2 THomas Morris wakes up Lt. Cdr. Edmund
Billings, who is to take the watch. Billings, a former enlisted
man, asks if there is any action the bridge. None. Billings pulls
on his uniform and pulls out his pipe.
     The US ships enjoy many technical advantages....search
radar, rapid-fire guns, and Talk Between Ships radio. But they
are overdependent on their technology. Japanese lookouts can
outrange American radar with their Zeiss binoculars. American
warships are full of combustibles, ranging from lifeboats to
wardroom pianos. And the Japanese are no technical slouches,
either, with superb Long Lance torpedoes that can cut the waves
at 49 knots.
     At 12:40 a.m., Mikawa's flagship, Chokai, spots Save Island.
A lookout also spots a ship approaching 30 degrees to starboard.
It is the patrolling destroyer USS Blue. Mikawa calmly cuts speed
to 22 knots to reduce the phosphorescent wakes of his five heavy
and two light cruisers. Incredibly, the Blue does a 180-degree
turn to starboard, and plods slowly away, not having spotted the
Japanese.
     Moments later, Chokai's lookouts spot another blob on the
horizon, and the formation glides by an unsuspecting interisland
schooner, and behind that, the equally sleepy destroyer USS Ralph
Talbot. Neither spot the Japanese.
     Mikawa swings his ships to hide in a fold of low clouds,
then cranks up to 30 knots. At 1:33, he blinkers "All ships
attack." At 1:36, Chokai's lookouts spot "three cruisrs" to
starboard. There are actually two. Mikawa alters to course 120,
orers "independent firing," and four Long Lances hit the water at
1:38, streaking off towards Canberra. At 1:43, Chokai's 8-inch
guns open up on the Australian cruiser.
     At that moment, Canberra's lookout spots Chokai 4,500 yards
off. Just as Gregory looks at his chart-table clock (it reads
1:43) to fix ship's position, the first of 24 hits Canberra will
suffer, hit home. Shell splinters scythe down the crew.
     Shells explode as Canberra's alarm goes off. Sailors race to
battle stations, including Capt. Frank Getting, who has been
selected for admiral. Able Seaman Henry Hall is talking on the
phone when the shells hit home. "Stupid bloody Yanks," he
mutters, What the hell are they up to? Why are they dropping
flares?" Then his telephone headset disintegrates and the man
next to him dies.
     On the bridge, Getting arrives just as shells hit his biler
room, knocking out ship's power. Canberra glides to a halt, her
guns trained out and useless. Another shell hits the plot room
and Getting falls to the deck, mortally wounded. His navigator
and gunnery officer lie dead nearby. Cdr. James Walsh, the XO,
takes over, while Dr. Downward, the ship's surgeon, tends
Getting. The captain tells Walsh, "Fight her till she goes down,
Jim!"
     But the ship is a wreck, her boiler rooms destroyed. Down
below, Seaman Albert Warne puts onhis antiflash gear and
struggles through unbearably hot air, to squeeze through a hatch
to escape. He has to fight his way up three decks through
thickening smoke and flames, that sting his throat and lungs.
When he reaches the upper deck, a tropical rainshower begins,
cooling him.
     Dr. Morris, using a flashlight attached to his headband,
bounces off his messtable to tend the wounded. Gregory orders his
men to start tossing ammunition into the sea before it catches
fire. Stoker George Yates picks himself up and stares at an arm
lying on the deck. "Look! Someone's armhas been shot off!"
     Ship's Butcher John Quigley, bringing his medical kit,
shouts, "Lie down and be quiet! It's yours!"
     Walsh orders his men to slip all petrol tanks, dump
remaining torpedoes, flood magazines, and all hands on deck.
Because Canberra's radios are wrecked, and she lacks TBS, she
cannot put out a warning.
     Next victim is Chicago, which turns hard to starboard when
her lookouts see torpedoes from the cruiser Kako. The fish hit
Chicago's starboard bow, but one fails to explode. The one that
does sends a column of water as high as the foretop and damages
the main battery director. BMC Steve Balint falls across his gun
as a splinter rips open his stomach. Lt. Cdr. Cecil C. Adell, hit
in the neck, crawls aft to dentist Lt. Cdr. Benjamin Osterting.
He sews Adell together without anesthetic.
 Chicago keeps moving west, not spotting any enemy ships.
Incredibly, Bode does not sent a report of his encounter.
     Mikawa's ships race past the wrecks in the gloom, and the
destroyer USS Patterson sounds the tocsin at last, radioing
"Warning! Warning! Strange ships entering harbor!" She then gets
in a gun duel with the enemy light cruisers, who knock out her
two aft 5-inch guns.
     Now Mikawa's ships are split into two formations, Mikawa
four heavy cruisers to the east, two light and one heavy to the
west. Between them lie the three American ships of the Northern
Force. None are awake. At 1:44, watches on all three ships note
underwater explosions from the south. A minute later, they see
gunfire. On Vincennes, Riefkohl is summoned to the bridge. He
sees the gunfire but decides it is a light unit in battle with
the Southern Group. He increases speed to 15 knots, but decides
to let the situation develop.
     At 1:48, Chokai launches a spread of four torpedoes at
Vincennes from 12,000 yards. At 1:50, the Japanese pop their
searchlights on the three cruisers, fully illuminating them.
Riefkohl thinks the Southern Group is there, and asks over the
radio for the lights to be extinguished, as there might be enemy
vessels around.
     The Japanese answer the radio message with a fusillade of
shells and torpedoes. 8-inchers destroy the flammable aircraft
hangar, aviation fuel, the movie booth, the signal flagbags, and
5-inch ammunition. As Riefkohl orders a starboard turn, torpedoes
explode in the No. 4 fireroom, knocking it out. "Both engine
rooms are black and dead," the bridge is told.
     Vincennes still shows fight. An 8-inch shell hits Kinugasa's
steering gear, and the cruiser staggers behind her sisters. And
SMC George Moore, seeing the flag shot away, hoists another one,
braving shot and shell to keep Old Glory flying. Lt. Cdr. R.L.
Adams, the gunnery officer, stays at his post, even though an
unexploded Japanese shell lies at his feet.
     Killed on Vincennes is John Cronin, brother of S1C Hunter
Cronin on USS Washington.
     Vincennes takes a staggering 85 direct hits. Riefkohl orders
his men to prepare to abandon ship. Cdr. Loker locks the
confidential codes in the ship's disbursing safe, then throws the
signal book overboard. DK1 Willess jettisons the coding gear and
carries off the disbursing records. Sailors calmly man liferafts
and don life vests.
     The exhausted cruiser rolls over on her port side, her deck
guns awash, shells exploding in ready boxes. "All right,"
Riefkohl says, "It's all over. Let's go." With 342 aboard,
Vincennes goes down at 2:58 a.m.
     Next in line is USS Quincy, which goes to GQ just as Capt.
Samuel N. Moore reache the bridge. "Fire at the ships with the
searchlights on," he orders. But Quincy's guns aren't ready.
"Fire the main battery!" Moore shouts, but the Japanese hit
first, landing the first shell on the fantail at 1:53. The shell
shears off the bases of 5-inch cartridges in the fuse pots and
kills all hands on the left side of the gun. At 1:55 another
shell hits a float plane in the well deck that sprays flaming
gasoline. That ignites the other four seaplanes.
     At 2 a.m., Quincy finds herself amid Japanese fire. Turret 3
is jammed in train. The Japanese rake her from both sides,
wrecking the steering, and shattering the bridge, killing the XO,
navigator, and damage control officer. Moore, mortally wounded,
crawls to a phone and gasps over the 1MC: "We're going down
between them -- give them hell!"
     Lt. Cdr. Billings staggers out of the bridge, half his face
shot away, teling his men, "Everything will be okay, the sihps
will go down fighting." Then he crumples to the deck.
     QM2 Morris finds himself amid a wreck at Battle 2, his left
hip shattered by a shell.He pulls himself together, and crawls
across dying Sailors to a gunshield. He pulls himself up with a
rope over the shield, then hears someone say, "Drop." He does,
and lands softly on the roof of Turret 3. BMC George Strobel
helps tend Morris's wounds, and carries Morris into the water,
hauling him to a floater net.
     The Japanese are amazed as Quincy sprints between Japanese
ships, Turrets 1 and 2 blazing. One of her shells hits Chokai's
chartroom, destroying it and barely missing Mikawa. The Japanese
simply return fire. Quincy's Turret 2 explodes from a direct hit,
incinerating the signal flagbags on the bridge. Japanese shells
explode AA batteries and start more fires. Lt. Roland Rieve of
Radar 1 finds his station shattered into small fires and debris.
     Lt. Cdr. John Andrew reaches the bridge, hoping for orders.
He finds it "a shambles of dead bodies with only three or four
people stll standing." One of them is the signalman at the wheel,
trying to beach the ship. Andrew sees Moore lying near the wheel.
"At that instand the Captain straightened up and fell back,
apparently dead, without having uttered any sound other than a
moan."
     Command falls on Lt. Cdr. Harry Heneberger, senior surviving
officer. He orders abandon ship, and the crew put the few
remaining life rafts in the water. Marine Col. Warren B. Baker,
on board as a spotter for artillery, remembers "a tremendous
explosion ripped through the Quincy as she started down, and
capsizing to port, she slipped beneath the sea bow first, her
stern reared high in the air with the propellers still churning."
She goes down at 2:38 a.m., taking 389 bluejackets with her.
     Last to wake is the cruiser Astoria, which carried the body
of Japanese Ambassador Hiroshi Saito from America to Japan as a
goodwill gesture in 1939. "The people of Japan, where cherries
bloom; In future far away; Will never forget their gratitude to
the Astoria," a Japanese poet wrote at the time.
     When the Japanese open fire, Astoria gunnery officer Lt.
Cdr. William H. Truesdell trains out his guns, but supervisor of
the watch Lt. Cdr. James R. Topper only says, "Stand by to sound
General Quarters." QM3 R.A. Radke pulls the alarm rattlers
anyway. Truesdell opens fire. At that moment, Capt. William
Greenman reaches the bridge, and demands, "Who gave the order to
commence firing?"
     Topper says he hasn't. Greenman says calmly, "Topper, I
think we are firing on our own ships. Let's not get excited and
act too hasty. Cease firing!" Topper agrees. He orders cease
fire, and turns on the ship's navigation lights.
     But Truesdell shouts back, "For God's sake give the word to
commence firing!"
     Greenman sees shells splash by Vincennes and Quincy. He
says, "Whether our ships or not, we would have to stop them.
Comence firing." He has wasted four minutes, a fatal eternity.
The Japanese shells so far have been short. The four minutes has
given Mikawa time to correct the range.
     Mikawa's shells hit a minute later. Chokai guns hit the
hangar and boat deck (a familiar story) and cut power to Turret 3
(another familiar story). Another shell rips apart Astoria's
bridge (yet another familiar story). The ship's passageways fill
with dense smoke, and shrapnel flies on deck. Greenman turns hard
left to avoid the Quincy. Greenman takes 11 wounds from shrapnel,
but his cruiser puts a shell into Chokai's foremost main battery
turret, killing 15 men.
     Among the watchers is LCDR Slim Townsend of Enterprise, an
aviator on "Wacky Mac." He sees the flare and bright scatter of
explosions lighting the sky, and hears the thunder and rumble of
8-inch shells.
     Coastwatcher Don McFarland sees the flashes, too,a s does
Martin Clemens, who laconically diaries, "May be a naval battle
of Guadalcanal."
     On Australia, Crutchley is awakened. He staggers up to the
bridge, past exhaustion, and sees and hears the explosions
westward. He calls his ships by radio, but gets no answer from
four cruisers. He orders his surviving destroyers to rendezvous
for a torpedo attack. He asks Bode on Chicago, "Are you in
action?"
     "Was, but not now," Bode radios back cryptically and
uselessly.
     Meanwhile, Mikawa's force, dashing past the three American
wrecks, runs into the destroyer Ralph Talbot. The baffled
destroyer's commander opens fire, but also broadcasts his
identity over TBS and flashes his recognition lights. The
Japanese light cruiser Yubari answers Ralph Talbot with a
fusillade of shells that disable the destroyer's guns and
torpedoes, knock out the radar, hit the wardroom, and kill the
doctor. The destroyer staggers off into the dark.
     At 2:16 a.m., closing a night of American errors, the
Japanese make the final and fatal error. Mikawa summons his
staff. His ships have taken only trifling damage and have 60
percent of their ammunition, half their torpedoes. But it will
take him two hours to reassemble his ships and reach the
transport anchorages, leaving one hour until daylight. If Mikawa
and his ships are off Guadalcanal by daylight, they will be easy
meat for Fletcher's carriers.
     Mikawa does not know Fletcher's carriers are long gone. He
is satisfied with his victory, claiming five cruisers and four
destroyers. By leaving the transports alone, the Americans are
able to unload more supplies. Had Mikawa pursued the transports,
the Marines would have been completely isolated.
     Mikawa, however, orders a retirement. The Striking Force
reassembles at 3:40 a.m., shuffles into anti-aircraft formation,
and heads home. Damage is minor. Chokai has taken six 8-inch hits
and four 5-inch hits, including some duds. Her operations room is
wiped out, and her Number One turret out of action. Kinugasa has
a flooded storeroom and damaged engine room. The other ships have
minor dents. Total casualties: 78. Mikawa sets torpedo defense
watch and course for Kavieng.
     Before he can get out of The Slot, Radio Tokyo announces the
sinking of one battleship, five cruisers, four destroyers, and 10
transports. "British and American naval strength has been reduced
to a third-rate power."
     Behind Mikawa, chaos reigns in what will now be named
Ironbottom Sound. Canberra remains afloat with a sharp list,
fierce fires, and a dying captain. Her crew forms a bucket
brigade. Destroyer Patterson sends over hoses and a hand pump,
which combine with a rainsquall to put out fires. Seaman Henry
Hall carries wounded men from the wrecked bridge to the
forecastle. One midshipman refuses to move until the captain is
aided.
     Dr. Morris, still using his flashlight to find the wounded,
struggles on. He doesn't even stop to curse when an overzealous
officer yells, "Out out that light," as if the flashlight's beams
outshine the ship's raging fires. Lt. Gregory goes to forward
control to find his officers' cap with its' gold embroidery. But
there is only a large hole where the hat had been.
     Able Seaman St. George works with the ship's chaplains,
giving the wounded beer and cigarettes from Canberra's NAAFI
stores. The rest dump ammo overboard.
     At 5 a.m., Admiral Richmond K. Turner orders Crutchley to
scuttle Canberra if she cannot join the retreat at 6:30. With
fires preventing access to engineering spaces, this order is a
death warrant. Walsh orders "Abandon ship" at 5:15. The able-
bodied crew refuse to leave until the wounded are all off. USS
Selfridge is given the unpleasant chore. She fires four torpedoes
at Canberra. Only one hits, another embarrassment for American
torpedoes. She opens up with 263 rounds of 5-inch, and the
passing USS Ellet mistakes Selfridge for a Japanese ship. Ellet
fires at Selfridge, causing some angry radio exchanges. Finally,
Ellet launches a torpedo at 8 a.m. that sends the flagship of the
Royal Australian Navy to the bottom. With her go 84 dead.
Getting, watching this scene, dies later that day.
     Meanwhile, on Astoria, Greenman collects 400 men on the bow
to form bucket brigades. Unknown to them, 150 other survivors are
on the stern, trying to keep her afloat. The XO, Cdr. F.E. Shoup
believes the ship can be saved. At 4 a.m., rain puts out some
fires. At 4:30, USS Bagley arrives to take off the wounded. But
the magazines are not flooded, and the fire is moving towards
them. Greenman orders off the bow party.
     At 5:45 Greenman and a repair party of 325 men return to the
wrecked ship, and try to get steam up. No dice. The fires won't
go out. The list gets worse. At 11 a.m., the forward 5-inch
magazine explodes. Greenman orders his men off at 12:05. Ten
minutes later, Astoria rolls over and sinks by the stern. With
her go 235 Bluejackets. Total Allied casualties at Savo: 1,077
killed, 700 wounded.
     It is the greatest defeat at sea in the history of the US
Navy, four cruisers lost, none to the enemy.
     An angry Turner begs Vice Adm. Frank Jack Fletcher to bring
back the carriers and attack the retreating Japanese. Fletcher is
unmoved, and heads south. Turner risks his ships by staying at
Guadalcanal without cover for all of August 9th, unloading vital
supplies. But all he can unload is a small portion of the
embarked food supplies. The Japanese add to his misery by sending
in an airstrike that sinks destroyer USS Jarvis with all hands.
     At dusk, Turner gathers his surviving ships, and sails south
for Noumea. The Marines are left on Guadalcanal alone, lacking
naval gunfire cover, and desperately short of supply.
     Infuriated, Marines use the ample sheet-metal left behind by
the Japanese to create the "George Medal" to dishonor the Navy.
This sarcastic medal shows a Sailor dropping a hot potato to a
Marine, and has the words, "Faciat Georgus" on it, meaning "Let
George Do It."
     The US responds swiftly to the debacle. When Adm. Chester
Nimitz hears of it, he quietly goes out to the Pearl Harbor gun
range and relieves his anger with some target practice. Then he
requests the Secretary of the Navy to investigate the debacle.
Adm. Arthur Hepburn, one of the Navy's senior gunnery experts, is
sent to the Pacific to probe the fiasco. He interviews Turner,
Crutchley, and as many senior officers as possible.
     Hepburn reports, "The primary cause of this defeat must be
ascribed generally to the complete surprise achieved by the
enemy." This six months after Pearl Harbor. Hepburn also blames
Fletcher for withdrawing the carriers, Crutchley for leaving the
scene, weak communications, misplaced conficend in radar, and an
inadequate state of readiness on all ships to meet sudden night
attack.
     The whole battle, he says, falls in a "twilight zone"
between culpable inefficiency and "more or less excusable errors
in judgment." Only Bode receives censure. And after Bode gives
his testimony, he commits suicide. There is no censure for
Crutchley, but it is his last action.
     The report goes to the Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Ernest
J. King in 1943, and his staff officer, Capt. G.L. Russell,
reviewing it, writes, "It does not necessarily follow that
because we took a beating somebody must be the goat." King
agrees.
     The Americans re-name three cruisers on the slipway after
those sunk at Savo. They name a fourth USS Canberra. The
Australians, impressed by the gesture, not only allow this, but
name one of their destroyers HMAS Bataan. And the British,
aggrieved at the loss of a crack cruiser and gift to Australia,
offer HMS Shropshire to Australia as a replacement, and she sails
for the RAN in war and peace until 1956.
     And that morning, on all the Allied ships in Ironbottom
Sound, all hands not busy with the wounded turn to to remove
flammable material from their ships....at long last.

     German tanks drive into Krasnodar and Maikop, both key oil-
producing cities. Determined Soviet resistance ensures that the
Germans gain little from the capture. The oilfields have been
destroyed. 

     Among the hundreds of Dutch Jews gassed to death at
Auschwitz is Edith Stein, a Catholic nun. Stein, the daughter of
a Jewish timber merchant from Breslau, converted to Catholicism
and became a nun. The Germans ignore the distinction anyway. 45
years later, under her Catholic name of Sister Benedicta, she is
sanctified.

     The British arrest Mohandas K. Gandhi, the Indian leader,
who has advocated India's alliance with Japan. He spends the rest
of the war interned.