Скачать или смотреть How USS Fletcher's Radar Let 5 Destroyers Sink 9 Japanese Ships In Complete Darkness At Guadalcanal

At zero two fifteen hours on November thirtieth, nineteen forty-two, the SG radar aboard USS Fletcher detected multiple contacts at twenty-three thousand yards through impenetrable darkness off Tassafaronga Point. Commander William Cole, commanding destroyer division twelve from Fletcher's bridge, had been tracking these ships for six minutes. The Japanese had no idea five American destroyers were positioned across their supply route. They had no radar capable of detecting the American force waiting in complete darkness off Guadalcanal's northwest coast. In forty-two minutes, eight Japanese destroyers would be sinking or crippled, and the Imperial Japanese Navy would lose a battle they thought they had already won. But the Americans would pay a price that no one expected. Four heavy cruisers would be torpedoed. Over four hundred American sailors would die. And the United States Navy would learn that radar could help you see the enemy, but it couldn't prevent disaster if doctrine failed to match technology.
The Japanese force consisted of eight destroyers commanded by Rear Admiral Raizo Tanaka from destroyer Naganami. His mission was to deliver fifteen hundred drums of supplies to starving Japanese troops on Guadalcanal. Each destroyer carried two hundred drums lashed to their decks. The drums contained rice, ammunition, and medical supplies. The plan was simple. Race down the slot at thirty knots. Arrive off Tassafaronga Point after midnight. Dump the drums overboard with lines attached to shore. Withdraw before American aircraft could attack at dawn. Tanaka had executed this exact mission eleven times in the previous two months. He called it the rat run. American forces called it the Tokyo Express.
Tanaka was the most experienced destroyer squadron commander in the Imperial Japanese Navy. He had fought at Midway in June. He commanded Japanese destroyers during the evacuation of Kiska in the Aleutians. He understood destroyer tactics better than almost any officer in either navy. His force that night included some of the finest destroyers Japan had built. Naganami, Takanami, Makinami, Kuroshio, Oyashio, Kagero, Suzukaze, and Kawakaze. All were Kagero-class or Yugumo-class destroyers, fast ships capable of thirty-five knots with powerful armament. Each carried six five-inch guns and eight type ninety-three torpedoes.
The American force consisted of five destroyers and four heavy cruisers. Rear Admiral Carleton Wright commanded Task Force sixty-seven from heavy cruiser Minneapolis. Wright had received command of the task force only forty-eight hours earlier. He had never commanded a surface action force in combat. He had never fought a night engagement. He had been assigned to the task force because he was the senior officer available when intelligence indicated another Tokyo Express run was scheduled for November thirtieth.
Wright's cruisers were Minneapolis, New Orleans, Pensacola, and Northampton. His destroyers were Fletcher, Perkins, Maury, Drayton, and Lamson. All nine ships carried SG surface search radar. The technology had been proven effective at the Second Naval Battle of Guadalcanal two weeks earlier when USS Washington used radar to destroy Japanese battleship Kirishima in seven minutes. Wright knew about Washington's victory. He knew radar worked. But Wright did not understand how to use radar to control a night surface action. The difference between having radar and knowing how to fight with it would become catastrophically clear.