Burning ships and bodies littered the field of battle off the shores of Guadalcanal at dawn on November 13, 1942. The previous night, American and Japanese ships had clashed in arguably the most unorganized and chaotic naval battle of World War II. A superior Japanese force had run smack into a smaller, outnumbered American force. Despite many errors, the Americans gave a good accounting of themselves, forcing the Japanese to abandon their mission of attacking Henderson Field. Aircraft launching from Henderson Field attacked the retreating Japanese and sunk the disabled battleship Hiei later on the 13th, completing the American strategic victory.
Thanks to US Naval cryptanalysts reading the Japanese force’s mail, Admiral William Halsey was fully aware that the enemy was not finished with its attempts to batter Henderson Field from the sea and reinforce Guadalcanal’s starving Japanese garrison. Halsey knew the Japanese had already sortied another force south. This force, much like the one sent the previous night, outnumbered anything the US Navy could respond with. The Japanese sent another battleship, the Kirishima, accompanied by four cruisers and nine destroyers, to shell Henderson in preparation for another reinforcement landing that would occur later that night into early the next morning. Halsey surveyed what he had available for defense and was dismayed at what he saw. The majority of his cruisers were either already committed to battle or heavily damaged. His fleet of destroyers was shrinking, and sinking, rapidly. The only real effective power that Halsey had to fight in a surface action were two warships at sea, cruising as screening ships for the battered carrier Enterprise.
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