South Pacific:
Dark September
by Mike Bennighof, Ph.D.
July 2025

The Battle of the Eastern Solomons left the Japanese with heavy losses among aircraft and air crew, with one light carrier sunk (and thereby accounting for many of those losses). The Americans lost the services of the carrier Enterprise, sent back to Pearl Harbor for repairs to battle damage, but received her sister ship Hornet, already on her way to replace Wasp when the battle took place.

It also left Japanese reinforcements bound for Guadalcanal stranded at the Shortland Islands anchorage, about 430 kilometers (270 miles) north-west of the Lunga Point beachhead. Still more troops, this time from the 35th Infantry Brigade, began to arrive at Rabaul as well, earmarked for Guadalcanal.

Maj. Gen. Kiyotake Kawaguchi, the brigade commander, would now take charge of the effort to re-capture Henderson Field. Kawaguchi had drawn the thankless assignment after protesting the judicial murder of Philippine Supreme Court Chief Justice José Abad Santos, calling it “a violation of the true Bushido.” This view did not prevent him from overseeing Santos’ execution, which would draw him six years in a Philippine prison after the war.

Kawaguchi’s first task was to get his men, ultimately totaling about 9,000, to Guadalcanal. Rear Admiral Raizo Tanaka had orders to take them there on destroyers, but a destroyer could only take between 100 and 150 men and no heavy weapons. Kawaguchi suggested instead making transport runs to the New Georgia Islands nearer to Guadalcanal. From there, landing craft would take the troops, equipment, and supplies the rest of the way. After a series of bureaucratic fights, both methods would be endorsed.

Japanese soldiers board a Navy destroyer bound for Guadalcanal, 1942.

“Rat missions” by destroyers (because they only came out at night) and “ant missions” by landing craft (because they comparatively crawled across the waters) became the two means by which the Japanese maintained their land forces on Guadalcanal. Neither could bring artillery pieces or vehicles, and this made the big seaplane carriers (which had their own cranes) vital elements of the flow as well.

On the American side, transports did make sporadic deliveries to the beachhead, though never remaining long enough to offload all of their cargo. The three American aircraft carriers continued their patrols south of Guadalcanal, bringing a flow of fresh aircraft to the island as constant air combat and the rugged conditions chewed through men and machines at a terrible rate.

Hornet and her escorts joined the American Task Force 61 (the carrier force) on 29 August, temporarily giving Frank Jack Fletcher four carriers, one of them damaged. Enterprise left Task Force 61 the next day, bound for Tonga to undergo inspection and temporary repairs from the repair ship Vestal, leaving there on 3 September for Pearl Harbor, where she remained until mid-October. She flew off all but 16 of her planes (eight fighters and eight dive bombers), to Guadalcanal, Efate, or Saratoga.

On 31 August, the Japanese submarine I-26 torpedoed Fletcher’s flagship Saratoga, hitting her just once but causing limited flooding and extensive short-circuits in her electrical systems. A destroyer spotted the incoming tin fish, but the slow-turning converted battle cruiser could not avoid it.

Saratoga flew off all of her aircraft to Henderson Field (including those from Enterprise), keeping nine fighters for self-defense. The cruiser Minneapolis towed her until her engineers could get the big carrier moving again. At 10 knots she headed for Tonga for temporary repairs (again by the overworked crew of Vestal), a six-day voyage followed by six more days of repairs. She finally reached Pearl Harbor on the 21st, and would remain for the next two months. She took Fletcher with her; he would never command at sea again.

Saratoga under repair at Tonga, September 1942.

That left the Americans with just two carriers, and one of them (Wasp) still desperately needed turbine repairs. But it did give a major boost to the Cactus Air Force stationed on Guadalcanal, and the SoPac theater air command in general. Replacing those planes would be difficult: the two damaged carriers would need 75 F4F fighters to restore their air groups, and only sixteen new planes were expected in September. Meanwhile, the Army Air Forces refused to contribute high-performance fighters to the theater.

Leigh Noyes, commanding Task Force 18 (Wasp and her escorts), took over Task Force 61. Theater commander Robert Ghormley issued instructions to keep the carriers well away from Guadalcanal and the Japanese submarines known to prowl south of the island, the zone American sailors dubbed “Torpedo Junction.” George Murray, commanding Task Force 17 (Hornet and escorts), steamed over the line drawn by Ghormley on 6 September, where the Japanese submarine I-11 launched three torpedoes at the carrier. Somehow, Ensign Johnny Cresto, flying his TBF Avenger on anti-submarine patrol over the carrier, not only spotted the torpedoes but dropped a depth charge in front of them that caused two of the warheads to explode. The third torpedo missed Hornet.

On the Japanese side, the Second and Third Fleets set out from Truk on 10 September, with the two heavy carriers that had fought the Battle of the Eastern Solomons (Zuikaku and Shokaku) and the new light carrier Zuiho, plus their escorts. They would be ready to support Kawaguchi’s ground assault, slated for the 13th.

Kawaguchi’s gamble failed miserably. None of the Japanese headquarters, Army or Navy, had radio contact with Kawaguchi, and only flyovers by A6M fighters determined that the airfield was not, in fact, in Japanese hands. Japanese planes at Rabaul had been held back in anticipation of moving to the newly-captured field as quickly as possible.

PBY Catalina flying boats ashore at their base at Espiritu Santo, in the New Hebrides.

On the same day, an American PBY flying boat sent a report of two Japanese cruisers steaming north of the Santa Cruz Island, east of Guadalcanal and roughly where Noyes had expected to find the Japanese carriers. Task Force 61, which had just delivered substantial air reinforcements to Henderson Field including 42 more F4F fighter planes, headed for the enemy but could not find them (nor could the subsequent searches by land-based planes and flying boats).

A Japanese H8K “Flying Porcupine” flying boat operating out of Rabaul spotted Task Force 61. Nagumo, commanding the Japanese carriers, wished to launch a strike immediately, but the Americans moved off to the southeast and out of range by the time night fell.

On the 14th, Task Force 61 remained south of the Santa Cruz Islands, and Kondo to the north, each still seeking the other. A large convoy brought the 7th Marine Regiment from Espiritu Santo to Guadalcanal. Noyes had convinced Ghormley that his carriers could not fly anti-submarine patrols or combat air patrol over the transports, no matter how much convoy commander Richmond Kelly Turner cursed and shouted. To do so would bring the carriers within Torpedo Junction, and Noyes felt he could better protect the Marines by seeking out the Japanese carriers, while planes based at Henderson Field looked after the transports.

Shortly after 1100, American recon planes began sending reports of Japanese battleships and cruisers north of the Santa Cruz Islands. The last such, from Lt. Baxter Moore, ended with, “We’re going down in flames,” as fighters from Shokaku caught up with him. Moore and all of his crew were killed.

Noyes turned his task force to the north-east at maximum speed (23 knots, the most Wasp could make on her tortured turbines), and launched a strike of 39 planes from Hornet, with sixteen Wasp dive bombers fanned out ahead to look for the enemy. But the Japanese, having failed to find the American carriers again, had turned back to the north to refuel, just in time for the American strike to miss them.

During the night, Task Force 61 turned to the south-east to resume its position covering the big convoy, which had halted both to be ready in case a carrier battle broke out and to allow a transport jammed with aviation gas to catch up. On the next morning, the 15th, Wasp served as duty carrier, proving combat air and anti-submarine patrols, while Hornet kept her aircraft ready for a possible strike should the Japanese be spotted again.

In front of Kondo’s Japanese fleet, a patrol line of submarines had been stationed to look for the Americans. At 1250, I-19 spotted Task Force 18 (the Wasp group) and I-26 sighted Task Force 17 (the Hornet group). I-26 had no firing solution, but Wasp’s turn back onto her southeasterly course after landing eight fighters and three dive-bombers, brough the slow-moving carrier directly across I-19’s bow. Takaichi Kinashi’s submarine loosed six torpedoes, two of which struck Wasp, one near the bow and one just forward of the island.

A torpedo hits the destroyer O’Brien (foreground) while Wasp burns in the background.

The torpedo hits ruptured aviation gasoline storage tanks, and 20 seconds after the second torpedo hit the gasoline vapor ignited in an even larger explosion. Wasp’s armorers had begun preparing aircraft for the next day, when the carriers would switch roles and Wasp would provide strike aircraft. Those armed planes now began to catch fire and explode, while ready ammunition cooked off at her anti-aircraft batteries.

Twenty minutes after the torpedo strikes, another massive explosion of gasoline vapor rocked the ship, burning Noyes and killing yet more men. Fifteen minutes after that, Wasp’s captain, the future Chief of Naval Operations Forrest Sherman, ordered his crew to abandon ship. Destroyers came alongside to take off survivors; 25 officers, 150 crewmen and war correspondent Jack Singer had been killed.

Meanwhile, the four Type 95 oxygen-fueled torpedoes that missed Wasp sped on (some sources claim that three of them hit the carrier, but the initial reports on the loss of the ship mistook the first explosion of aviation gas for a third torpedo hit). One hit the destroyer O’Brien, inflicting heavy damage that would eventually sink her on the way home for repairs, over a month later. And one hit the battleship North Carolina, putting her out of action for the next two and a half months.

As night fell, the destroyer Lansdowne put three torpedoes into the still-burning carrier and she sank by the bow. Of Wasp’s air group, 46 planes went down with the ship, and 25 landed on Hornet; all of the latter would fly to Espiritu Santo the next day. Noyes, once recovered from his wounds, would remain at a desk job for the rest of the war.

The loss of Wasp left the Americans with one operational carrier in the South Pacific, and though popular histories make much of the lone Hornet operating against the Japanese, for the next two weeks she remained at or close to New Caledonia, with her planes operating from shore bases.

Rat missions and ant missions continued to bring Japanese troops to Guadalcanal, now joined by the big, fast seaplane carriers. The Japanese Army planned a division-scale attack on Henderson Field; the Navy promised to cover the convoys, and a tearful Combined Fleet commander Isoroku Yamamoto pledged to provide battleships to bombard the Marine airfield.

In early October, Hornet undertook a raid against Japanese shipping in the Buin area in the northern Solomons. She returned two weeks later to attack again. The Japanese 8th Fleet command at Rabaul, aware of the American intent through radio intercepts, begged Combined Fleet headquarters to counter the raid with its own carriers, but a shortage of fuel kept them at Truk Lagoon.

Soon enough, the Japanese would have their fresh supplies of fuel, and both sides would have carrier reinforcements, leading to renewed air-sea battle.

Battle Analysis
The battle that never was. While the Japanese had more flight decks, the Americans had more airplanes. But one of their carriers operated under severe speed limitations; whether this also contributed to her sinking is not clear.

The blame heaped on Noyes for the loss of his flagship seems unfair. He kept the American carriers away from Torpedo Junction, as ordered; the submarine that claimed Wasp was operating well outside the restricted area and American intelligence gave no warning of submarine activity there.

Until this point, neither side had built up fuel reserves and infrastructure to support sustained operations in the Solomons. And only in late September did the Imperial Japanese Army finally commit an entire division to the land campaign, rather than pulling in smaller units from many locations to form special detachments. The campaign would soon become much more intense.

Order South Pacific Here.

Ironbottom Sound is a scenario book that expands Second World War at Sea: South Pacific. It comes with 36 new scenarios for South Pacific, extending the story through August 1943 and the campaign for New Georgia. All of the maps and pieces needed are included in South Pacific; the companion history book, Solomons Naval Campaign, comes bundled with Ironbottom Sound.

Order Ironbottom Sound Here.
Includes Solomons Naval Campaign book.

Order Solomons Naval Campaign Here.
Companion piece to Ironbottom Sound, or just read it separately.

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Mike Bennighof is president of Avalanche Press and holds a doctorate in history from Emory University. A Fulbright Scholar and NASA Journalist in Space finalist, he has published a great many books, games and articles on historical subjects; people are saying that some of them are actually good. He lives in Birmingham, Alabama with his wife, three children, and new puppy. He misses his lizard-hunting Iron Dog, Leopold.

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