This WWII battle had ships firing point blank with 16-inch guns

The area they fought in at Savo Island is called "The Slot" because it is indeed narrow. Due to the mountains and other features lining it, your number one weapon will be the MK-1 eyeball. The Japanese met the Americans on two occasions within a few weeks and fought us expertly, beating us horribly with great loss of life. On the first night's battle, we crossed the Japanese "T" but our inexperienced ('arrogant') leadership felt that the RADAR couldn't be trusted and the "Japs couldn't see at night due to their slanty eyes." The 'nips' were indeed able to see at night and gave us the worst beating at sea in our history. The second night's battle was little better. Both battles were fought at mud-slinging ranges. Again, due to the terrain.

Japanese intel set up to repeat the first two battles' success and they entered the slot with two intentions: eliminate all that was left of the US Navy which - on paper - was destroyers and then bombard Henderson Field. Admiral Lee entered Savo Island with two battleships and four destroyers. While Lee picked up the Japanese at long RADAR range, his destroyers were ahead. Neither battleship was able to fire for risk of friendly fire. South Dakota then lost power at the time she got into a firing position. The Japanese then broke formation to circle her, which wheeled them closer to Washington in a faster amount of time. Lee was picked for the raid as he was experienced and patient. He waited for the Japanese to get into position, then opened fire.

Australian/British coast watchers, Japanese log books and American log books put the ranges at under 5K. Now, prior to 1974, Samuel Elliot Morrison's "The Two Ocean War" was the only accepted Naval History for the USN in WW2. Not so now. Tons of stuff was declassified and newer volumes tell more accurate accounting. Any of the Eric Hammel books on Guadalcanal are excellent records of those pivotal nights.

PO3 Donald Murphy - Sincere thanks for the history update and the correction.

Man, it boggles my mind how ignorant and stupid and arrogant people can be, and how bad it used to be. You'd think that after the American Navy had had its asses handed to them by the Japanese repeatedly, American naval commanders would have been a little more circumspect about making assumptions about how inferior the Japanese people were in any respect.

Your comment about the slanty eyes reminded me of the old Rollerball movie, when one of the Houston guys wasn't worried about the upcoming match against Tokyo because of the "tiny little men on that team."

SSgt Christopher Brose - Scarier still is that the Royal Navy taught the Japanese Navy everything they knew and were fully aware of how *GOOD* they were at torpedo attacks, night gunnery, etc, and yet, even Britain went into battle feeling that the Japanese were inferior based on race.

USN admirals Scott and Callaghan cost hundreds of allied deaths due to racist arrogance. Had a different command structure been in place during the first battle of Savo, the T crossing of Japan would have ended the war that very night. Guadalcanal was the first of the attrition battles and Japan realized early on during it that they did not have enough toys to beat the USA. Japan's entire destroyer line sailed into the silent guns of the allied cruiser line. On paper and in practice, the six allied 8 inch cruisers should have eaten the Japanese.

Luckily Scott and Callaghan lost their lives that night as they'd have been executed by Halsey and Nimitz. Nimitz had a scary reputation for shit-canning timid, difficult-to-teach line officers. This is why the sub force had a ton of skippers under the age of 30. If you showed a willingness to learn plus attitude, he gave you command. Scott and Cal were on the opposite end of the spectrum. The five Sullivan brothers lost their lives during the first Savo battles.

SSgt Christopher Brose - those guns are freaking huge when they were test firing them at YPG even though it was a mile away you still felt the ground shake and hear it go off. we were approximately 20-25 miles down range near point of impact taking readings and video

The only problem with Surigao was that the Japanese were destroyed/sunk before they met the American battle line. PT Boats and destroyers were used to "shoo" the Japanese towards the battle line and sadly, not caring what orders said, they did more than "shoo." Japanese logs reported torpedo and rocket damage which could not have come from the battleships. Most post-1980 USN histories give the IJN losses to the PT's and airpower.

"American battleships sunk at Pearl Harbor exact revenge on Japanese battleships that took part in the December 7th attack!" That headline had already been written and the press was not about to change anything.

They made a big deal out of this at the Naval War College. It was "the moment" where all the heavies were right place right time to have the Naval gun battle they had all dreamed of....and it wasn't

National pride played into it a lot. The US public was getting burnt out on war and "big headlines" were needed. Likewise, negative headlines weren't "encouraged" which would be why the typhoon debacle was not known for many years. Nor USS Indianapolis. The older "girls" were used primarily for shore bombardment which meant a limited number of AP shells were onboard for a battle that would never ideally take place. I say "ideally" as Nimitz was killing everything he could with carriers and submarines. The chance of anything being left by the aircraft was slim. "Battleships sunk at Pearl come back from the dead" was a publicity boost answer to prayer. As the security people were screening everything anyway, someone pointed out that Fuso and Yamashiro both took part in the Pearl Harbor raid. So "Pearl victims sink Pearl attackers" was the best result you could want.