"Guadalcanal Quintet" Topic

From August to November 1942, a series of hard-fought nighttime naval battles punctuated the struggle for the crucial foothold in the Solomon Islands.

Naval History Magazine: link

Guadalcanal is really interesting battle with an air, land and sea elements.

For those who study and use command and control mechanics on land, the battle of Savo Island is one to model! C&C of the two US flotillas was totally broke resulting in horrible losses due to actions of the commander, ignoring of actionable intel from many sources and multiple layers of HQ procedures. The valor of the ship's crews not in question- only in their higher HQ. (Sound familiar in other periods?) Even the Japanese commander did not follow-up on his win but hearing his logic made sense at the time. We could learn from these mistakes and in our wargames, we can too, make mistakes but "unsink" our ships for the next try.

I can highly suggest doing some research into this battle to keep the Guadacanal campaign sustained.

Read Neptune's Inferno by Hornfisher. He recently passed at a young age but wrote what I think is the best account of Savo.

2nd Hornfischer's book.

Allow me to recommend a good book related to The Battle of Cape Esperance, the second naval night engagement fought in the waters around Guadalcanal. This is, despite its humble outward appearance, an important book that not only uncloaks the details of USS Duncan's demise, but also explains her subsequent post-war consignment to relative historical anonymity. Suffice it to say that there is a good deal more to her story than provided by the official histories.

"The Gun Club" by Robert Fowler

link

B