SUN 11 OCT 1942 Pacific
Japanese transport force (Rear Admiral Joshima Koji), formed around seaplane carriers Chitose and Nisshin and six destroyers, reaches Tassafaronga, Guadalcanal, to disembark elements of the Japanese Army's 2d Infantry Division. Three heavy cruisers and two destroyers (Rear Admiral Goto Aritomo, his flag in heavy cruiser Aoba) are to provide cover by shelling Henderson Field.
Battle of Cape Esperance commences shortly before midnight as TG 64.2 (Rear Admiral Norman Scott) bars Goto's way. Heavy cruiser Salt Lake City (CA-25) and light cruiser Boise (CL-47)
are damaged, but combine to cripple Japanese heavy cruiser Furutaka; destroyers Duncan (DD-485) and Farenholt (DD-491) are also damaged by Japanese gunfire, the latter possibly by friendly fire from either Boise or Helena (CL-50). American cruiser and destroyer gunfire sinks Japanese destroyer Fubuki (09°06'S, 159°38'E) and damages heavy cruiser Aoba (Rear Admiral Goto is killed on board his flagship) and destroyer Hatsuyuki.
Japanese submarine I-25, homeward bound from her deployment off the U.S. West Coast, torpedoes and sinks Russian submarine L 16 (bound from Dutch Harbor, Alaska, to San Francisco, California) 46°41'N, 138°56'E.
Submarine Searaven (SS-196) torpedoes German blockade runner Regensburg in Sunda Strait, N.E.I.
British destroyer HMS Active rescues 23 survivors from No. 2 lifeboat from U.S. freighter Coloradan, which had been torpedoed and sunk by German submarine U-159 on 9 October 1942 (see 19 October 1942).
Atlantic
U.S. freighter Steel Scientist, en route to Paramaribo, British Guiana, is torpedoed and sunk by German submarine U-514, 05°48'N, 51°39'W; one crewman is killed in the attack. Survivors (who include 37 merchant seamen and the 9-man Armed Guard) take to a gig and three lifeboats (see 19 and 20 October 1942).
On this day in 1942, the American Navy intercepts a Japanese fleet of ships on their way to reinforce troops at Guadalcanal. The Navy succeeded in its operation, sinking a majority of the ships.
The battle for Guadalcanal began in August, when the Marines landed in the first American offensive of the war. The ground fighting saw U.S. troops gain a decisive edge, wiping out detachments and regiments in brutal combat. The most effective Japanese counterstrikes came from the air and sea, with bombing raids harassing the Marines and threatening their dwindling supplies. But before the Japanese could reinforce their own ground troops, the Navy went to work.
The battle of Cape Esperance, on the northwest coast of Guadalcanal Island, commenced at night between surface ships; all Japanese reinforcements came at night, an operation nicknamed the Tokyo Express. The Navy sank one Japanese cruiser, the Furutaka, and three destroyers, while losing only one of their own destroyers. In characteristic fashion, those Japanese sailors who found themselves floundering in the water refused rescue by Americans; they preferred to be devoured by the sharks as a fate less shameful than capture.
Unfortunately, the loss of American manpower was greater than that of hardware: 48 sailors from the American destroyer Duncan were the victims of crossfire between the belligerents, and more than a hundred others died when an American cruiser turned on a searchlight to better target a Japanese ship. It also had the unintended effect of illuminating the sailors of the cruiser, making them easy targets.
The American Navy continued to harass Japanese ships trying to reinforce the Japanese position on the island; relatively few Japanese troops made it ashore. By the end of 1942, the Japanese were ready to evacuate the island–in defeat.
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