They Gave Their All : The Sullivan Brothers and Tragic Sinking of the USS Juneau
derson Field and her precious planes would live to fight another day and fight they would . In the morning , Cactus dive-bombers caught up with damaged Hiei and her consort Yukikaze and bombed the battleship mercilessly until it capsized and sank north by northeast of Savo Island .
So ended the most ferocious night surface action of the Pacific War , one that historian Samuel Eliot Morison described as “ the most desperate sea fight since Jutland ” and “ a struggle that recalled the Anglo-Dutch naval battles of the seventeenth century .” 41 In the end , however , mistakes were canceled out by courage as the Japanese bombardment of Guadalcanal had been thwarted .
As dawn broke , the US vessels that were able departed Iron Bottom Sound via Indispensable Straight . The formation included three lame ducks . San Francisco ’ s topsides were demolished by her duel with Hiei . Juneau , with a broken keel , settled four feet lower in the water with a slight list to port . More concerning , she developed a crack along the short axis aft of turret no . 5 . 42
Starboard side 5-inch gun mount ( turret no . 5 ). The transverse crack in the Juneau ’ s deck developed behind this turret . Photo reprinted with the permission of Vulcan , Inc .
Fearing she might tear apart at any minute , Captain Swenson ordered lashings loosened on all the life rafts . Finally , destroyer O ’ Bannon , whose sound gear had been damaged by an underwater explosion , was sent ahead to transmit a message to Admiral Halsey . Captain Gilbert Hoover in Helena , as the senior surviving officer and Swenson ’ s Naval Academy classmate , ordered his formation of six ships to zigzag on a southeasterly base course for Nouméa .
63