US Marine Corps - The Black Vault

Success, Then Ciiff Hanging 327
Japanese land based planes were unequipped with radar. Neither the carriers
nor the amphibians were sighted.’z
that:
At midnight on the sixth on board the flagship, it had been established
The force is 3 miles southward or behind planned position with respect
to time.13
The Henley (DD-39I ) (Commander Robert Hall Smith) and the
Bagley (DD-386) (Lieutenant Commander George A, Sinclair) led the
ships into what was later called “Iron Bottom Sound.” The Henley early
on 7 August had sighted the big high dark mass of Guadalcanal at 0133,
less $han an hour before the moon in its last quarter tried to break through
the murk of the night at 0223. From the force flagship, McCawley, the sky
at midnight on the sixth had appeared
overcast, visibility poor. . . . ships in sight—one ahead, one astern, arrd in
next adjacent columns, only one ship in sight.
However, at 0050 on the seventh, fortune had begun to shine on the
amphibians:
Stars out, visibili~ improving. . . .
0130. Counted eight ships in left-hand column and seven in right. . . .
Betelgeuse and Transdiv Dog widely opened out. Directed these ships to
close up, using blinker tube with reduced iris. . . .
OMO, The moon after disclosing Guadalcanal and Savo Island became
obscure. . . .14
For the day of the landing, the seventh, the weather was about all that
could be hoped for at Guadalcanal. The sky was mostly cloudy and the
average temperature was 80° F.”
Off Cape Esperance, the northwest cape of Guadalcanal, Task Force 62
had been split, with the lead transports bound for Florida Islands (Group
YOKE, Captain George B. Ashe) passing north of Savo Island and the
much larger Group XRAY (Captain Lawrence F. Reif snider) bound for
Lunga Point, taking the channel to the southward. Savo Island was abeam
just before 0500, with sunrise due about 0633.
M(a) Samuel B. Griffith, Tke Battle jor GuadAcunA, p. 40; (b) U.S. Naval War College,
Tke Battle of SCZUOIrlund ,4r4gti~t 9, 1942 ( 1950), pp. 9–Io. Hereafter War College, Suvo Islund.
18Staff Log.
“ Ibid.
“ USS Hull War Diary, 1 Aug. 1942.