US Marine Corps - The Black Vault

Save—The Galiing Defeat 381
Rear Admiral Turner had these comments on destroyer deployments:
Without question, subsequent events have shown that it was a grave military
error not to have had more destroyer pickets. However, the picket line
could not have been advanced very far to the front and still have given effective
protection because then they would have uncovered the pass between
FLORIDA and SANTA ISABEL ISLANDS, and the pass between
GUADALCANAL and the RUSSELLS.W
The problem of Commander Screening Group was to provide protection
to Transport Group XRAY and to Transport Group YOKE against air, sub-
marine, and surf ace ship attack. Each of these enemy elements required
diversion from giving fully adequate attention to the others. Enemy air attack
required that the anti-aircraft guns of the whole Screening Group be posi-
tioned close to the transports at least at dawn and dusk as well as throughout
the day. Enemy submarine attack required the 24 hour diversion of adequate
destroyer-types to anti-submarine patrolling close around the transports as
well as in the avenues of submarine approach. The threat of surface ship
attack required principally the ready availability of the main and secondary
MRear Admiral Turner to CINCPAC, official comment on Hepburn Report, 8 Jun. 1943.
10” SOUTH
RUSSEL :> ‘Ab
,+
GUAOALCANA
w17H ONLY TWO PICKETS ASSIGNED, M0vIN6
THEM FROM AREA 0 FuRTHER TOWAROS fiRE4 B
TO COVER SHIPS COMING OOWN THE SLOT WOULD
PERMIT AN UN OETECTECI APPROACH THROUGH
AORC INCREASING THE TOTAL NUMBER OF
ASS,GNED PICKETS TO SIX WOULD HAVE SOLVED
THE PROBLEM,
[AST
ABEL
ITA
4RAMASKI
SAN CRIST06’AL
MuItipie Approach routes; inadequate radar pickets, prior to the Battle of
Savo Isiand.