Ahoy - Mac's Web Log

Dear Mac,

I read your monography, it's fantastic!! I have some questions:

Why the destroyer Patterson didn't alert Chicago and Canberra early? Only that ship had radar?

If there was the cruiser Australia too, the battle result would be changed or not?

I hope that you have answers (or hypothesis) to giving me.

Best regards
Massimo

Massimo,

Thank you for your kind words about my Monograph on Savo.

Patterson was really the only US Destroyer that was truly awake on the night that the Japanese force came charging in at Savo. Both Blue and Ralph Talbot posted as early warning pickets to seawards of Savo, were selected because they were designated as the best Radar and Anti-Submarine equipped ships to carry out that job. Both failed dismally in their duties, and did not sight the Japanese force of 7 cruisers and 1 destroyer as they crept past these two US ships, but the Japanese fleet saw them.

Likewise, the badly damaged US Destroyer Jarvis, creeping off to sail to Australia for repairs, also failed to sight and report the presence of the enemy force, but again the Japanese keeping a sharp lookout sighted Jarvis.

I believe much of the blame that befell the Allied Cruisers at Savo can be laid ath the doorstep of these three US Destroyers, I have always failed to understand how they all missed sighting and warning us about this Japanese raiding force.

I think that Patterson reported the enemy just as soon as she sighted them, she used a radio telephone system called Talk Beween Ships or TBS to send out her warning. Alas Canberra did not have TBS fitted, so we could not read that warning, in addition, Patterson tried to signal Canberra using a small blinker tube light to send a warning.

Canberra had just had Radar fitted before we had sailed from Sydney for the Solomons, but the set was not working all that well, and the land close by would interfere with the echoes from the radar. Also, as a new tool, I do not believe that Captains had much knowledge of, nor faith in this New Black Art.

Now your question about HMAS Australia, if Admiral Crutchley had not taken her out of the line to Guadalcanal to visit Admiral Turner, and she had been leading the Southern Cruiser Force, I think we may well have had a different result. This ship was a seasoned one with a very experienced crew, I had spent the first two years of the war in her in the Atlantic, at Dakar with de Gaulle, she had been part of the Battle of the Coral Sea, whilst Canberra was just out of a dockyard refit.

Australia would have faced the Japanese, not Canberra, as it was on that night, Chicago should have led the southern cruisers, she was senior to us in Canberra. After Australia left, Captain Bode in Chicago decided he would lead from the rear, and did not take the lead. He was later criticised for this decision, and eventually commited sucide.

How can one really predict what might have been if ( a ) Australia had been there, or ( b ) Chicago had been in the lead, or ( c ) if the US picket destroyers had done the job they should have done?

Massimo, I trust this response may have helped you a little.

If you have any other questions, just fire away.

Best Regards,
Mac. 

back to letters index