Savo Island

1. Lead

The Battle of Savo Island, fought in the darkness of the night of 8–9 August 1942, was the worst defeat the United States Navy suffered at sea in the Second World War. Two days after American Marines had landed on Guadalcanal, in the first Allied offensive of the Pacific war, a Japanese cruiser force under Vice Admiral Gunichi Mikawa slipped past the Allied screen in the night and fell upon the Allied cruisers guarding the transports off the island.

In less than an hour, four Allied heavy cruisers — the American Astoria, Quincy and Vincennes, and the Australian Canberra — were sunk, and a fifth, the Chicago, was badly damaged. More than 1,000 Allied sailors were killed. The Japanese lost no ships at all.

The transports, loaded with the Marines’ supplies, survived only because Mikawa, having sunk the cruisers, turned for home instead of attacking them — a decision that has been argued over ever since. The battle gave the waters off Guadalcanal their name, Ironbottom Sound, and it taught the American navy a lesson in night fighting that it would spend the rest of the war learning.

Savo Island was a battle of minutes, and its consequences lasted for months. The American Marines on Guadalcanal, who had expected to be supplied from the sea, were left with only the supplies they had carried ashore, and for weeks they fought on short rations while the Japanese reinforced the island.

The battle also exposed the weaknesses of the Allied command in the South Pacific: divided command, poor communication, exhausted crews, and a failure to understand Japanese night-fighting skill. The American navy recovered, and within months it was winning night battles of its own, but Savo Island remained the measure of how far it had to come.

It was the first great naval battle of the Guadalcanal campaign, and it was very nearly the last.

2. Key Facts

Date	Night of 8–9 August 1942 (about 01:30–02:30, 9 August)
Location	Off Savo Island, between Guadalcanal and Florida Island, Solomon Islands
Result	Japanese victory; four Allied heavy cruisers sunk, no Japanese ships lost
Allied commanders	Rear Adm. Richmond Kelly Turner (amphibious force); Rear Adm. Victor Crutchley, RN (cruiser screen); Capt. Frederick Riefkohl (USS Vincennes)
Japanese commander	Vice Adm. Gunichi Mikawa (Eighth Fleet)
Allied strength	6 heavy cruisers (Canberra, Chicago, Astoria, Quincy, Vincennes; Australia absent), 2 light cruisers, 8 destroyers (screen); transports off Guadalcanal and Tulagi
Japanese strength	7 cruisers (Chōkai, Aoba, Kako, Kinugasa, Furutaka, Tenryū, Yūbari) and 1 destroyer (Yūnagi)
Allied losses	4 heavy cruisers sunk (Astoria, Quincy, Vincennes, Canberra); Chicago and 2 destroyers damaged; 1,077 killed
Japanese losses	No ships lost; Chōkai lightly damaged; about 58 killed (some sources say 35–58)

3. Background

Guadalcanal: The First Offensive

The Battle of Savo Island was fought because of Guadalcanal. On 7 August 1942, American Marines of the 1st Marine Division, under Major General Alexander Vandegrift, landed on Guadalcanal and on the neighbouring island of Tulagi, in the first Allied offensive of the Pacific war.

The objective was the airfield the Japanese were building on Guadalcanal, which, if completed, would allow Japanese aircraft to threaten the sea routes between the United States and Australia. The landings were a surprise, and the Marines took the airfield — soon renamed Henderson Field — with little resistance.

But the landings were only the beginning: the Marines had to be supplied from the sea, and the sea around Guadalcanal was controlled by no one. The Japanese, who had been building the airfield, were determined to take it back, and they had a powerful fleet at Rabaul, on New Britain, under Vice Admiral Gunichi Mikawa, commander of the Eighth Fleet.

The battle for Guadalcanal would be fought on land, in the air and at sea, and Savo Island was the first battle at sea.

The Allied Screen

The Allied naval force at Guadalcanal was commanded by Rear Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner, who was responsible for the transports and the landings. The transports were protected by a screen of cruisers and destroyers under Rear Admiral Victor Crutchley of the Royal Navy, an experienced officer who had fought at Jutland in the First World War.

Crutchley’s screen was divided into three groups: a northern group of three cruisers — the Australian Australia and Canberra and the American Chicago — guarding the passage between Savo Island and Florida Island; a southern group of three American cruisers — Astoria, Quincy and Vincennes — guarding the passage between Savo Island and Guadalcanal; and an eastern group of two light cruisers and destroyers guarding the transports.

The screen was thin, the ships were tired — they had been at sea for weeks — and the crews were exhausted. On the night of 8 August, Crutchley himself was called away to a conference on Turner’s flagship, and command of the screen passed to Captain Howard Bode of the Chicago, an officer who had never commanded a force in battle. The stage was set for disaster.

Mikawa’s Plan

Vice Admiral Gunichi Mikawa, commander of the Japanese Eighth Fleet at Rabaul, learned of the American landings on 7 August and decided at once to attack. His plan was simple and bold: he would take his cruiser force — seven cruisers and one destroyer — down the narrow channel between the Solomon Islands known as the Slot, slip past the Allied screen in the darkness, and fall upon the transports off Guadalcanal.

The Japanese were masters of night fighting: their lookouts were trained to see in the dark, their torpedoes — the Type 93 “Long Lance” — were the best in the world, with a range and a warhead no Allied torpedo could match, and their crews had practised night attacks for years.

Mikawa’s force left Rabaul on the afternoon of 7 August, sailed down the Slot at high speed, and by the night of 8 August it was approaching Savo Island. The Allied screen had no idea it was coming: the Allied reconnaissance aircraft had reported a Japanese force, but the reports were confused, and the Allied commanders believed the Japanese would not attack at night.

Night Fighting in 1942

The battle was shaped by the technology of 1942. The Allied ships had radar, but their radar was primitive, their operators were inexperienced, and their commanders did not trust it. The Japanese had no radar at all, but they had something better for a night battle: lookouts trained to see in the dark, floatplanes that dropped flares to illuminate the enemy, and torpedoes that could be fired from beyond the range of the Allied guns.

The Allied cruisers, for their part, were not ready for a night action: their crews were at a low state of readiness, their guns were not manned, and their captains were asleep. The Japanese, by contrast, were at full readiness, their guns manned and their torpedo tubes loaded.

The difference between the two forces was not one of ships or guns, but of preparation — and in a night battle, preparation is everything.

The Japanese advantage in night fighting was the product of years of training: the Imperial Navy had practised night torpedo attacks since the 1930s, and its officers believed that the night was the Japanese element. The American navy, which had trained for daylight battles, learned the lesson at Savo Island — and paid for it in ships and lives.

4. Opposing Forces

The Allied Cruiser Screen

The Allied screen off Guadalcanal on the night of 8–9 August 1942 consisted of six heavy cruisers, two light cruisers and eight destroyers, divided into three groups. The northern group, between Savo Island and Florida Island, was the Australian heavy cruisers Australia and Canberra and the American heavy cruiser Chicago, under the command of Captain Howard Bode of the Chicago after Crutchley left for the conference.

The southern group, between Savo Island and Guadalcanal, was the American heavy cruisers Astoria, Quincy and Vincennes, under Captain Frederick Riefkohl of the Vincennes. The eastern group, guarding the transports, was the light cruisers San Juan and Hobart and two destroyers. The destroyers on picket duty, Ralph Talbot and Patterson to the west and Bagley, Helm, Wilson and others to the east, were the outer screen.

The Allied ships were powerful — each heavy cruiser carried nine 8-inch guns — but they were not ready for battle. Their crews were at Condition III, a peacetime cruising readiness, with half the guns unmanned and the captains asleep, and their radar, which might have warned them, was not properly used.

Mikawa’s Cruiser Force

Vice Admiral Mikawa’s force consisted of seven cruisers and one destroyer, and it was, ship for ship, the equal of the Allied screen. His flagship was the heavy cruiser Chōkai, and behind it came the heavy cruisers Aoba, Kako, Kinugasa and Furutaka, the light cruisers Tenryū and Yūbari, and the destroyer Yūnagi.

The Japanese cruisers carried 8-inch guns like the Allied ships, but their real weapon was the torpedo: each Japanese cruiser carried Type 93 “Long Lance” torpedoes, which were faster, longer-ranged and more powerful than any Allied torpedo, and which left almost no wake.

The Japanese crews were also the best night fighters in the world: they had trained for years in night attacks, their lookouts could spot a ship in the dark at ranges that surprised the Allies, and their floatplanes could drop flares to illuminate a target. Mikawa’s force was smaller than the Allied force on paper, but it was ready, it was trained, and it had the advantage of surprise.

The Transports

Behind the cruiser screen lay the transports — the ships that had carried the Marines to Guadalcanal and that were still unloading their supplies on the night of 8–9 August. The transports were the real objective of the battle: if Mikawa sank them, the Marines on Guadalcanal would be stranded without food, ammunition or reinforcements, and the whole Guadalcanal operation would fail.

The transports were guarded by the eastern cruiser group and by destroyers, but they were defenceless against a cruiser attack: they were slow, unarmoured and loaded with explosives and fuel. Their survival depended on the cruiser screen holding the Japanese off, and on the night of 8–9 August the screen did not hold.

The transports survived, in the end, not because they were defended, but because Mikawa chose not to attack them — a decision that saved the Guadalcanal operation and that has been debated ever since.

The transports carried more than supplies: they carried the Marines’ heavy weapons, their ammunition, their food and their medical stores. Without them, the Marines on Guadalcanal would have been left with what they could carry on their backs, and the island would have been indefensible.

	Allies	Japan
Heavy cruisers	Canberra, Chicago, Astoria, Quincy, Vincennes (Australia absent at the conference)	Chōkai, Aoba, Kako, Kinugasa, Furutaka
Light cruisers	San Juan, Hobart	Tenryū, Yūbari
Destroyers	8 (incl. Ralph Talbot, Patterson, Bagley, Helm, Wilson)	1 (Yūnagi)
Torpedoes	Short-ranged, slow, visible wake	Type 93 “Long Lance”: long-ranged, fast, almost no wake
Night fighting	Radar fitted but poorly used; crews at low readiness	Trained lookouts, flares, years of night-attack practice
Command	Turner (transports); Crutchley (screen, absent); Bode (acting)	Mikawa (Eighth Fleet)

5. The Battle

The Approach

Mikawa’s force approached Savo Island in the darkness of the night of 8 August, sailing in a single column at high speed, with the Chōkai in the lead. At about 01:00 on 9 August, the Japanese lookouts spotted the Allied picket destroyer Ralph Talbot, and the Japanese ships opened fire on it, damaging it badly.

The Ralph Talbot sent a warning by radio, but the message was not received — or not understood — by the cruiser groups. The Japanese column then turned south, passed between Savo Island and the Allied screen, and at about 01:30 it came upon the northern cruiser group.

The Australian Canberra was the first to be hit: Japanese torpedoes and gunfire struck it within minutes, killing its captain and most of its bridge crew, and the ship was left dead in the water, burning. The Chicago, next in line, was hit by a torpedo in the bow and by gunfire, and its captain, Bode, turned the ship away to the west, out of the battle, without warning the other ships.

The northern group was destroyed in minutes, and the Japanese column sailed on, unopposed, towards the southern group.

The Destruction of the Southern Group

At about 01:50, the Japanese column came upon the southern cruiser group — the Astoria, Quincy and Vincennes — which was still unaware that a battle was being fought. The Japanese floatplanes dropped flares, illuminating the American cruisers like targets on a range, and the Japanese ships opened fire at point-blank range. The Quincy was hit by torpedoes and gunfire and sank within minutes, with the loss of 370 men.

The Vincennes was hit by torpedoes and more than 70 shells, and it sank at about 02:50, with the loss of 332 men. The Astoria was hit by more than 60 shells, caught fire, and sank in the morning, with the loss of 235 men. The whole southern group was destroyed in less than half an hour, and the Japanese had lost no ships at all.

The battle was, in the words of one American officer, “a massacre in the dark”.

Mikawa’s Decision

At about 02:30, with the Allied cruisers sunk or sinking, Mikawa faced a choice. Ahead of him lay the transports off Guadalcanal and Tulagi, defenceless and loaded with the Marines’ supplies. Behind him, the sun would rise in a few hours, and with it would come the American aircraft from Henderson Field and from the carriers, which would fall upon his ships.

Mikawa’s staff urged him to attack the transports, and his orders from Rabaul had been to destroy them. But Mikawa decided to withdraw. His reasons, as he later explained them, were that his ships were scattered after the battle, that he did not know where the Allied carriers were, and that he feared an air attack at dawn.

He turned his force north and sailed back up the Slot, leaving the transports untouched. On the way home, the American submarine S-44 torpedoed and sank the heavy cruiser Kako, the only Japanese ship lost in the operation. Mikawa’s decision saved the Marines on Guadalcanal — and it has been debated ever since.

His critics argue that he threw away a victory that would have ended the Guadalcanal campaign; his defenders argue that he made the only decision a prudent admiral could make, and that the transports would have cost him his fleet.

The Morning After

When dawn broke on 9 August, the sea off Savo Island was covered with wreckage and with survivors. The Astoria, still burning, sank in the morning. The Canberra, crippled and burning, was scuttled by an American destroyer in the afternoon. The Chicago, damaged, limped away to the south, and the destroyers picked up the survivors from the water.

The transports, realising that the cruiser screen was gone, weighed anchor and sailed away to the south, leaving the Marines on Guadalcanal with only the supplies they had carried ashore. The Marines, who had watched the flashes of the battle from the shore, knew that something terrible had happened, though they did not know how terrible.

For weeks afterwards, they fought on short rations, and the battle for Guadalcanal — on land, in the air and at sea — had only just begun.

The survivors of the battle were picked up by the destroyers and taken to the south, and the wounded were treated on the transports that had escaped. The dead were buried at sea or left in their ships, and the names of the 1,077 are recorded on the memorials at Guadalcanal and in the United States.

6. Turning Point

The Flares Over the Southern Group

The turning point of the Battle of Savo Island was a matter of minutes, and it came when the Japanese floatplanes dropped their flares over the southern cruiser group. Until that moment, the battle had been a confused night action, and the southern group — the Astoria, Quincy and Vincennes — still had a chance: if they had been warned, if their guns had been manned, if they had turned to meet the Japanese, they might have fought back.

The flares took that chance away. In the sudden light, the American cruisers were illuminated like targets, and the Japanese ships, still in darkness, opened fire at point-blank range with guns and torpedoes. The southern group was destroyed in less than half an hour, and the battle was over.

The flares were the turning point because they turned a night battle into a shooting gallery, and they showed, in a single terrible moment, the difference between a navy that had trained for night fighting and a navy that had not.

Mikawa’s Withdrawal

The second turning point was Mikawa’s decision to withdraw instead of attacking the transports. The decision saved the Guadalcanal operation, and it has been argued over ever since. Mikawa’s critics — and there have been many, in Japan as well as in the West — argue that he threw away the victory: the transports were defenceless, the Marines would have been stranded, and the Guadalcanal campaign would have ended before it had begun.

Mikawa’s defenders argue that he made the right decision: his ships were scattered, his ammunition was low, the Allied carriers were somewhere to the south, and an attack on the transports at dawn would have exposed his force to air attack and to destruction. The truth is probably that both sides are right: Mikawa won a great tactical victory and then, by withdrawing, gave up its strategic fruits.

The battle was a Japanese victory, but it was a victory that did not win the campaign.

7. Casualties and Losses

The Cost

The human cost of the Battle of Savo Island fell almost entirely on the Allies. A total of 1,077 Allied sailors were killed in the battle: 370 on the Quincy, 332 on the Vincennes, 235 on the Astoria, and 84 on the Canberra, with the remainder on the Chicago and the destroyers. Hundreds more were wounded, many of them badly burned by the fires that swept the stricken cruisers.

The Japanese lost about 58 men killed — some sources give a lower figure, of 35 — and their only material loss was the heavy cruiser Kako, sunk by the submarine S-44 on the way home. The disparity in the losses — 1,077 dead against about 58 — is one of the most lopsided in any naval battle of the Second World War, and it is a measure of the completeness of the Japanese victory.

The four cruisers that were sunk represented a significant part of the Allied naval strength in the South Pacific, and their loss was felt for months.

The Ships

The material losses of the battle were as one-sided as the human losses. The Allies lost four heavy cruisers — the Astoria, Quincy, Vincennes and Canberra — sunk in a single night, and the Chicago was badly damaged and out of action for months. Two destroyers, the Ralph Talbot and the Patterson, were damaged.

The Japanese lost no ships in the battle itself, and their flagship, the Chōkai, was only lightly damaged. The loss of four cruisers in one night was the worst single-night loss the American navy had ever suffered, and it would not be matched for the rest of the war.

The wrecks of the four cruisers lie on the floor of Ironbottom Sound, where they were found by explorers decades later, and they remain war graves to this day.

The four cruisers were not replaced quickly: the American navy, which was building ships as fast as it could, could not replace four heavy cruisers in a night, and the South Pacific force fought the rest of the Guadalcanal campaign short of cruisers. The loss was felt in every night battle that followed.

	Allies	Japan
Killed	1,077 (Quincy 370; Vincennes 332; Astoria 235; Canberra 84; others on Chicago and destroyers)	About 58 (some sources say 35)
Wounded	Hundreds, many badly burned	Light
Ships sunk	4 heavy cruisers (Astoria, Quincy, Vincennes, Canberra)	None in the battle (Kako sunk by submarine S-44 on the way home)
Ships damaged	Chicago (badly); Ralph Talbot and Patterson (damaged)	Chōkai (lightly damaged)

8. Map and Geography

Ironbottom Sound

The battle was fought in the waters between Guadalcanal, Savo Island and Florida Island, in the Solomon Islands of the South Pacific. The channel between Savo Island and Guadalcanal, where the southern cruiser group was destroyed, is only a few kilometres wide, and the channel between Savo Island and Florida Island, where the northern group was destroyed, is narrower still.

The transports lay off Guadalcanal, in the anchorage at Lunga Point, and off Tulagi, and the cruiser screen was spread across the entrances to the anchorage. The island of Savo itself is a small volcanic island, about 6 kilometres across, rising steeply from the sea, and it gave the battle its name.

The waters around it are deep — the cruisers sank in hundreds of metres of water — and the seabed is littered with the wrecks of the ships sunk in the Guadalcanal campaign. The name Ironbottom Sound, given to the waters off Guadalcanal after the battle, is a reminder of how many ships lie on its floor: more than 50 Allied and Japanese warships were sunk in the waters around Guadalcanal in 1942 and 1943.

The Slot

The Japanese approach to Savo Island was made down the Slot, the narrow channel between the islands of the Solomons that runs south-east from Rabaul to Guadalcanal. The Slot was the highway of the Guadalcanal campaign: Japanese destroyers ran down it at night to reinforce the island, in the runs the Americans called the “Tokyo Express”, and American aircraft attacked them by day.

Mikawa’s force used the Slot to approach Savo Island unseen, and it used it again to withdraw. The geography of the Slot — a long, narrow channel between islands, with no room to manoeuvre and no place to hide — favoured the attacker at night, when a fast column could slip past a screen that did not know it was coming.

The battle of Savo Island was, in the end, a battle of geography: a narrow channel, a dark night, and a screen that was spread too thin.

9. Outcome and Legacy

The Marines Left Alone

The outcome of the Battle of Savo Island was a Japanese tactical victory and an Allied strategic escape. The Japanese had sunk four Allied cruisers and killed more than 1,000 sailors, but they had not sunk the transports, and the Marines on Guadalcanal survived.

The Marines, however, paid the price of the battle: the transports had sailed away with most of their supplies still aboard, and for weeks the Marines fought on short rations, with little food, little ammunition and no reinforcements. The battle for Guadalcanal became a battle of endurance, on land, in the air and at sea, and it would last for six months.

The American navy, for its part, learned from Savo Island: it improved its radar, its night-fighting training and its command arrangements, and within months it was winning night battles of its own — at Cape Esperance in October 1942, and at Guadalcanal in November. Savo Island was the lesson, and the later victories were the answer.

The Inquiries and the Blame

The battle led to an official inquiry, the Hepburn Board, which investigated the defeat and apportioned blame. The board found fault with the divided command, with the failure to use radar, with the low state of readiness of the cruiser crews, and with the decision to call Crutchley away to a conference on the night of the battle.

Captain Bode of the Chicago, who had turned his ship away from the battle without warning the others, was blamed in particular, and he killed himself in April 1943, before the board’s report was published. The inquiry’s findings were kept secret during the war, and the full story of Savo Island was not told until after it.

The battle remains a case study in naval colleges to this day, taught as an example of what happens when a force is unprepared, divided and surprised — and as a reminder that a tactical victory is not the same as a strategic one.

Ironbottom Sound Today

The legacy of Savo Island is written on the seabed. The waters off Guadalcanal, named Ironbottom Sound after the battle, hold the wrecks of more than 50 warships, and the four cruisers sunk on 9 August 1942 lie among them. The wrecks were found by explorers in the decades after the war, and they are war graves, protected by law and by custom.

The battle is remembered in the United States and in Australia as a tragedy, and in Japan as a triumph — and it is remembered by the Marines of Guadalcanal, who watched the flashes of the battle from the shore and who fought the campaign that followed, as the night the navy let them down.

The battle’s true legacy, though, is the lesson it taught: that night fighting is a skill, that radar is only as good as the men who use it, and that a fleet that is not ready for battle will be beaten by a fleet that is.

10. Commanders

Allied Commanders

Rear Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner (United States). Commander of the amphibious force at Guadalcanal and of the transports. Turner, a tough and demanding officer, was responsible for the landings and for the decision to withdraw the transports after the battle. He went on to command the amphibious forces in the Central Pacific, at Tarawa, Saipan and Okinawa, and he became one of the most important naval commanders of the war.

Rear Admiral Victor Crutchley (United Kingdom). Commander of the cruiser screen at Savo Island. Crutchley, a Victoria Cross winner from the First World War, was called away to a conference on Turner’s flagship on the night of the battle, and command of the screen passed to Captain Bode. The Hepburn Board criticised the decision to call him away, but Crutchley was not blamed for the defeat, and he went on to serve as a senior naval officer in Australia.

Captain Frederick Riefkohl (United States). Captain of the Vincennes and commander of the southern cruiser group. Riefkohl’s ship was sunk in the battle, and he survived, though wounded. He was criticised for the low readiness of his group, but he was not court-martialled, and he served in shore appointments for the rest of the war.

Captain Howard Bode (United States). Captain of the Chicago and acting commander of the northern group after Crutchley left. Bode turned the Chicago away from the battle after it was hit, without warning the other ships, and he was blamed by the Hepburn Board for his conduct. He killed himself in April 1943.

Japanese Commanders

Vice Admiral Gunichi Mikawa (Japan). Commander of the Eighth Fleet at Rabaul and of the force that won the Battle of Savo Island. Mikawa planned and carried out the night attack, and his decision to withdraw instead of attacking the transports has been debated ever since. He remained in command in the South Pacific through 1942 and 1943, and he survived the war, dying in 1981.

Rear Admiral Tomiji Koyanagi (Japan). Chief of staff to Mikawa and the officer who planned the details of the night attack. Koyanagi’s plan — a high-speed approach down the Slot, a torpedo attack in darkness, and a withdrawal before dawn — was carried out almost exactly as he had drawn it, and it became a model for Japanese night attacks.

Rear Admiral Aritomo Gotō (Japan). Commander of Cruiser Division 6 — the heavy cruisers Aoba, Kinugasa and Furutaka — in Mikawa’s force at Savo Island. Gotō’s cruisers fired on the Allied ships in both the northern and southern actions, and his division came through the battle without loss. He was killed three months later, on 12 October 1942, in the Battle of Cape Esperance, when his force was surprised by an American cruiser force in a night action that reversed the lesson of Savo Island.

Frequently Asked Questions

When was the Battle of Savo Island?
The battle was fought in the night of 8–9 August 1942, between about 01:30 and 02:30 on 9 August, two days after the American landings on Guadalcanal.

How many Allied cruisers were sunk at Savo Island?
Four Allied heavy cruisers were sunk: the American Astoria, Quincy and Vincennes, and the Australian Canberra. A fifth cruiser, the American Chicago, was badly damaged.

Why did the Japanese win at Savo Island?
The Japanese won because they were masters of night fighting: their lookouts could see in the dark, their Type 93 “Long Lance” torpedoes were the best in the world, and their crews were trained for night attacks. The Allied cruisers were at a low state of readiness, their radar was not properly used, and their command was divided.

Why did Mikawa not attack the transports?
Mikawa decided to withdraw because his ships were scattered after the battle, his ammunition was low, he did not know where the Allied aircraft carriers were, and he feared an air attack at dawn. His decision saved the Marines on Guadalcanal, and it has been debated ever since.

What is Ironbottom Sound?
Ironbottom Sound is the name given to the waters off Guadalcanal after the Battle of Savo Island. More than 50 Allied and Japanese warships were sunk in those waters in 1942 and 1943, and their wrecks lie on the seabed.

How many sailors died at Savo Island?
A total of 1,077 Allied sailors were killed, including 370 on the Quincy, 332 on the Vincennes, 235 on the Astoria and 84 on the Canberra. The Japanese lost about 58 men killed.

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• Gazala
• Liberation of Paris

Sources

1. Wikipedia, “Battle of Savo Island” — dates, strength, casualty figures and the course of the battle.
2. US Navy, Naval History and Heritage Command, “Battle of Savo Island” — the American official account and the Hepburn Board.
3. Encyclopædia Britannica, “Battle of Savo Island” — background and the battle.
4. Samuel Eliot Morison, History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Vol. V, The Struggle for Guadalcanal — the standard American account of the battle.
5. Richard B. Frank, Guadalcanal: The Definitive Account of the Landmark Battle (Random House, 1990) — the battle and its consequences for the campaign.
6. Paul S. Dull, A Battle History of the Imperial Japanese Navy (1941–1945) (Naval Institute Press, 1978) — the Japanese side of the battle.

Further reading

• James D. Hornfischer, Neptune’s Inferno (Bantam, 2011).
• John B. Lundstrom, The First Team (Naval Institute Press, 1984).