0147 9 August 1942, USS Chicago, off Guadalcanal
The previous day, the subject of the report of enemy ships had come up on Chicago. When the Chicago’s navigator plotted the coordinates of the enemy naval squadron, Bode’s executive officer, Commander Cecil Adell, determined that it was too far away to reach the Chicago’s patrol area before mid-morning on the following day. He made some errors, but did not account for Mikawa coming hard at almost 30 knots. Captain Howard Bode had retired to his cabin behind the pilothouse for a nap at 1145, confident no attack could come that night. Whilst doing so, he ordered his radar officer to turn off the Chicago’s search radar for fear that Japanese ships might detect and trace the beams.
He was surprised to be shaken awake at 0144, quickly coming onto the bridge at 0145. Howard Bode, newly awake, did not known what to make of reports of torpedoes running to both port and starboard. Bode barked out "Fire star-shell, all turrets, we need to see what is out there." It was a perfectly reasonable command, but was to produce little in the way of results. Prior to the war, the U.S navy had placed only limited importance on night fighting, especially for smaller units. In the 1930's, some "fleet problems" ran simulations of nighttime torpedo attacks by “Orange” destroyers against the “Blue” fleet. Although these attacks were sometimes successful, the game rules did not favor them. The torpedoes were assigned short effective ranges of 9,000 yards, but U.S. capital ships or cruisers struck by a single torpedo incurred little impairment, only a speed reduction. Considering the small warheads on U.S torpedoes , this was not an unreasonable assumption. Against Japanese torpedoes, it was a fatal assumption. “Orange” destroyers nearly always suffered high losses, leading game observers to the erroneous conclusion that such strikes were not worth the cost for the attacker. The spin off was that star-shells were rarely used and the stocks thus held were usually past their nominal expiry date. When Chicago fired nine shells at 0146, not a single one functioned. At 0147, Bode ordered his rudder hard to port, as Chicago labored to answer the bell to make speed. A second salvo of star-shells at 0147 finally produced a solitary shell that actually worked.
At 0147, a shell from Aoba struck the leg of her mainmast, killing two sailors, including the chief boatswain’s mate, wounding thirteen more, including the exec, Commander Adell, who was hit in the throat. A second 5.5 inch from Tenryu struck the bow, exploding in the chain locker, sending fragments everywhere. A torpedo fired from a full salvo from Kako struck the ship to starboard, detaching the bow and vibrating the rest of the ship hard enough to disjoint the main battery director. Gunners on her five-inch secondary battery, firing without orders now, managed to hit an enemy ship, attracted by flames already licking her midships. The Tenryu, already damaged, was hit yet again, killing 23 men, in addition to the 13 she had already lost, starting more fires on the trailing Japanese ship.
