Now the focus switched to saving the crippled Chicago. Work crews aboard the stricken cruiser restored some power from emergency diesel generators, extinguished two fires and started counterflooding to counteract the ship's 11-degree starboard list. At 2030, Giffen moved Louisville into position to send a towline, while the other ships steamed westward as a defensive line against further enemy assaults.
Louisville's skipper, Captain Charles T. Joy, executed a tricky operation in taking Chicago under tow in the darkness. Joy moved his cruiser 1,000 yards to Chicago's bow, then lowered a whaleboat containing the towing gear. The whaleboat inched close to Chicago, where its occupants transferred the gear to Chicago crewmen, who shackled the towline to the anchor cable and slowly let out 60 fathoms of chain. By midnight the towline was in place, and Louisville started towing Chicago at 4 knots. They hoped to reach Espiritu Santo, where repairs could be made to the damaged cruiser.
They never made it. After receiving orders from Admiral Halsey to steam toward Efate, Giffen split Task Force 18 during the afternoon of January 30. Giffen took most of the ships along with him and left only six destroyers to screen the Chicago force. That meant that the bulk of his cruisers and destroyers, most of the air umbrella and anti-aircraft guns, and the force fighter direction officer headed away from the area. To provide some air cover, Halsey moved the escort carriers Chenango and Suwannee closer and ordered a group centered on the carrier Enterprise to steam toward the stricken cruiser. That same afternoon, Louisville transferred the towline to the tug Navajo, which had sped to the scene, and departed to join the other cruisers.
The Japanese air fleet commander at Rabaul, Vice Adm. Jinichi Kusaka, did not intend to let the damaged cruiser escape his clutches. During the afternoon of January 30, he launched a group of Japanese aircraft to chase Chicago and send her to the bottom. By 1445 those Bettys were south of New Georgia and headed toward Rennell Island.
At 1540, four American fighters spotted an advance Japanese aircraft and darted after her. A 40-mile chase ended with the Japanese plane falling in flames into the ocean, and though this left Chicago with no immediate air cover, the carriers moving into position would soon be able to pick up the slack.
USS Cleveland at the Battle of Rennell Island in World War II 1943
At first it appeared the Japanese force would target Enterprise, 40 miles southeast of Chicago. American carrier aircraft rose to meet them, but instead of continuing toward the better-protected Enterprise, the Japanese swerved toward the stricken cruiser. This change of direction made it almost impossible for the carrier aircraft to close with the enemy before they launched their torpedoes at Chicago, which was now defended by two American fighters.
As the Japanese started their run toward the cruiser, Lt. Cmdr. James H. Flatley led four fighters from Enterprise toward the action. Although they arrived after the attack had begun, they charged straight into American anti-aircraft fire after the Japanese aircraft. Flying alongside Flatley, Ensign Edward L. Feightner followed one Betty into a thick cloudbank. Fortunately, Feightner managed to find the Betty inside the clouds and shot it down.
While Flatley and his small group sped to the aid of Chicago, the Japanese entered their final run-in. Since Giffen had Task Force 18's cruisers with him 30 miles to the east, they were out of position to help. All depended upon the six destroyers, three of which steamed on the unengaged side of Chicago. One destroyer, La Vallette, stood squarely between the Japanese Bettys and the cruiser, determined to prevent any aircraft from getting beyond her. La Vallette opened a furious fire when the enemy came within 10,000 yards. Her anti-aircraft batteries, combined with Chicago's, brought down six Japanese planes. The Japanese, however, were able to inflict some damage of their own.
A spread of torpedoes churned toward La Vallette. She managed to avoid all but one, which ripped into her forward engine room and sent water gushing into it and the forward fire room. Lieutenant Eli Roth, the ship's damage control officer, and 20 other men died in the explosion.
Water Tender Second Class M.W. Tollberg was severely burned and blinded by a spurt of live steam from a damaged pipe. Although in enormous pain, Tollberg still managed to climb topside and reach an oil valve that needed to be closed. Later, he was found by the ship's medical officer still clutching the oil valve in a heroic attempt to close it. Tollberg died two hours later.
USS Chicago (CA-29), at left, under tow at five knots by USS Louisville (CA-28) on the morning of 30 January 1943. The damaged cruiser had been torpedoed by Japanese aircraft on the previous night.
A tug, probably USS Navajo (AT-64), is alongside Louisville.
Although damaged, La Vallette eventually steamed out of the battle area under her own power. Another ship rigged a towline and slowly towed the battered destroyer toward safer waters.
Navajo quickly started aligning Chicago's bow with the direction of the Japanese attack, to make her a smaller target. Just when it seemed that the attack had been successfully repulsed and the remaining Bettys had been driven off, lookouts on Chicago spotted five torpedo wakes heading toward the cruiser. At 1624, while traveling at the agonizingly slow speed of 4 knots, the cruiser suddenly shuddered from the blasts of four successive torpedoes tearing into her starboard side. One torpedo struck forward and showered the bridge and deck with debris, while the others ripped apart the middle of the ship and created a raging inferno belowdecks. The cruiser listed and started to sink.
Captain Davis ordered Navajo to cut the towline and told his crew to abandon ship. Davis said that less than 20 minutes after the first torpedo exploded, the ship "rolled slowly over on her starboard side and settled by the stern, with colors flying." Six officers and 56 men went down with the ship. Edwards, Waller, Sands and Navajo picked 1,049 survivors from the water.
As often happened after a naval contest in the Pacific, the Japanese boasted of a huge victory. To divert attention from the catastrophe unfolding on Guadalcanal, where U.S. Marines and naval forces had seized the initiative and sent the Japanese army reeling, the Japanese government claimed her aircraft had sunk one American battleship and three cruisers and damaged others. In fact, the Japanese had registered a minor victory in sinking Chicago, but they had also lost 12 Bettys--as well as one of their top torpedo bomber commanders, Higai. However, because the enemy's attention had been focused on the ships of Giffen's task force, the transports were able to land their Marine replacements on Guadalcanal without interference.
Numerous errors of judgment contributed to the loss of Chicago. Admiral Giffen had been so obsessed with keeping his rendezvous that he left his escort carriers behind. He had also been so concerned with the threat from Japanese submarines that his ships steamed in poor formation for defense from an air attack. American fighters lacked any coordinated fighter direction and thus could not mount an effective defense when Chicago was threatened. One historian labeled the mismanaged affair "tactical ineptitude of the first order."
USS Chicago shown down hard by the stern and sinking on January 30, 1943 after being struck by 6 torpedoes in two days
Giffen's superiors, especially Halsey and Admiral Chester Nimitz, the commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet, were irate over the loss of Chicago. Halsey, who had been frantically trying to assemble sufficient forces near Guadalcanal to blunt the Japanese offensive, described the loss of Chicago as a "blow at any time, and just now we felt it with special severity." Halsey had succeeded in stopping the enemy, but he knew that he needed every ship, every Marine, every aircraft to maintain momentum. The loss of a cruiser, especially when occasioned by command mistakes, made his task more difficult.
Nimitz had already been angered, even embarrassed, by earlier American naval losses in the Solomons. The Battle of Rennell Island did not help matters. At first, he intended to include a harsh condemnation of Giffen in his official report, but he eventually watered down his remarks, stating that the loss of Chicago was "especially regrettable because it might have been prevented." However, Nimitz ordered that word of the cruiser's sinking be withheld from the public. He also vowed in a staff meeting, "If any man lets out the loss of the Chicago, I'll shoot him!"
The Battle of Rennell Island was not one of the war's conclusive encounters in the Pacific. However, it occurred at a time when American forces appeared to have swung momentum in the Solomons in their favor and to have halted the Japanese advance in the South Pacific. Any setback, no matter how small, was thus seen as a threat to the success of the American war effort.
Naval historian Samuel Eliot Morison offered a calmer summation of the Battle of Rennell Island. In his History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Morison wrote: "This defeat was due not only to a combination of bad luck and bad judgment, as at Tassafaronga, but to Admiral Giffen's inexperience and his determination to make the rendezvous with Briscoe on time. Halsey's endorsement on Giffen's Action Report was a scathing indictment of mistakes in judgment; that of Nimitz was more tolerant."
Additional Sources:
www.history.navy.mil
www.navsource.org
www.compass.dircon.co.uk
www.aviation-history.com
www.domeisland.com www.ibiblio.org
community.webshots.com
