August 9, 1942...Maj. Gen. Sir Charles Barrowclough, a future Chief Justice of New Zealand, is given command of the short-lived 3 NZ Division in New Zealand.

In North Africa, Gen. Bernard Freyberg is named acting commander of 13 Corps, as 8th Army shuffles the lines.

The Desert Air Force notes 15,400 sorties for July 1st through 27th, all in direct support of 8th Army. Fleet Air Arm Albacore biplanes hammer mechant ships at Matruh by night, while more modern aircraft hound Rommel's supply lines. The British are reinforced by 16 South African squadrons, but have still lost 113 aircraft in July.

The situation on Malta is now desperate, as official calculations show that food and fuel will be completely exhausted in four weeks. Movie theaters save electricity by staying pitch- dark. Soap is rationed to half a pound per person per fortnight. A family gets a gallon of kerosene a week. There are no replacement shoes or clothing, and no beer. The island has been hammered by 154 days of continual day and night bombing, 10,000 houses lie in ruins, nearly 100 churches gutted.

The governor, Lord Gort, who led the Dunkirk evacuation and earned a Victoria Cross in World War I, is now faced with surrender. Gort has even written the document.

However, plans are in hand to relieve the crisis. Massing at Gibraltar is a convoy codenamed "Pedestal," consisting of 59 warships and 14 merchant ships. South Africa's Vice Adm. Neville Syfret will lead this force from the battleship HMS Nelson. Joining her are her sister HMS Rodney, and three large carriers, HMS Victorious, HMS Eagle, and HMS Indomitable, Britain's first multi-carrier task force. A fourth carrier, HMS Furious, will separately deliver 38 Spitfires to Malta.

This mass of guns and armor is the muscle to protect 14 merchant ships, the fastest that can be found, loaded with 85,000 tons of cargo, mostly flour. 11 are British, two American (Santa Elisa and Almeria Lykes), and the last an American ship with a British crew, Texaco's large, fast tanker, SS Ohio, one of the largest in the world. She has been handed over to Britain's Eagle Oil Shipping Co. and their Capt. Dudley Mason. Ohio has been specially prepared for this mission, her engines placed on rubber housings, the ship given extra 3-inch and 5-inch AA guns. She is loaded with 11,500 tons of kerosene and diesel fuels, enough to keep Malta's stoves and Spitfires working until December. If Ohio does not reach Malta, the island will have to surrender. Ohio may carry the balance of the war in her holds.

Off Guadalcanal, the night is oppressively hot, broken by periodic rain squalls, as Japan's Vice Adm. Gunichi Mikawa's Striking Force plows through the sea, undetected.

Five Allied cruisers, four American, one Australian, steam back and forth in two groups, three in the Northern, two in the Southern, patrolling the waters. In the Southern Group, HMAS Canberra changes watch at 11:45 p.m. Sublt. Mackenzie Gregory takes the conn. Surgeon Lt. Kenneth Morris lies on a mess table to take a nap. Stoker Second George Faulkner is in his final minutes of duty in the after engine room. Able Seaman Stephen St. George, in Y turret's handling room, takes off his anti-flash gear to play cards with his pals.

Behind Canberra is USS Chicago, under Capt. Howard Bode, in temporary command of Southern Force. The overall boss, Rear Adm. Victor A. Crutchley, VC, has gone with his flagship, HMAS Australia, to confer with the top Allied brass. Bode is fast asleep.

The Northern Force consists of USS Vincennes, USS Quincy, and USS Astoria. Capt. Fred Riefkohl of Vincennes commands this force. He does not know Crutchley has left. Crutchley hasn't told Riefkohl. On Quincy, QM2 Thomas Morris wakes up Lt. Cdr. Edmund Billings, who is to take the watch. Billings, a former enlisted man, asks if there is any action on the bridge. None. Billings pulls on his uniform and pulls out his pipe.

The US ships enjoy many technical advantages....search radar, rapid-fire guns, and Talk Between Ships radio. But they are over-dependent on their technology. Japanese lookouts can outrange American radar with their Zeiss binoculars. American warships are full of combustibles, ranging from lifeboats to wardroom pianos. And the Japanese are no technical slouches, either, with superb Long Lance torpedoes that can cut the waves at 49 knots.

At 12:40 a.m., Mikawa's flagship, Chokai, spots Savo Island. A lookout also spots a ship approaching 30 degrees to starboard. It is the patrolling destroyer USS Blue. Mikawa calmly cuts speed to 22 knots to reduce the phosphorescent wakes of his five heavy and two light cruisers. Incredibly, the Blue does a 180-degree turn to starboard, and plods slowly away, not having spotted the Japanese.

Moments later, Chokai's lookouts spot another blob on the horizon, and the formation glides by an unsuspecting inter-island schooner, and behind that, the equally sleepy destroyer USS Ralph Talbot. Neither spot the Japanese.

Mikawa swings his ships to hide in a fold of low clouds, then cranks up to 30 knots. At 1:33, he blinkers "All ships attack." At 1:36, Chokai's lookouts spot "three cruisrs" to starboard. There are actually two. Mikawa alters to course 120, orers "independent firing," and four Long Lances hit the water at 1:38, streaking off towards Canberra. At 1:43, Chokai's 8-inch guns open up on the Australian cruiser.

At that moment, Canberra's lookout spots Chokai 4,500 yards off. Just as Gregory looks at his chart-table clock (it reads 1:43) to fix ship's position, the first of 24 hits Canberra will suffer, hit home. Shell splinters scythe down the crew.

Shells explode as Canberra's alarm goes off. Sailors race to battle stations, including Capt. Frank Getting, who has been selected for Admiral. Able Seaman Henry Hall is talking on the phone when the shells hit home. "Stupid bloody Yanks," he mutters, What the hell are they up to? Why are they dropping flares?" Then his telephone headset disintegrates and the man next to him dies.

On the bridge, Getting arrives just as shells hit his boiler room, knocking out ship's power. Canberra glides to a halt, her guns trained out and useless. Another shell hits the plot room and Getting falls to the deck, mortally wounded. His navigator and gunnery officer lie dead nearby. Cdr. James Walsh, the XO, takes over, while Dr. Downward, the ship's surgeon, tends Getting. The captain tells Walsh, "Fight her till she goes down, Jim!"

But the ship is a wreck, her boiler rooms destroyed. Down below, Seaman Albert Warne puts on his antiflash gear and struggles through unbearably hot air, to squeeze through a hatch to escape. He has to fight his way up three decks through thickening smoke and flames, that sting his throat and lungs. When he reaches the upper deck, a tropical rainshower begins, cooling him.

Dr. Morris, using a flashlight attached to his headband, bounces off his messtable to tend the wounded. Gregory orders his men to start tossing ammunition into the sea before it catches fire. Stoker George Yates picks himself up and stares at an arm lying on the deck. "Look! Someone's arm has been shot off!"

Ship's Butcher John Quigley, bringing his medical kit, shouts, "Lie down and be quiet! It's yours!"

Walsh orders his men to slip all petrol tanks, dump remaining torpedoes, flood magazines, and all hands on deck. Because Canberra's radios are wrecked, and she lacks TBS, she cannot put out a warning.

Next victim is Chicago, which turns hard to starboard when her lookouts see torpedoes from the cruiser Kako. The fish hit Chicago's starboard bow, but one fails to explode. The one that does sends a column of water as high as the foretop and damages the main battery director. BMC Steve Balint falls across his gun as a splinter rips open his stomach. Lt. Cdr. Cecil C. Adell, hit in the neck, crawls aft to dentist Lt. Cdr. Benjamin Osterting. He sews Adell together without anesthetic. Chicago keeps moving west, not spotting any enemy ships. Incredibly, Bode does not sent a report of his encounter.

Mikawa's ships race past the wrecks in the gloom, and the destroyer USS Patterson sounds the tocsin at last, radioing "Warning! Warning! Strange ships entering harbor!" She then gets in a gun duel with the enemy light cruisers, who knock out her two aft 5-inch guns.

Now Mikawa's ships are split into two formations, four heavy cruisers to the east, two light and one heavy to the west. Between them lie the three American ships of the Northern Force. None are awake. At 1:44, watches on all three ships note underwater explosions from the south. A minute later, they see gunfire. On Vincennes, Riefkohl is summoned to the bridge. He sees the gunfire but decides it is a light unit in battle with the Southern Group. He increases speed to 15 knots, but decides to let the situation develop.

At 1:48, Chokai launches a spread of four torpedoes at Vincennes from 12,000 yards. At 1:50, the Japanese pop their searchlights on the three cruisers, fully illuminating them. Riefkohl thinks the Southern Group is there, and asks over the radio for the lights to be extinguished, as there might be enemy vessels around.

The Japanese answer the radio message with a fusillade of shells and torpedoes. 8-inchers destroy the flammable aircraft hangar, aviation fuel, the movie booth, the signal flagbags, and 5-inch ammunition. As Riefkohl orders a starboard turn, torpedoes explode in the No. 4 fireroom, knocking it out. "Both engine rooms are black and dead," the bridge is told.

Vincennes still shows fight. An 8-inch shell hits Kinugasa's steering gear, and the cruiser staggers behind her sisters. And SMC George Moore, seeing the flag shot away, hoists another one, braving shot and shell to keep Old Glory flying. Lt. Cdr. R.L. Adams, the gunnery officer, stays at his post, even though an unexploded Japanese shell lies at his feet.

Killed on Vincennes is John Cronin, brother of S1C Hunter Cronin on USS Washington.

Vincennes takes a staggering 85 direct hits. Riefkohl orders his men to prepare to abandon ship. Cdr. Loker locks the confidential codes in the ship's disbursing safe, then throws the signal book overboard. DK1 Willess jettisons the coding gear and carries off the disbursing records. Sailors calmly man liferafts and don life vests.

The exhausted cruiser rolls over on her port side, her deck guns awash, shells exploding in ready boxes. "All right," Riefkohl says, "It's all over. Let's go." With 342 aboard, Vincennes goes down at 2:58 a.m.

Next in line is USS Quincy, which goes to GQ just as Capt. Samuel N. Moore reaches the bridge. "Fire at the ships with the searchlights on," he orders. But Quincy's guns aren't ready. "Fire the main battery!" Moore shouts, but the Japanese hit first, landing the first shell on the fantail at 1:53. The shell shears off the bases of 5-inch cartridges in the fuse pots and kills all hands on the left side of the gun. At 1:55 another shell hits a float plane in the well deck that sprays flaming gasoline. That ignites the other four seaplanes.

At 2 a.m., Quincy finds herself amid Japanese fire. Turret 3 is jammed in train. The Japanese rake her from both sides, wrecking the steering, and shattering the bridge, killing the XO, navigator, and damage control officer. Moore, mortally wounded, crawls to a phone and gasps over the 1MC: "We're going down between them -- give them hell!"

Lt. Cdr. Billings staggers out of the bridge, half his face shot away, telling his men, "Everything will be okay, the ships will go down fighting." Then he crumples to the deck.

QM2 Morris finds himself amid a wreck at Battle 2, his left hip shattered by a shell. He pulls himself together, and crawls across dying Sailors to a gunshield. He pulls himself up with a rope over the shield, then hears someone say, "Drop." He does, and lands softly on the roof of Turret 3. BMC George Strobel helps tend Morris's wounds, and carries Morris into the water, hauling him to a floater net.

The Japanese are amazed as Quincy sprints between Japanese ships, Turrets 1 and 2 blazing. One of her shells hits Chokai's chartroom, destroying it and barely missing Mikawa. The Japanese simply return fire. Quincy's Turret 2 explodes from a direct hit, incinerating the signal flagbags on the bridge. Japanese shells explode AA batteries and start more fires. Lt. Roland Rieve of Radar 1 finds his station shattered into small fires and debris.

Lt. Cdr. John Andrew reaches the bridge, hoping for orders. He finds it "a shambles of dead bodies with only three or four people still standing." One of them is the signalman at the wheel, trying to beach the ship. Andrew sees Moore lying near the wheel. "At that instant the Captain straightened up and fell back, apparently dead, without having uttered any sound other than a moan."

Command falls on Lt. Cdr. Harry Heneberger, senior surviving officer. He orders abandon ship, and the crew put the few remaining life rafts in the water. Marine Col. Warren B. Baker, on board as a spotter for artillery, remembers "a tremendous explosion ripped through the Quincy as she started down, and capsizing to port, she slipped beneath the sea bow first, her stern reared high in the air with the propellers still churning." She goes down at 2:38 a.m., taking 389 bluejackets with her.

Last to wake is the cruiser Astoria, which carried the body of Japanese Ambassador Hiroshi Saito from America to Japan as a goodwill gesture in 1939. "The people of Japan, where cherries bloom; In future far away; Will never forget their gratitude to the Astoria," a Japanese poet wrote at the time.

When the Japanese open fire, Astoria gunnery officer Lt. Cdr. William H. Truesdell trains out his guns, but supervisor of the watch Lt. Cdr. James R. Topper only says, "Stand by to sound General Quarters." QM3 R.A. Radke pulls the alarm rattlers anyway. Truesdell opens fire. At that moment, Capt. William Greenman reaches the bridge, and demands, "Who gave the order to commence firing?"

Topper says he hasn't. Greenman says calmly, "Topper, I think we are firing on our own ships. Let's not get excited and act too hasty. Cease firing!" Topper agrees. He orders cease fire, and turns on the ship's navigation lights.

But Truesdell shouts back, "For God's sake give the word to commence firing!"

Greenman sees shells splash by Vincennes and Quincy. He says, "Whether our ships or not, we would have to stop them. Commence firing." He has wasted four minutes, a fatal eternity. The Japanese shells so far have been short. The four minutes has given Mikawa time to correct the range.

Mikawa's shells hit a minute later. Chokai guns hit the hangar and boat deck (a familiar story) and cut power to Turret 3 (another familiar story). Another shell rips apart Astoria's bridge (yet another familiar story). The ship's passageways fill with dense smoke, and shrapnel flies on deck. Greenman turns hard left to avoid the Quincy. Greenman takes 11 wounds from shrapnel, but his cruiser puts a shell into Chokai's foremost main battery turret, killing 15 men.

Among the watchers is LCDR Slim Townsend of Enterprise, an aviator on "Wacky Mac." He sees the flare and bright scatter of explosions lighting the sky, and hears the thunder and rumble of 8-inch shells.

Coastwatcher Don McFarland sees the flashes, too, as does Martin Clemens, who laconically diaries, "May be a naval battle of Guadalcanal."

On Australia, Crutchley is awakened. He staggers up to the bridge, past exhaustion, and sees and hears the explosions westward. He calls his ships by radio, but gets no answer from four cruisers. He orders his surviving destroyers to rendezvous for a torpedo attack. He asks Bode on Chicago, "Are you in action?"

"Was, but not now," Bode radios back cryptically and uselessly.

Meanwhile, Mikawa's force, dashing past the three American wrecks, runs into the destroyer Ralph Talbot. The baffled destroyer's commander opens fire, but also broadcasts his identity over TBS and flashes his recognition lights. The Japanese light cruiser Yubari answers Ralph Talbot with a fusillade of shells that disable the destroyer's guns and torpedoes, knock out the radar, hit the wardroom, and kill the doctor. The destroyer staggers off into the dark.

At 2:16 a.m., closing a night of American errors, the Japanese make the final and fatal error. Mikawa summons his staff. His ships have taken only trifling damage and have 60 percent of their ammunition, half their torpedoes. But it will take him two hours to reassemble his ships and reach the transport anchorages, leaving one hour until daylight. If Mikawa and his ships are off Guadalcanal by daylight, they will be easy meat for Fletcher's carriers.

Mikawa does not know Fletcher's carriers are long gone. He is satisfied with his victory, claiming five cruisers and four destroyers. By leaving the transports alone, the Americans are able to unload more supplies. Had Mikawa pursued the transports, the Marines would have been completely isolated.

Mikawa, however, orders a retirement. The Striking Force reassembles at 3:40 a.m., shuffles into anti-aircraft formation, and heads home. Damage is minor. Chokai has taken six 8-inch hits and four 5-inch hits, including some duds. Her operations room is wiped out, and her Number One turret out of action. Kinugasa has a flooded storeroom and damaged engine room. The other ships have minor dents. Total casualties: 78. Mikawa sets torpedo defense watch and course for Kavieng.

Before he can get out of The Slot, Radio Tokyo announces the sinking of one battleship, five cruisers, four destroyers, and 10 transports. "British and American naval strength has been reduced to a third-rate power."

Behind Mikawa, chaos reigns in what will now be named Ironbottom Sound. Canberra remains afloat with a sharp list, fierce fires, and a dying captain. Her crew forms a bucket brigade. Destroyer Patterson sends over hoses and a hand pump, which combine with a rainsquall to put out fires. Seaman Henry Hall carries wounded men from the wrecked bridge to the forecastle. One midshipman refuses to move until the captain is aided.

Dr. Morris, still using his flashlight to find the wounded, struggles on. He doesn't even stop to curse when an overzealous officer yells, "Put out that light," as if the flashlight's beams outshine the ship's raging fires. Lt. Gregory goes to forward control to find his officers' cap with its gold embroidery. But there is only a large hole where the hat had been.

Able Seaman St. George works with the ship's chaplains, giving the wounded beer and cigarettes from Canberra's NAAFI stores. The rest dump ammo overboard.

At 5 a.m., Admiral Richmond K. Turner orders Crutchley to scuttle Canberra if she cannot join the retreat at 6:30. With fires preventing access to engineering spaces, this order is a death warrant. Walsh orders "Abandon ship" at 5:15. The able- bodied crew refuse to leave until the wounded are all off. USS Selfridge is given the unpleasant chore. She fires four torpedoes at Canberra. Only one hits, another embarrassment for American torpedoes. She opens up with 263 rounds of 5-inch, and the passing USS Ellet mistakes Selfridge for a Japanese ship. Ellet fires at Selfridge, causing some angry radio exchanges. Finally, Ellet launches a torpedo at 8 a.m. that sends the flagship of the Royal Australian Navy to the bottom. With her go 84 dead. Getting, watching this scene, dies later that day.

Meanwhile, on Astoria, Greenman collects 400 men on the bow to form bucket brigades. Unknown to them, 150 other survivors are on the stern, trying to keep her afloat. The XO, Cdr. F.E. Shoup believes the ship can be saved. At 4 a.m., rain puts out some fires. At 4:30, USS Bagley arrives to take off the wounded. But the magazines are not flooded, and the fire is moving towards them. Greenman orders off the bow party.

At 5:45 Greenman and a repair party of 325 men return to the wrecked ship, and try to get steam up. No dice. The fires won't go out. The list gets worse. At 11 a.m., the forward 5-inch magazine explodes. Greenman orders his men off at 12:05. Ten minutes later, Astoria rolls over and sinks by the stern. With her go 235 Bluejackets. Total Allied casualties at Savo: 1,077 killed, 700 wounded.

It is the greatest defeat at sea in the history of the US Navy, four cruisers lost, none to the enemy.

An angry Turner begs Vice Adm. Frank Jack Fletcher to bring back the carriers and attack the retreating Japanese. Fletcher is unmoved, and heads south. Turner risks his ships by staying at Guadalcanal without cover for all of August 9th, unloading vital supplies. But all he can unload is a small portion of the embarked food supplies. The Japanese add to his misery by sending in an airstrike that sinks destroyer USS Jarvis with all hands.

At dusk, Turner gathers his surviving ships, and sails south for Noumea. The Marines are left on Guadalcanal alone, lacking naval gunfire cover, and desperately short of supply.

Infuriated, Marines use the ample sheet-metal left behind by the Japanese to create the "George Medal" to dishonor the Navy. This sarcastic medal shows a Sailor dropping a hot potato to a Marine, and has the words, "Faciat Georgus" on it, meaning "Let George Do It."

The US responds swiftly to the debacle. When Adm. Chester Nimitz hears of it, he quietly goes out to the Pearl Harbor gun range and relieves his anger with some target practice. Then he requests the Secretary of the Navy to investigate the debacle. Adm. Arthur Hepburn, one of the Navy's senior gunnery experts, is sent to the Pacific to probe the fiasco. He interviews Turner, Crutchley, and as many senior officers as possible.

Hepburn reports, "The primary cause of this defeat must be ascribed generally to the complete surprise achieved by the enemy." This six months after Pearl Harbor. Hepburn also blames Fletcher for withdrawing the carriers, Crutchley for leaving the scene, weak communications, misplaced confidence in radar, and an inadequate state of readiness on all ships to meet sudden night attack.

The whole battle, he says, falls in a "twilight zone" between culpable inefficiency and "more or less excusable errors in judgment." Only Bode receives censure. And after Bode gives his testimony, he commits suicide. There is no censure for Crutchley, but it is his last action.

The report goes to the Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Ernest J. King in 1943, and his staff officer, Capt. G.L. Russell, reviewing it, writes, "It does not necessarily follow that because we took a beating somebody must be the goat." King agrees.

The Americans re-name three cruisers on the slipway after those sunk at Savo. They name a fourth USS Canberra. The Australians, impressed by the gesture, not only allow this, but name one of their destroyers HMAS Bataan. And the British, aggrieved at the loss of a crack cruiser and gift to Australia, offer HMS Shropshire to Australia as a replacement, and she sails for the RAN in war and peace until 1956.

And that morning, on all the Allied ships in Ironbottom Sound, all hands not busy with the wounded turn to to remove flammable material from their ships....at long last.

German tanks drive into Krasnodar and Maikop, both key oil- producing cities. Determined Soviet resistance ensures that the Germans gain little from the capture. The oilfields have been destroyed.

Among the hundreds of Dutch Jews gassed to death at Auschwitz is Edith Stein, a Catholic nun. Stein, the daughter of a Jewish timber merchant from Breslau, converted to Catholicism and became a nun. The Germans ignore the distinction anyway. 45 years later, under her Catholic name of Sister Benedicta, she is sanctified.