ABSTRACT
Rear Admiral. He led a cruiser-destroyer force in a vicious night surface action against a superior Japanese force in the Pacific during WW2. The Japanese force included two battleships, a cruiser and fourteen destroyers. The action, a general melée reminiscent of NELSON’S battle at Trafalgar, was part of the three-day naval battle of Guadalcanal in November 1942. The action lasted twenty-four minutes, during which Callaghan followed Nelson’s doctrine of laying his ships alongside those of the enemy. From Callaghan’s force of five cruisers and eight destroyers all but one destroyer were sunk or damaged. The Japanese battleship Hiei was put out of action and sunk the next day; two Japanese destroyers were sunk. During the action a 14-inch shell from one of the battleships struck the bridge of his flagship and killed Callaghan. However, the attacking Japanese units, an element of what was known to the US Marines fighting on Guadalcanal as ‘The Tokyo Express’, were driven back by the outgunned US force. The mission of the Japanese force was to shell the US-held Henderson Airfield on Guadalcanal. The naval battle of Guadalcanal was a significant shift from defence to offence in the Pacific during WW2, and the desperate action of Callaghan’s outgunned ships arguably was the turning point of that battle. For his aggressive leadership and courage Callaghan, one of five US admirals killed in WW2, was posthumously awarded the US military’s highest combat award, the Medal of Honor.
