ABSTRACT
The Imperial Army, unlike the Navy’s Mikawa, was slow in deciding how to oust the Americans. On 19 August it embarked from Rabaul 1,500 troops in four transports, escorted by one light cruiser and four destroyers, these backed by three carriers, two battleships, five cruisers and seventeen destroyers from Truk. The Allies decrypted enough to be forewarned, and Fletcher now returned with the carriers Wasp, Enterprise and Saratoga, the battleship North Carolina, five heavy cruisers, two light cruisers and eighteen destroyers. The ensuing Battle of the Eastern Solomons, 23-25 August 1942, pitted planes from Enterprise and Saratoga, joined by Marine dive-bombers from Guadalcanal’s now-functional Henderson Field and Army B-17s from the recently completed airstrip at Espíritu Santo, against a huge Japanese force. Although the carriers Sho¯kaku and Zuikaku stayed well away and were not found, the Japanese lost as many as 90 of 168 aircraft to the Americans’ 17. More significantly, the Americans foiled Japan’s attempt to land reinforcements.
