NARRATOR: Friday, November 13, 1942, 1:48 AM.
Anti-aircraft cruiser USS Atlanta
patrols the dark waters off Guadalcanal island
in the South Pacific.
USS Enterprise has been out of action for two weeks.
And with all the other carriers in the Pacific
down for the count, these smaller ships
must face the enemy alone.
Atlanta has sent her share of Japanese planes
to the hunting grounds of hell.
But tonight she's stalking imperial warships,
one of 13 American vessels on the prowl
for an enemy force of destroyers,
battleships, and cruisers.
Two massive naval groups are about to collide
in a terrific clash of steel But what the crew of Atlanta
doesn't know is that they're already
locked in the cross-hairs of the enemy.
The first of the enemy gunships move into position to bombard
Henderson Field from Guadalcanal's Sealark Channel,
but these bloody waters will soon go by another name--
Iron Bottom Sound, the final grave for dozens of warships
and thousands of men.
In the predawn darkness, the enemy ships
run right into the guns of USS Atlanta
and the American surface fleet patrolling the waters
off Guadalcanal.
Like battling pirate ships, the two sides pound each other
from close range, and the cruiser Atlanta
is caught in the firestorm.
Steel lightning explodes, as shells and giant orange tracers
fire into the night.
Japanese, and American gunships crucify each other
with savage volleys of shot, shell in Guadalcanal's Iron
Bottom Sound.
Hit by the direct fire from more than six American ships,
the destroyer Akatsuki blows up.
Destroyer USS Laffey closes in alongside battleship Hiei
and rakes her decks with rapid-fire five-inch shells
and machine guns.
From the island, US Marines watch the epic battle unfold.
It goes on for hours.
One of the surviving American Naval officers
described this particular action as a barroom brawl
after the lights had been shot out,
and that's exactly what it was.
NARRATOR: Dawn reveals the scene of an apocalypse.
The waters off Guadalcanal are coated in oil,
debris, and human remains.
Hundreds of sailors, including two American admirals,
have been slaughtered in one of the grittiest Naval
gun battles of the war.
Throughout the morning, a sea tug
navigates the bloody waters, rescuing American sailors.
Most Japanese survivors are killed.
Among the casualties of November 13 is cruiser USS Juneau.
Lost when the ship sunk are all five Sullivan
brothers of Waterloo, Iowa.
MARTIN K.A. MORGAN: As a result of the loss of the five
Sullivan brothers on the USS Juneau,
the Navy implemented a sole-survivor policy,
meaning that the sole surviving son of a family
would be reassigned to non-hazardous duty, the thought
being that if he continued to serve in hazardous duty,
they didn't want a family that lost all of its sons in combat.
So the result was sole survivors would be reassigned
and would not be in harm's way.
NARRATOR: The long morning of November 13
is one of the darkest periods in the history of the US Navy.
The grim tally-- cruisers Atlanta and Juneau are gone,
USS Laffey and four destroyers are wiped out,
four additional Allied ships are damaged,
and more than 1,400 Americans have perished.
Once again, the US Navy has had to pay a terrible price to hold
Guadalcanal for another day.