Prior to dawn on October 26, 1942, the American task force in the South Pacific—called Task Force
61—steamed northwest, closing with its adversary, the Japanese carrier force called Kido Butai.
The previous day, at 9:45am, an American PBY launched from the Santa Cruz Islands
had spotted Kido-Butai, which consisted of three carriers, two cruisers, and eight destroyers.
The pilot radioed his sighting report, which soon made its way to the bridge of USS Enterprise
and into the hands of the American task force commander, RADM Thomas Kinkaid. This report put
the Japanese carrier force at a distance of 375 miles, too far away for the Americans to launch
an airstrike. At 2pm, Kinkaid launched a Hail Mary airstrike consisting of 20 aircraft. These
planes searched all afternoon but found no enemy ships. The pilots returned after dark, and eight
planes were lost when they crashed on the deck or ditched in the water. Two aviators were killed.
Kinkaid realized that he could not hope to win the battle if he endangered his pilots
with impossibly long-range missions. He concluded he could not authorize an airstrike unless he had
confirmation from a carrier-based scout plane. In the nighttime hours, his task force continued to
close the distance to the enemy fleet, with many of the pilots sleeping in their ready
rooms in case they needed to launch in a hurry. At 5:12am, the duty carrier, USS Enterprise,
turned into the wind and launched 16 SBD dive bombers to perform the morning search.
The aircraft operated in pairs, with each team flying a 15-degree quadrant away from
the carrier for a distance of 200 miles. For more than an hour, the SBD teams cruised
through the dark morning sky at an altitude of 12,000 feet. Despite the blackness, visibility
was good, with only a few scattered cumulous clouds covering about 40 percent of the horizon.
The pilots and their rear seat gunners felt incredible tension. After several months of
dogged combat, they understood the reality of carrier vs. carrier warfare. The fleet
that made the first accurate sighting report usually got in the first hit, and therefore, it
had the best chance to win the battle. Everything depended on these SBD crewmen finding their quarry
before the enemy found their own fleet. One of the first teams to make contact was
a two-plane group from Scouting Squadron 10. LTJG Howard Burnett and LTJG Kenneth Miller
piloted these aircraft. Radioman third class David Cawley occupied the rear cockpit of Miller’s SBD.
Only 18 years old at the time, Cawley recalled the moment that the Japanese fleet came into view.
"About one and a half hours outbound, I noticed a very slight bump on the horizon nearly dead ahead.
I notified Mr. Miller on the intercom, and we agreed it had to be the top mast of some ship.
I waved the other plane up and pointed. I estimated it was 30 miles or so.
Eventually, we climbed up and took a good look. Directly ahead of us, about 12 to 15 miles out,
was a beautiful enemy fleet: two Kongo-class battleships with the big pagoda masts.
They were accompanied by four cruisers and six to eight destroyers, headed south at about 20 knots."
Specifically, Cawley and Miller had found Rear Admiral Hiroaki Abe’s Vanguard force,
which consisted of the battleships Hiei and Kirishima, four cruisers, and seven destroyers.
Immediately, Cawley and Miller composed a contact report, which Cawley sent by continuous wave over
his plane’s transmitter. After both SBDs had sent their messages, LTJG Burnett ordered an attack.
The pilots armed their bombs and climbed to 9,000 feet. Both pilots expected to test their luck
against one of the battleships, but as they passed over the heavy cruiser Tone, Japanese lookouts
spotted the two planes. Unable to identify the aircraft, the signalmen winked their searchlights
to see if either plane would give a recognition signal. When the Americans gave no satisfactory
response, the crewmen on Tone turned their guns on them. Cawley remembered what happened next:
"The big cruiser started firing all its guns at us, followed in moments by several other ships.
I was standing up in the back cockpit, hanging onto my guns with one hand and leaning out,
looking over the wing at the ships. I wondered where all those shells and AA projectiles were.
Then the sky just exploded with every color—grey, black, silver, blue, and long trails of smoky
phosphorous. One went off under our right wing and we were blown over on our back!
It was a terrible loud “WHAM!”—like being inside a tin can that someone hit with a shotgun."
Miller and Burnett knew they couldn’t proceed through the antiaircraft fire for much longer.
Quickly, both pilots decided to dive on Tone and leave the battleships alone. The dive bombers
nosed downward, plunging through the multicolored AA fire, and released their 500-pound bombs.
Both bombs missed. As Miller’s plane leveled out just above the waves, antiaircraft fire
continued to burst all around. Radioman Cawley remembered the next few harrowing minutes:
"The AA continued as we dove at very high speed clear down to 50 or 100 feet above the water,
heading east. The battleships began shooting their main batteries at us. The big shells would hit the
water very near us and send up big geysers. We would take evasive action and they still came
close to hitting us. This went on until we were over the horizon and a full 15 miles away,
and only the tops of their pagodas were visible. We checked with each other and determined that
we were both okay. We weren’t sure about the plane, but it seemed to run and handle all
right. We couldn’t see Burnett’s plane at all." Burnett’s and Miller’s planes returned to
USS Enterprise at 9:30, although both planes were full of holes.
Burnett and Miller were not the only pilots who tested their luck in a dive bombing attack. Three
quadrants to starboard, another team made a bigger discovery. At 8:05, LT Stockton Birney Strong and
his wingman, ENS Charles Irvine, came into contact with VADM Chuichi Nagumo’s carrier strike group,
which consisted of three aircraft carriers. Strong signaled to Irvine that they must attack
immediately. Two months earlier, Strong had been involved in a nearly identical situation.
At the battle of the Eastern Solomons, he had found an enemy aircraft carrier,
but did not attack it, choosing instead to make sure he sent a perfect contact report.
After he returned to his ship, having let the enemy carrier get away, Enterprise’s flight
operations officer, CDR John Crommelin, admonished him for not attacking. In fact, Crommelin was so
angry at Strong that he put him in hack—that is, confined him to quarters—for a few days.
Then, on the morning of the October 26 search mission, Crommelin saw the need to remind Strong
and Irvine of their obligation to take risks. He said, “If you’re going to miss with your bomb,
you might as well stay home and let a good pilot take your place.”
Luckily, on October 26, Birney Strong found his chance at redemption.
As Strong and Irvine armed their bombs, their gunners frantically tapped out a
message to USS Enterprise, reporting the location of the Japanese carrier fleet.
Then, from 14,000 feet, the two SBDs nosed over and dived toward the nearest Japanese carrier,
which turned out to be the 11,000-ton light carrier, Zuiho.
The sailors on Zuiho didn’t see the two American planes until the last second. Both bombs struck
the aft flight deck, turning it into a pile of flame and shrapnel. Although Zuiho was not sunk,
the bomb damage knocked it out of the battle. It did not return to the war until January 1943.
Both Strong and Irvine managed to return to their carrier, but they almost didn’t make it. Japanese
fighters chased them for 45 miles and Irvine’s tail was chewed up. By the time they landed
at 10:30, each plane was nearly out of gas. CDR Crommelin was so pleased with Strong’s performance
that he recommended him for the Medal of Honor. Several months later, he received the Navy Cross.
Although largely forgotten in the greater history of the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands,
the morning search missions were essential to the US Navy’s performance. To stand a chance at
victory, Kinkaid’s carrier planes needed to strike fast. The search plane reports
from that morning—which also led to the damage on Zuiho—gave the American fleet a fighting chance.