South Pacific:
September 1942,
Scenarios and History by Mike Bennighof, Ph.D.
May 2022
Second World War at Sea: South Pacific is a massive game of naval operations in and around the Solomon Islands in World War II. In it,we cover all of the operations, at least all of the interesting ones, instead of just those that rated a battle name and an Osprey Campaign book.
Naval operations don’t always result in naval battles; actually, “battle” is one of the less likely outcomes of most sorties. But that doesn’t make the mission unimportant, or battle impossible. Wargames are the province of what might have happened in a certain situation, not a replay of what did actually happen.
Second World War at Sea games have a lot of scenarios based on actual operations where battle might have arisen, but didn’t. I like writing those the best; to explore what almost happened doesn’t strike me as the same thing as alternative history since the event really happened. It just didn’t end up as interesting as the one a couple weeks earlier or later, but no one knew that when it started.
In South Pacific, one of the more interesting situations (to my mind, anyway) arose in late August and early September 1942, in the days after the Battle of the Eastern Solomons. The Japanese had lost the light carrier Ryujo in that battle, but the light carrier Zuiho arrived just after the battle to replace her. The Japanese probed south-east from Truk with their two heavy carriers and Zuiho, seeking out the Americans.
And the Americans were accommodating, moving into the same area (near the Santa Cruz Islands north of Guadalcanal) with their remaining carriers. Enterprise had been badly damaged at the Battle of the Eastern Solomons, but Hornet arrived from Pearl Harbor to keep American carrier strength in the area consistent. The Americans probed with Saratoga and Wasp into the same area where the Japanese operated, but made no contact; the Japanese spotted the Americans but their strike failed to find the enemy.
The Americans did make the best of the situation; carrier planes transferred from Enterprise and Saratoga to Henderson Field on Guadalcanal greatly reinforced the American land-based air strength. The Japanese brought in more planes as well, but their greatest weakness remained the distance between their airfields around Rabaul at the north-west end of the Solomons chain and their targets on Guadalcanal at the south-east end.
Things then went sideways for the Americans. Torpedo magnet Saratoga was hit for the second time during the war; while she survived the submarine attack, she had to leave the South Pacific for repairs along with American carrier commander Frank Jack Fletcher, who suffered a head wound when his flagship was torpedoed.
In early September, the Japanese began a major effort to reinforce their troops on Guadalcanal. Destroyers brought troops by night, while seaplane carriers landed artillery and supplies. The Japanese carrier fleet sortied to cover them. The American carriers sortied to intercept the Japanese, but along their way the Japanese submarine I-19 launched a single spread of six torpedoes sank the carrier Wasp and destroyer O’Brien, and damaged the fast battleship North Carolina badly enough force her return to Pearl Harbor. For a time, the Americans operated with just one carrier (Hornet) in the South Pacific.
We actually included some of these operations in the old SOPAC game we did on this topic, back at the turn of the century. But we didn’t dig deeply into them, as we’ve done in games like Bismarck Second Edition and Midway Deluxe, and explore the choices made by the commands of both sides.
Digging deeply is what South Pacific (like all the other next-generation Second World War at Sea games) is all about. So we have the long scenarios looking at the bigger picture of operations (in short, running supplies and reinforcements to Guadalcanal, and stopping the other guy from doing so) but also zoom in for key decision points. Leigh Noyes, in command of the American carriers after Fletcher’s wounding, chose to back away from the Japanese north of the Solomons rather than press closer to launch his own strike. Was that the best decision? Probably, but you can test that proposition yourself. The American theater commander, Robert Ghormley, held back his remaining cruisers to screen his carriers rather than commit them to surface combat to try to interrupt the Japanese nighttime re-supply efforts and bombardments. The Americans had already lost five heavy cruisers at Savo Island (four sunk and one damaged badly enough to be put out of action) and only operated four at Eastern Solomons (Hornet brought two more with her from Peal Harbor when she arrived a few days later). Committing them to surface combat would have been an enormous risk, but possibly the only way to stop what Marines called the Japanese “Cactus Express” (“Tokyo Express” to the American media; “rat missions” to the Japanese).
The Japanese, likewise, did not back the rat missions with heavier ships (that came later, once their position grew more desperate) – it took some time for their higher levels of command to accept that the Americans were serious about taking and keeping Guadalcanal. They did commit their carrier fleet into the waters of the Solomons, however, but don’t seem to have recognized that the decisive fleet battle around which Japanese fleet doctrine had been based for decades – the Kantai Kessen – stood before them. The Americans were committing all of their carriers and fast battleships; the Japanese held back their own battleships. The Hotel Yamato served as a floating office for Combined Fleet commander Isoroku Yamamoto, while the other battleship at Truk, Mutsu, was considered too slow to fight off Guadalcanal at night and escape out of range of American air attacks before dawn broke.
Yet this was the decisive moment. If the Japanese were to break the Americans, these weeks after the Battle of the Eastern Solomons represented their best chance.
South Pacific, the game, lets you try out all of those propositions. The fleets fought no major engagements throughout September and well into October, but not because they were inactive. You can seek out battle and decide for yourself if Noyes and Ghormley were too cautious (probably not), or if the poker-playing Yamamoto should have tossed more chips onto the table (probably so).
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Mike Bennighof is president of Avalanche Press and holds a doctorate in history from Emory University. A Fulbright Scholar and NASA Journalist in Space finalist, he has published a great many books, games and articles on historical subjects; people are saying that some of them are actually good.
He lives in Birmingham, Alabama with his wife, three children, and his Iron Dog, Leopold.
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Second World War at Sea: South Pacific
In South Pacific, one of the more interesting situations (to my mind, anyway) arose in late August and early September 1942, in the days after the Battle of the Eastern Solomons. The Japanese had lost the light carrier Ryujo in that battle, but the light carrier Zuiho arrived just after the battle to replace her. The Japanese probed south-east from Truk with their two heavy carriers and Zuiho, seeking out the Americans.
The Americans did make the best of the situation; carrier planes transferred from Enterprise and Saratoga to Henderson Field on Guadalcanal greatly reinforced the American land-based air strength. The Japanese brought in more planes as well, but their greatest weakness remained the distance between their airfields around Rabaul at the north-west end of the Solomons chain and their targets on Guadalcanal at the south-east end.
In early September, the Japanese began a major effort to reinforce their troops on Guadalcanal. Destroyers brought troops by night, while seaplane carriers landed artillery and supplies. The Japanese carrier fleet sortied to cover them. The American carriers sortied to intercept the Japanese, but along their way the Japanese submarine I-19 launched a single spread of six torpedoes sank the carrier Wasp and destroyer O’Brien, and damaged the fast battleship North Carolina badly enough force her return to Pearl Harbor. For a time, the Americans operated with just one carrier (Hornet) in the South Pacific.
Digging deeply is what South Pacific (like all the other next-generation Second World War at Sea games) is all about. So we have the long scenarios looking at the bigger picture of operations (in short, running supplies and reinforcements to Guadalcanal, and stopping the other guy from doing so) but also zoom in for key decision points. Leigh Noyes, in command of the American carriers after Fletcher’s wounding, chose to back away from the Japanese north of the Solomons rather than press closer to launch his own strike. Was that the best decision? Probably, but you can test that proposition yourself. The American theater commander, Robert Ghormley, held back his remaining cruisers to screen his carriers rather than commit them to surface combat to try to interrupt the Japanese nighttime re-supply efforts and bombardments. The Americans had already lost five heavy cruisers at Savo Island (four sunk and one damaged badly enough to be put out of action) and only operated four at Eastern Solomons (Hornet brought two more with her from Peal Harbor when she arrived a few days later). Committing them to surface combat would have been an enormous risk, but possibly the only way to stop what Marines called the Japanese “Cactus Express” (“Tokyo Express” to the American media; “rat missions” to the Japanese).
The Japanese, likewise, did not back the rat missions with heavier ships (that came later, once their position grew more desperate) – it took some time for their higher levels of command to accept that the Americans were serious about taking and keeping Guadalcanal. They did commit their carrier fleet into the waters of the Solomons, however, but don’t seem to have recognized that the decisive fleet battle around which Japanese fleet doctrine had been based for decades – the Kantai Kessen – stood before them. The Americans were committing all of their carriers and fast battleships; the Japanese held back their own battleships. The Hotel Yamato served as a floating office for Combined Fleet commander Isoroku Yamamoto, while the other battleship at Truk, Mutsu, was considered too slow to fight off Guadalcanal at night and escape out of range of American air attacks before dawn broke.
