The Battle of Santa Cruz October 1942 Quiz

Answer: Battle of Guadacanal

The attempt by Japanese forces to capture Henderson Airfield was the primary backdrop to the Battle of Santa Cruz. By the 25th October, the Japanese attack had already been defeated.

Answer: 1 (Hornet)

Following the Eastern Solomon battle in 24-25 August, the US only had one carrier available - USS Hornet (CV-8).

USS Enterprise (CV-6) had been heavily damaged in the battle of Eastern Solomons. USS Saratoga (CV-3) was badly damaged by Japanese Submarine in a torpedo attack on August 31 and subsequently withdrew to Pearl Harbour for a 3-months repair and refit. USS Wasp (CV-7) was sunk by another Japanese submarine (I-19) on the 14th September.

Thankfully, the repairs on USS Enterprise were expedited so that she was available by 16 October to join forces with USS Hornet.

Answer: Rear Admiral Thomas Kinkaid

Rear Admiral Thomas Kinkaid was in overall command of both the Hornet and Enterprise Battle Groups.

Answer: An electrical fire in her engine room

IJN Hiyo was put out of action for many months due to an engine fire on the 22 October and had withdrawn to the Japanese base at Truk for repairs.

Answer: True

The Japanese put together an initial, first wave strike made up of 21 dive bombers, 20 torpedo bombers, 21 fighters and two Nakajima B5N2 Scout aircraft. This first wave took off ready to attack USS Hornet at around 07:40.

At 08:10, IJN Shokaku launched a second wave, consisting of 19 dive bombers and five Zeros, and IJN Zuikaku launched a further 16 torpedo bombers and four Zeros at 08:40.

Thus, by 09:10 the Japanese had 110 aircraft on the way to attack the Hornet Battlegroup.

Answer: Multiple bomb hits on IJN Zuiho

The Japanese Combat Air Patrol (CAP) was busy chasing away other US Scout Aircraft and the two Dauntless dive bombers managed to attack and place their 500 lb bombs on the flight deck of IJN Zuiho. This caused a fire and effectively disabled the Fleet Carrier preventing it from being able to land any aircraft.

Answer: 75 Aircraft in 3 separate strike packages

The Hornet and Enterprise Carrier Groups managed to put three separate airstikes together. The first (USS Hornet) had 15 Dive bombers, 6 Torpedo Bombers with 8 Fighter escorts. The second package (USS Enterprise) had 3 Divebombers, 9 Torpedo Bombers and 8 Fighter escorts, whilst the final flight was (USS Hornet) and comprised of 9 Dive Bombers, 10 Torpedo Bombers and 7 Fighter escorts.

Answer: 3 escort Fighers, 2 Torpedo bombers (for the loss of 4 Zeros).

In addition, the two additional Avenger Torpedo Bombers who were forced to turn back due to them taking heavy damage. The remaining five Japanese fighters returned to their carrier as they had used all of their ammunition and were effectively out of the fight.

Answer: IJN Shokaku

The Japanese CAP separated the US fighters from the Bombers which allowed the Zeros to down 2 dive bombers and damage 2 more. The remaining 11 dive bombers commenced their attack dives on Shōkaku, striking her with three to six bombs which wrecked her flight deck and caused serious damage to the interior of the ship.

The Destroyer Teruzuki was also damaged by a stray bomb. Hiei was a Japanese Battleship and Hiyō was the IJN carrier that was damaged by fire and therefore unable to take any part in this battle.

The torpedo bombers of the second U.S. wave were unable to locate the Japanese carriers and instead attacked the Japanese heavy cruiser Suzuya from Abe's Vanguard force but didn't cause any damage.

At about the same time, nine dive bombers from the third U.S. wave from Hornet - found Abe's ships and attacked the Japanese heavy cruiser Chikuma, hitting her with two 1,000 lb bombs causing heavy damage. The three Enterprise dive bombers then arrived and also attacked Chikuma, causing even more damage.

Finally, the nine torpedo bombers from the US third wave arrived and attacked the smoking Chikuma, scoring one more hit. Chikuma, escorted by two destroyers, withdrew from the battle and limped towards Truk for repairs

Answer: just the 2 aircraft

Communication problems and mistakes by the U.S. fighter control directors, and primitive control procedures prevented all but a few of the US Fighters from engaging the Japanese aircraft before they began their attacks on Hornet.

As an aside, and luckily for the Americans, this first wave failed to see the USS Enterprise Battlegroup because it was hidden in a squall at the time of the attack.

Answer: A dive bomber deliberately crashed into the Hornet's stack

A Japanese dive bomber was set on fire by Hornet's anti-aircraft guns and the pilot deliberately crashed into Hornet's stack, killing seven men and spreading burning aviation fuel over the signal deck (A portent of things to come in future Pacific Campaigns?)

As the first wave of Japanese aircraft departed, they finally spotted the Enterprise Battlegroup and reported its position to the fleet.

With the assistance of fire hoses from three escorting destroyers, the fires on Hornet were brought under control by 10:00.

Answer: 2 bomb and no torpedo strikes

The USS Enterprise took 2 bomb hits and thankfully no torpedo hits.

Answer: 29 aircraft

Junyō managed to launch a small strike made up of only 17 dive bombers and 12 escorting Zero fighters. They had some near misses on Hornet and other supporting vessels including the Battleship USS South Dakota and the light cruiser USS San Juan

Japanese air casualties were heavy.

Answer: Hornet was sunk by Japanese Torpedos

After being told that Japanese forces were rapidly approaching Hornet and that towing were not possible, Admiral Halsey ordered that the Hornet sunk. While the rest of the US warships retired towards the southeast to get out of range of Kondō's and Abe's approaching fleet, the destroyers USS Mustin and Anderson attempted to scuttle Hornet with multiple torpedoes and over 400 shells. However Hornet remained afloat.

With advancing Japanese naval forces only 20 minutes away, the two US destroyers abandoned Hornet's burning hulk leaving her to the Japanese. By 22:20, the rest of Kondō's and Abe's warships had arrived at Hornet's location and the destroyers Makigumo and Akigumo then finished Hornet with four 24 in torpedoes.

USS Hornet finally sank at 01:35 on 27th October 1942.

Answer: 148 pilots and aircrew

The loss of these experienced aircrew was a massive disaster for the Japanese Navy.

To put this in perspective, they lost more aircrew at Santa Cruz than they had lost in each of the three previous carrier battles at Coral Sea (90), Midway (110), and Eastern Solomons (61).

By the end of the Santa Cruz battle, at least 409 of the 765 elite Japanese carrier aviators who had participated in the attack on Pearl Harbor were dead. From this they never recovered.