At around 02:00 p.m. on August 7, the Eighth Fleet, under the leadership of Mikawa Junichi, sailed out of the Labauer base and swooped down at full speed towards the waters of Kuah Island with a jade shattering mentality. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

If the Japanese army wanted to move south in broad daylight, it would not be able to avoid the aerial reconnaissance of the US military. As a matter of fact, as early as daylight on 7 August, a US B-17 bomber in charge of monitoring the Japanese forces discovered that four Japanese warships were being ordered to assemble four Japanese ships at Rabaul, but they were too far away from the war zone to attract the full attention of the US military. As soon as Mikawa's fleet was dispatched that night, the US submarine S-28 discovered and reported to its superiors, and at this time, the Japanese fleet was still more than 500 nautical miles away from Kuah Island, which also did not attract the attention of the US troops.

At about 8 o'clock on 8 August, an Australian reconnaissance plane spotted the Mikawa fleet for the third time, but the pilot did not report it in time due to radio silence. After returning to the base in the afternoon, he did not think so, and only reported to his superiors after using snacks, which was a full delay of six hours, so that the US military did not have time to send planes to reconnoiter and verify. What's worse is that he also misrepresented the formation of this fleet as 2 seaplane carriers, 3 cruisers, and 3 destroyers. The commander of the landing formation, Turner, misjudged that such a fleet could not have come to carry out naval warfare, and that it was likely that a seaplane base would be built in a harbor somewhere in the Solomon Islands to make up for the lost seaplane base on Tulagi Island. On the one hand, the code-breaking team, the main source of intelligence for the US military, was unable to provide accurate information because the Japanese had just begun to use the new code, which took a while to decipher it, and on the other hand, the Mikawa fleet adopted strict radio silence during the voyage. Turner was well aware that his landing formation was the primary target of the Japanese army, and that the only way from Rabaul to Kuah Island was a narrow channel between the two island chains of the Solomon Islands, which is commonly known as the "trough sea", and he sent a special reconnaissance plane to reconnoiter along the trough on 8 August, but because of bad weather, the plane could not fly all the way as ordered and returned home, and the pilot did not report the situation. Therefore, Turner did not know anything about the upcoming naval battle. This is really strange to meet the two tigers, and the Americans also cooperate with the lower limit, so that the generals of the Chinese navy, who broadcast the live broadcast through reconnaissance satellites, shook their heads, if their own fleet dared to do this, Lao Tzu promised not to kill him, just throw him into the sea to feed the fish, so as not to go ashore and disgust people.

In order to know himself and his opponent, at 4 o'clock on 8 August, Mikawa ordered five heavy cruisers to eject and take off a carrier-based reconnaissance plane to conduct a comprehensive reconnaissance of Kuah Island, and learned about the composition and location of the US fleet. At about 16 o'clock, two more reconnaissance planes were dispatched to conduct reconnaissance to further ascertain the situation. Mikawa entered the waters between Kuah Island and Tulagi Island (which was later called "Iron Bottom Bay" because many Japanese and American warships sank in this water) for the third time to verify the night mooring position of the US warships and dropped flares during the night battle. It was precisely because Mikawa had carried out repeated reconnaissance and had a complete grasp of the situation of the American army, that he decided to enter Iron Bottom Bay from the south of Savo Island, first destroy the American cruisers, then the transport ships, and finally withdraw from the north of Savo Island. The ships were immediately notified of the battle plan through the light signal of the flagship heavy cruiser "Chokai". At 18 o'clock, the Japanese ships threw all the flammable materials on the deck into the sea for the final inspection and preparation of the ammunition. At 22:30, the sky was completely dark, and the Japanese army, led by the "Bird Sea", lined up in a single column with a distance of 1,200 meters, raised the white identification flag on the mast, accelerated to 28 knots, and broke into the waters of Kuah Island with murderous spirit! At the same time, Fletcher, commander of the US aircraft carrier squadron serving as a naval and air cover, reported to Gormley that he had requested to withdraw under the pretext of the loss of carrier-based aircraft and the lack of fuel, and that he had led the aircraft carrier squadron to withdraw from the waters of Kuah Island without approval at dusk, and had already moved away from Kuah Island at 20 o'clock. Turner had no choice but to urgently convene a meeting of the commanders of the covering formation, Krachley and Vandergraft, to inform them of the situation, and to announce that his ship would be withdrawn the next day due to the loss of air cover, even though the landing force had not yet unloaded a quarter of its supplies. Vander-Graft protested out, but Turner felt he had no choice but to unload as much as he could overnight. The atmosphere of the meeting was very tense, and after several hours of meeting, it was still unhappy.

Just as the meeting was over, and Krachley was halfway back to the flagship by motorboat, the battle began. The deployment of the US military in Iron Bottom Bay is divided into three patrol areas, with two patrol areas in the north and south divided by the 125-degree extension of the center point of Savo Island between Kuah Island and Tulagi Island, and the east patrol area east of the meridian on the west side of Florida Island. In the southern sector, three cruisers and two destroyers of the First Brigade were on alert, in the northern sector three cruisers and two destroyers of the Second Battalion were on alert, and in the eastern sector, two cruisers and two destroyers of the Third Brigade were on alert, and two destroyers patrolled west of Savo Island as radar guard posts. Before going to the meeting, Cratchley had only designated the captain of the cruiser "Chicago" to act as his agent to direct patrols in the Southern Sector, and there were no specific instructions or operational plans.

At one o'clock on 9 August, the Japanese ships sailed to the northwest of Savo Island, and the Japanese lookouts had a high quality of night fighting, and first discovered two patrolling American destroyers, while the American destroyers equipped with new radars failed to detect the Japanese ships (it is said that the radar was not turned on to prevent overload), and Mikawa led the fleet to carry out a clever maneuver from between the two American ships into the Iron Bottom Bay, and the American ships were not aware of it. Considering that his formation was more than 8,000 meters long, the combat area was narrow, and it was night, so it was inconvenient for the formation to fight, so he ordered all ships to fight on their own in accordance with the battle plan. At one thirty-three o'clock, Mikawa gave the order for a general attack. It wasn't until ten minutes later that the US destroyer "Patterson" spotted the Japanese ship and just radioed the alarm: "Attention! Unidentified warships are entering the port! The Japanese seaplanes dropped flares, which clearly illuminated the US ships in the southern area, and the Japanese shells and torpedoes came one after another, and the Australian Navy cruiser "Canberra" hit two torpedoes on the starboard side, and was hit by 24 shells one after another, and lost its combat effectiveness in less than five minutes, and was sunk by the US troops themselves after dawn. The "Chicago" received the alarm, the captain ordered to fire flares, but several flares did not ignite, at this moment the captain found that there were several fish * lasers shooting, immediately turned the rudder to evade, it was too late, the bow was hit by a fish * tordo, the mast was also hit by a 203 mm shell, "Chicago" fired back again and again, because the Japanese ship was very fast, only had time to fire 25 shells at the last of the Japanese line of the "Yukaze" destroyer lost the target, and then withdrew from the battle to the west. The destroyer "Patterson," which was the first to discover the Japanese ship, engaged in an artillery battle with the Japanese ship, and the captain of the ship gave the order to fire a torpedo, but the torpedo commander did not hear the order and did not carry it out, and the ship was hit by a Japanese bomb and two naval guns were destroyed. The destroyer "Baghley" occupied the firing position, and the captain ordered the launch of the torpedo, but the torpedo shooting was not yet set, and he watched the Japanese ship leave, and when the torpedo was launched, it was already unable to catch up with the Japanese ship that was far away.

After learning of the landing of US troops on Kuah Island, the Japanese base camp decided that the 17th Army of the Army would draw part of its forces to recapture Kuah Island with the cooperation of the Navy. On August 16, Ichiki Kiyonao Osaku led a leading force of about 1,000 men to Kuah Island in six destroyers. On the night of August 18, the Ichiki detachment successfully landed on Kuah Island about 30 kilometers east of Henderson Airport.

On the 20th, U.S. fighters on Kuah Island successfully repelled the attack of the Zero fighters. In the early morning of August 21, 500 Japanese troops led by the lightly enemy Ichiki Daisa launched an attack on the American positions at the mouth of the Tainaru River. The fire of the American troops was very fierce, and the Japanese soldiers were immediately strewn with corpses all over the ground, and the charge was immediately repulsed. After a fierce battle in the middle of the night, the U.S. military sent a battalion to go around the back of the Japanese army and carry out a two-sided flanking attack, and the Japanese army retreated to the seaside, and because the Japanese army on the beachhead stubbornly resisted, the U.S. army had to send light tanks to completely destroy the remnants of the Japanese army. At the end of the battle of Tenaru, the U.S. medics tried to treat the wounded Japanese, but the Japanese pulled out a grenade and died with the U.S. troops. Five light tanks rushed towards the jungle where the Japanese were entrenched, and the tanks ran over the dead and wounded Japanese soldiers, and the tracks were covered with flesh and blood, like meat grinders.

The battle of the Tenaru River ended in a complete defeat for the Japanese, with 35 American killed and 75 wounded. The Japanese army left more than 800 corpses on the battlefield. In this battle, the U.S. military finally broke the myth of "Zero invincibility" and gained air supremacy on the battlefield for the first time. The U.S. military was victorious thanks to its thorough preparation and the cooperation of the air force.

On 23 August, Kawaguchi's 35th Infantry Brigade arrived in Truk and boarded a slow-moving transport ship to Guadalcanal. However, Tanaka's fleet was damaged at the Battle of the East Solomons, causing the Japanese to rethink whether to use slow transport ships to try to get more troops to Guadalcanal. The ship carried Kawaguchi's soldiers to Rabaul instead. There, the Japanese planned to use destroyers to transport Kawaguchi's soldiers to Guadalcanal via the Japanese naval base in the Shortland Islands. Throughout the war, Japanese destroyers were often able to sail straight down the New Georgia Strait to Guadalcanal overnight and back, minimizing their exposure to Allied air raids. They were called "Tokyo Express" (Tokyo Express) by the Allies, but Japanese units called it "Mouse Transport". However, by transporting troops in this way, most of the heavy equipment and supplies, such as heavy artillery, vehicles and much of the food and ammunition, could not be transported with the troops to Guadalcanal. In addition, such operations made the destroyers that the Japanese desperately needed to escort ships even more strained. However, Allied naval commanders – either out of weakness or unwillingness – challenged the Japanese naval forces at night, so the Japanese were able to control the waters around the Solomon Islands at night. However, during the day, Japanese ships were threatened with air strikes as long as they remained within range of the Henderson Airport aircraft attack (about 200 miles (320 km)). During the campaign, this refueling tactic situation continued for several months.

Regarding the tactics of adding fuel to Toyota's deputy force, in the words of General Staff Officer Zhang Jianyuan, "If this guy (Toyota's vice president) was in the establishment of the Chinese National Defense Force, he would have been sent to the Dasha River shooting range a long time ago." ”