Status - John Skinner - USS O'Brien:
O'Brien had joined Task Force 17 at Pearl Harbor.
Operation Watchtower .
The US Navy forces approached the southern Solomon Islands and landed forces there on August 7th. Landings on Guadalcanal went well, and the Marines captured the airfield and set up a perimeter. On Tulagi there was more difficulty, and Tulagi and 2 nearby islands were captured after some intense fighting over the next two days. Land-based Japanese air forces attacked several times in the first days, but with little success.
Guadalcanal did not seem to be a critical strategic point, but it drew in large forces on both sides for many months, and so had an outsized effect on how the war progressed.
U. S. Navy Task Forces:
- Task Force 17 (Hornet)
was at Pearl Harbor. Extensive training was being done during this time.
- Combined Task Force 61 supported the invasion of the Solomon Islands beginning on August 7th.
- Task Force
16 (Enterprise) -> TF 61
- Task Force 11 (Saratoga) -> TF 61
- Task Force 18 (Wasp) -> TF 61
More Information:
- Official Navy Chronology, pp. 237-238.
- The First Team and the Guadalcanal Campaign, John B. Lundstrom, pp 30-33.
- Coral Sea, Midway and Submarine Actions, Samuel Eliot Morison, pp. 280-282.
- Neptune's Inferno, The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal, James D. Hornfischer, pp. 32-43.
NEXT POST: AUGUST 13TH
The
invasion force (now Task Force 61) moved toward the Solomons from the
1st to the 5th, and on August 5th, were about 400 miles from Guadalcanal
and Tulagi. The next day the task force would come within the normal
search range of Japanese land-based planes.
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