1942-08-24
Battle of the Eastern Solomons
East of the Solomons
North Carolina screened Enterprise. The battle was fought in the air on 24 August 1942. Bombs hit Enterprise. She was not sunk, and the bombs are not pinned to one Japanese carrier. Shokaku took near misses and was not sunk. Zuikaku was with her and was not sunk. Ryujo had been detached at 0200 with Tone and the destroyers Amatsukaze and Tokitsukaze to strike Guadalcanal. Aircraft from Saratoga hit her that afternoon. She capsized about 1755 and sank. Not credited to one ship. New Orleans, screening Saratoga, fought off air attacks. Atago was in Kondo's force and was not one of the ships that decided it.
Sunk in this fight
One ship.
Track chart of Japanese forces, 23-25 August 1942. United States Strategic Bombing Survey, The Campaigns of the Pacific War, 1946, Appendix 41. Public domain. The sheet says it was submitted by the Imperial Japanese Naval Staff College. North is up. Longitude runs from 160° to 165°. The sheet names Ryujo, a Ryujo detachment, the main body, and an advanced force. It marks Ryujo damaged at 1800 on the 24th, and does not mark her sunk. It marks two U.S. carriers near Stewart Island and does not name them. It marks No. 2 plane of Chikuma near Ndai. Santa Isabel, Malaita, Guadalcanal, San Cristobal, and Santa Cruz are drawn. The sheet is the Japanese track. It does not plot the U.S. carrier tracks.
