whether you're liberal or conservative, if you're a journalist your fundamental job is to seek out truth. here you have somebody who's in charge of journalism is bidding nonchalantly that he went on air and said the information to his audience he didn't believe was true. i think that forms the core story of fox. >> you can watch this and other programs online apple tv.org. >> our coverage of the 2012 colby military writers' symposium in northfield, vermont, concludes with james hornfischer. mr. hornfischer discusses his book, "neptune's inferno," and takes audience questions for little under an hour. >> good afternoon. it is my distinct pleasure to present to you today at our colby symposium writer and speaker james hornfischer. joran fisher has quickly

establishing himself as doing for the navy what type of historians stephen ambrose did for the army. this quote is from the rocky mountain news, and i feel that it fits james hornfischer very aptly. mr. hornfischer is the author of three works of naval history. "the last stand of the tin can sailors," published in 2004, one samuel the -- award and was recently named by naval history magazine as one of a dozen all timetable classics. his second book, "ship of ghosts," about the cruiser uss houston, was a main selection of the history book club and the military book club, and the winner and 2007 of the united states maritime literature award. his most recent book, "neptune's inferno," published in 2011 is a major new account of the

guadalcanal naval campaign. a former editor at harpercollins and now president of the literary agency hornfischer literary management, his handle and number of nonfiction bestsellers including a number one "new york times" bestseller and colby award winner flakes forefathers. he will serve as a moderate for the 2012 colby public session. today, he will be speaking about his most recent book, "neptune's inferno: the u.s. navy at guadalcanal." it is the untold story of the u.s. navy's bloodiest fight of world war ii. considered, and i quote, they did and engaging, extremely readable, comprehensive and thoroughly researched, ironic specter of "the wall street journal," and brilliant, a compelling narrative of naval combat, simply superb by the "washington times." it is a "new york times" publishers weekly and "boston

globe" a seller. to once again it is my very great pleasure to welcome mr. james hornfischer. [applause] >> thank you very much. i appreciate everybody coming out. i think this is my fifth colby symposium. it is truly unique in my experience in terms of, a publishing conference that focuses on the craft of military history. and that hopefully will guide policymakers through the experience of digesting our past, in this case our recent past as we discuss afghanistan. today we're going back deeper. i've written three books about the navy, three books about the navy in world war ii. say the navy in world war ii your emulator into the pacific that's where the action was if you were a naval officer or enlisted man in 1942. "neptune's inferno" takes on a

six month long campaign that i think most people i think the consensus, guadalcanal in a six-month campaign of guadalcanal is truly the turning point in the pacific. midway of course was crucial, the battle of midway fought two months before they went on shore to the blood of the japanese offenses push toward hawaii before japanese -- a number of pilots and your crew. with those losses, japan lost the ability really to undertake new offensive operations and to expand its massive pacific perimeter. what it did though for us, for america, is it opened the way the first time to go on the offensive your now, the joint chiefs of staff, the combined chiefs of staff, the british and american i command based a number of options on where to take the offensive against the axis.

all through 1942 there was much talk about the strategy, the so-called worldwide strategy of your first. president barroso committed himself to it. i think to strengthen the alliance and maintain the confidence of russia, continued its fight against not see germany. but what's going on in back channels and combined chiefs of staff, especially the meetings on the american side is general marshall and the other american leadership, there's a consensus that we've got to do something somewhere. there's also a driving force in a discussion on as the will, the ego in the mind of one admiral. commander-in-chief of the u.s. fleet, chief of naval operations, and very willful individual. he was said never to have met anybody considered his intellectual equal. and i think to stand in his presence was to feel the ego coming at you. he was a very difficult

character. but it was his achievement in 1942 to recognize that with a victory at midway, and with the japanese seizure of this remote island, south pacific known as guadalcanal, where they were in may, reported to be building an airfield, he had the means and also the necessity to take offensive operations against israel japan. he was able to convince president roosevelt, and because first general marshall and the two together were able to convince president roosevelt that the navy and the marine corps would strike in the pacific. this went against everything president roosevelt was saying about your first. in fact, it was going to be pacific first. is going to be pacific first because the navy was indeed the alliance was with the construction of an airfield and guadalcanal would find itself in this untenable position of being unable to send cargo shipping to australia. that southern island stood

astride our ceilings in the pacific, and here's hawaii, here's guadalcanal, and here's sidney. now, the pacific shipping coming down through e.g. to refuel and then around here, this is all within bomber radius of guadalcanal with the japanese committed to establish a working airfield. it would really split the alliance into, australia would be cut off, and our strategic position would be seriously threatened. so this was the impetus on august 7, 1942, for 14,000 greens under general, first marine division, to land in guadalcanal, suffered by three aircraft carrier task forces, factor there from all points all around the pacific from pearl harbor up from new zealand, they converge at fiji, held rehearsals and landed those brains on guadalcanal shore on august 7 and for 2.

the store that neptune's inferno tells is what follows from this. what followed from it was a series of really a six-month campaign of attrition where japan ghana slowly came to grips with the magnitude of the situation. the embryo high command didn't attach much importance by our marine corps until they realize what was supporting it, do you realize the larger ambitions if they realize that their base with the service we threatened by a u.s. position in the southern solomons. and through august, september, october and november the japanese eventually, their main base in the pacific, through a series of hammer blows down in her footholds that produced seven major naval battles, five of them were midnight service lets us thought between destroyers, cruisers and battleships, often, we're talking eight-inch main batteries engaging in

.50 caliber machine gun range. heavy casualties on both sides the five actions of that nature plus to sort of battle midway style carrier engagements fought in the waters around guadalcanal. the campaign lasted six months. and by the end of it, in those seven naval battles, nearly 5000 sailors were killed, and approximate number of, about the same number of japanese as well. those 5000 killed in action were three times the number of men who died in fighting on the island itself. so we come to the question of, especially if you know something about the pacific war, come to the question of why didn't i know that? and i think it's constantly obscured the fact, the extent of the navy's sacrifice in this campaign is constantly obscured by the imagery we have only hidden in guadalcanal. we think of marines fighting in the jungle, and deservedly so. they fought bravely for the six months.

outnumbered, certainly undersupplied, under armed. they held a perimeter around the airfield and say that they. but let's also observed that if the navy did not support them adequately, no amount of gallantry on the part of any of these men or any other man would have saved them in the face of the brothers. they would've been rolled up if the navy failed to supply them and protect them, there's really no chance the marines for holding that ivan. so the guadalcanal campaign needs to be understood in its fullest comment text, which is fighting on the island, control the ground itself, a desperate struggle to resupply the garrisons undertaken by both sides, which really run by sea, so see control as was control the skies around guadalcanal. this was a new mode of warfare that america never practiced

before. we were learning on-the-fly. one of the themes of the guadalcanal campaign is one of under preparation, rushed schedules that costly got in a way of planning, forces being asked to do things they never trained to do, new technologies coming in to feel that were untested and, indeed, unrehearsed. say, radar was coming in to the flea. nobody had the first of you really have to use. there might have been one man. will get to him in a moment, but guadalcanal was with the navy learned to fight the u.s. navy land by. the japanese didn't have a good idea how to fight actually and that's illustrated within 36 hours of marines going ashore. on the night of august night, the japanese send out a cruiser squadron under command of rear admiral, and the battle of savo island was the result of this engagement between the cruisers and two squadrons of you is cruisers, and they're defending the waters north of guadalcanal

did you see the tiny island here is savo island. it was a defeat of the first order on the american side. the japanese showcased their mastery of the craft of busting holes with torpedoes and gun fires a nighttime close range engagement. we lost for cruisers, went down with about 1000. you really could say the battle of savo island was a disaster, even worse than the pearl harbor attack. pearl harbor, so-called defeat at pearl harbor if you will simply a natural result of a battle ready force -- it was a surprise attack. there's really nothing you can say about the failure of u.s. combat arms when they're rolling out of their bunks at 7:00 to battle dive bombers screaming down on the. transfigured a combat ready u.s.

screen, artful cruiser force under combatant command. not fly commend. this crew is significant. you have a couple of captains with two squadrons defending the subject of their sensor in a nighttime patrol position, i.e., they are sitting ducks go back and forth like is waiting to be picked off. here comes the admiral with his very well trained crews falling upon them. this laid bare a number of deficiencies in u.s. navy's fighting spirit and their doctrine, all across the board. there's a lot to be said about that. it led to the extent to which the u.s. navy was not prepared to fight. the naval air corps was the world leader at this point. we won the battle at midway. the surface navy, the black shoe fleet hadn't yet seen its day.

and so the battle of savo island, the terrible loss, for cruisers, 1000 sailors, scarcely a scratch on the japanese showed how far we have to. so the theme of the campaign becomes how does this institution is being torn apart by the evolving way of war, you've got the aviators over, the battleship sailors over here, nobody has a handle on how we're going to conduct fleet operations as such, how we going to kind of get our feet under ourselves and fight the masters in the world as of 1942 in the craft of naval warfare? well, the answer is through trial and air into the emergence of a particular type of combat leaders, commander u.s. that can forward leaning leaning approach, knows combat is nothing really fancy. it's about putting ordnance on target first. especially at sea, especially at night but because when things get it, they can burn. when things weren't the

eliminate the when the eliminate they get hit again. that's of the japanese one savo island and it's how the americans eventually learned to win in the battles that followed. so the book traces this curriculum that the navy faces in the south pacific. the japanese in the early days in the role of master and teacher, and the first figure really comes to the floor and shows them a complete how to fight, again, how to fight and context of service action, was a man who was kind of sideline on august night on savo island, rear admiral norman scott. he had a was a group was patrolling kind of away from where the fighting was taking place on august 9. but as september rolled around and the american command kind of regroup and realize how important it was to have a competent knife fighting squadron, cruiser squadron, norman scott who was quickly

seen as the guy who was kind of the man at the moment to make that happen. he was given command. and their job was to intercept the japanese so-called tokyo express, that these nighttime runs the japanese were launching from their forward base, again running we supply down what is known as the slot, this chain of islands here, the resupply runs would go at night. why? because he americans at the airfield on guadalcanal. we had in essence forward air base here. it really wasn't ready for action for a few weeks. but by august 20 when the u.s. as long island comes in with a couple squadrons of marines, dive bombers, the wildcat fighter squadron, they are ready for action. and by day those aviators have a radius of control, a perimeter that reaches really up to really all the way up the slot.

japanese ships will come down in daylight. philby hit by dive bombers, torpedo bombers, no fun. the japanese operator for at night. and so what happens is we have kind of a changing of the watch as it will. when the sun goes down the japanese are preeminent to our firefighters -- fighters don't fly. the bombers stay home and sleep. rest up for the coming days action to the japanese come down and reinforce their belief tears but when the sun comes up, the pilots fly and the situation changes 180 degrees. the japanese quickly realize they've got to get in and out under cover of darkness before the guadalcanal base at cactus air force base can hit them. and so what admiral scott comes to realize is, the japanese are in an operational straitjacket. to bring down ships that are suitably fast, in and out of

course after dark before sunrise is, they've got to leave their base at a very predictable time. they get to arrive at guadalcanal pretty much shortly after midnight to unload and hightail the two to 200 miles north of henderson field before the pilots fly the scott realizes okay, my mission is to defend guadalcanal, but we'll see what happens when cruisers stand by on a patrol course. seemingly in a box at 11 knots. the japanese season first and opened fire and register the first hits. we will do it differently. admiral scott puts in a battle plan. he pulls together his commanders and he says we'll play defense and offense mode. we will sortie. we know when the japanese are going to arrive, and, therefore, we will be in battle speed in column ready for action when they come. we will not be passively standing by. so he attacks this new approach, offense of my did battle minded

approach to defend against the tokyo express. on the night of october 11, the japanese come down again attempted to bombard the airfield to plan trips to admiral scott is ready for them. the battle was by no means a rousing victory. scott executes the plan just as he wrote it. there's an inevitable fog of war situations develop. in terms of the ships maneuver, there's a point to fix after the battle was over. but by the close of the battle of the cave, they lost a heavy cruiser but i think was the first heavy cruiser loss of the war. another assembly games. you take the american last shoe fleet for the first time could say we have done. we can do this. this is the way forward. admiral scott had a real feather in his cap.

so now go back to have the navy learns its lessons, how the navy does its business but what does it now do with this entry it has under its belt? naturally you think admiral scott would stay in command and acquire more ships and stronger task forces and expand his operations, but as we move through october, we find changes up the line from his level, have a very powerful impact on how the campaign develops. it was a change in command at the highest level because, well, the commander of the south pacific force u.s. naval forces in south pacific, vice admiral robert gorman was found wanting, for a number of recent the he had been brought in to lead the charge in the south pacific, having been stationed at london. he was a special naval observer as the blitz was going on

reporting directly to president roosevelt. so using natural choice to serve as commander of so back. but as the campaign began unfolding, it became clear he wasn't the kind of leader that exactly fired after to be like to complain about the in my development of a panic or. a premier strategist, marvelous diplomat and a planner. but when the fighting started, he found himself just obsessed with detail and he had never left his headquarters. he never went forward to see the marines in guadalcanal. never saw his forward naval base where the cruisers and destroyers were we fueling. he was very aloof from the fighting front. and it quickly became clear that he was in a very tough position. they concluded that admiral gormley was having a nervous breakdown in command of this crucial operation. they were old friends for years,

very close friends. and this was a conclusion that the apple really -- reached very productively. he knew in october that a change of comic is going to be necessary to relieve his old friend in command. he arranged to have admiral halsey hood been sidelined with shingles basically since prior to midway, this is where halsey makes his return in the guadalcanal campaign but if ever you wonder about effective leadership, i think the case of this, halsey's release -- relief of gormley. the simple transmission of the word from one man to another, gormley is now, halsey is in, in effect of simply a stand. it changed the spirit of men from the lowliest marine grunt in guadalcanal two captains of ships.

they felt like they're going to get their chance. they felt like a new fighting spirit was come to the south pacific. this may sound like rhetoric but it's true when you interview them and the word that halsey was coming changed everything. he took command from gormley and october 25 in time to confront what was up to that point the largest concentrated effort by japanese naval forces to retake guadalcanal. give-and-take of it in the nick of time. he got there in time to order his task force to innocent japanese forces coming down, talk about transport, cruiser squadrons and carriers, and what develops on october 25-26 is known as the battle of santa cruz. it was a carrier battle. and halsey, ever the riverboat gambler, throws all of his carrier forces into the fray.

the enterprise and hornet, is to carriers, and they both went forth and intercepted japanese and we lost the hornet. the enterprise was badly damaged. that left the south pacific air force with a single aircraft carrier. so you can say, even the enterprise was badly damaged. you could say this was a reckless gamble on the part of halsey, but that was his topic in effect at a time when you did the japanese have generally held the initiative and head for the most part material support your did, i think you can make the case that a leader was given the camp was the kind of leader you needed to turn the tide, to launch the bold stroke that changes the vector, if you will, and halsey was the kind of man. he immediately visited guadalcanal. he sat down with the general and said what do you need from me? i think the fact that he was in the physical presence of general vandergriff asking that question

was the most important demonstration he could have made, commitment for the marine position. and so, general vandergriff said i need you to give me everything you've got the and halsey looked him in the eye and said you've got a. it's meetings like that were leadership bears fruit. ya cannot trust between commanders. you have a obligation that affects the decisions that commanders me. halsey from that point forward never hesitated to send carriers to intercept japanese forces coming south, and he committed himself to a very regular and rigorous resupply effort up from new math to bring crucial supplies and ammunition to guadalcanal. i should say at the outset, it was -- this is backing up somewhat but there was a terrible sort of prior to halsey's arrival in the theater there was a terrible, terrible state of relations between the

marines and navy. in fact, it's really one of the first thing so often say, have written about how they dumped the marines often hightailed it and ran? and it seems to be the perception. i mentioned earlier, 5000 sailors killed in action. clearly that's not the case but this perception existed. that perception arose from the fact that the very beginning of the campaign that the navy only agreed to stand by what is carriers for today's to support the marine landing. when the carriers hauled out on d-day plus two, there goes the air cover. admiral turner was in charge of landing area realized his cargo men would be vulnerable without air cover, so there go the cargo mentored still would have the boots -- there still some bad luck going on. so it repairs a lot of the ill will that exist in the navy and the marine corps.

and i think from that point forward, it was a much the case it served the spot side-by-side and threw everything they had against the japanese. so i hope i'm not losing you with all these sub teens and shifts of and jumping back and forth in time. guadalcanal is a complex campaign. telling the story in one book was a trick because we have to account for the changing of the guard, the coming and going of the ships and officers and men of every rank, every battle have a different order of battle, different commanders on both sides. and so the story is really one of the institution of the navy learning how to fight. so i told you about norman scott and about how he wins the battle of cave as rents -- cape

esperance. on the night of october 15, and the marines on the island i don't believe in the annals of military history there's a ground force that ever had a heavy bombardment and the first marine division and the cactus air force took from those two battleships. the japanese left i think after their handiwork was done, there were five working aircraft left in guadalcanal. and so this sets up the battle of santa cruz which was lauded by halsey's aggressiveness. newt at a catastrophic costs after santa cruz at the end of october there's one carrier left in the south pacific. fortunately, the japanese, it takes vitamins amount of planning and vitamins amount of resource management to make a push like such as the japanese are making any sudden solace to the event marshal the troops and transport and the fuel, they got

to get the combat together, air support or to basically what emerges that japanese are able to make a push against guadalcanal really once every three to four weeks. and so there's a period of we grew being and we gathering as both sides lick their wounds and plan for the next thing. santa cruz, long story short, launched the first major japanese attempt at guadalcanal back on the american sector connects and comes in november. now, admiral scott, because of the cascading effect of gormley's relief, the brilliant and aggressive admiral scott is no longer command of the cruiser force to the japanese come knocking again in november. command of task force 60 forced into, task force six to seven defaults to gormley's chief of staff, captain now rear admiral callahan. wasn't about to see -- when corn

is really the chief of staff goes to halsey and says please give me see duty. please send me back to see. on the fighting sailor, give me a command. so halsey was also a fighting sailor, gives him command of task force 67. he comes in, and because callahan has 15 days ranks over scott, scott is effectively removed from command because of the operation of the rules of seniority. so now we have admiral callahan in charge of the cruisers when the japanese come calling on the night of november 13. the so-called battle of friday the 13th was almost impossible to track and to break apart, trays and narrate, once the main forces collide north of guadalcanal that night, november 13. you have a japanese and bombardment force consisting of a pair of battleships, these are 42000-ton monsters.

the americans have nothing like it to oppose them. callahan has, you know, to-eight-inch gun cruisers, about 12,000 speaker get a couple light cruisers and a squadron of destroyers. hallahan knows from reports what's coming. and he realizes that there's only one way out of this, that is straight through it. because if he fails to engage the japanese will overwhelm the cactus air force complained their troops and the party is over. if he engages, all the ships are probably going to be lost, it's not a happy order of battle. if you are on the american side. but one of the men i interviewed, callahan is coming in for lumps because once this battle begins there's no evidence destinies tactical command as if there ever could've been. but he comes in for lumps

because he didn't leave behind a nifty battle plan that admiral scott had prepared for historians to read and admire. the last tactical order callahan gave was straight out of come in, straight out of lord nelson as the forces are engaging, his last command to his column is on chips fire starboard, even ships fire poured. as if that's going to do anything when, suppose your account and you engaging a ship, you just instructed to fire starboard. okay, find a new target. turn your church around. the core, the loss, the blood, the death that falls on both sides this night, it's to the credit of neither commander but what was the alternative? callahan knew he had but one alternative and that was sacrifices force. one of the great interviews i did for the book, and by the way, the opportunity to

interview men of these battle is diminishing rapidly. i thought this was the last graph, some this issue, there's a 92 year-old man in berkeley, california, an african-american man which meant he was never going to go farther than captains cook in the 1942 carefully. he was captains cook in the u.s. as san francisco the night the battle was fought to keep recovered for me how he was milling around and here's officers talking and here is admiral callahan saying something like i know we have no choice but we have to do it. there was a resigned sense of fatalism about is worse. where these these were some younger officers who were in this conversation with him to clear become somewhat fragmentary evidence, callahan was a smart and. clear he knew what he was up against the cruisers versus battleship if he knew it was his job essentially to go intercept and to do what he could with what he had. the only way a cruiser beats a

battleship is getting close to most ships are designed to meet their equal, they are equivalent counterpart. so their armor to protect against its own batter. but what is a cruiser going to do against a battleship? if you do all these, although matthew realize there's no way the eight-inch cruiser takes on a 14-inch battleship that standard range. but what if they get in close? this is exactly what happened to this is the brilliance of callahan, you know, it's frustrating to know he had chips in his column that the very latest radar that could seek through the night and cast out the little microwaves and find contacts through smoke and fog and darkness. so here you have admiral

callahan in san francisco, has the old radar, just good for broad search, ineffective writer. behind him is a brand-new microwave set radar, the captain is transferring to admiral callahan okay, we have contacted their income you know, three to five, 22000 yards, every 30 seconds a new report that the callahan is doing none of this. he's an old school fighting naval officer. he's on the radio, essentially a single channel tactical rigor. if you're talking, you're not hearing. so what is he doing? he is clearing his destroyers. butch, what do you see now? hey butch, what do you see now? butch parker was one of the best i can destroyers met and the fleet. callahan had trusted his man. he didn't trust this newfangled radar that nobody knew how to use. i interviewed our writer officer on one of these destroyers and he said all it was good for really, we weren't trained in its use but it was a black box

and is behind the pilot house. it had a flat surface but it got pretty hot when it was working so we put our coffee on and really that's all we were able to use a four in 1942. the manuals hadn't been written yet much less distributed to the fleet and train a. so radar is really, you know, for the average naval officer functionally useless. callahan fails to use his radar. what apple callahan did no is dedicated in close with his eight-inch cruisers to be 14-inch battleships and that's exactly what he did. is brilliance was in recognizing the simple fact of physics, and at the crucial moment on the night of friday the 13th, callahan's con, san francisco, portland stern, followed by 2000 yards apart from the japanese main body, these two battleships are referred to, and they eviscerate them.

the japanese flagship is mortally wounded. so this was the moment of truth. this was the moment of truth to cruisers won't passionate weren't supposed to be battleships like this. they didn't think we had this kind of savagery in us. it certainly appears, you know, i've talked a number of people including richard franks is probably the preeminent the front of the guadalcanal campaign, it really seems like the japanese were stunned by this exhibition of american fighting will. they didn't think we had in us to sacrifice our ships. admiral callahan is struck dead on by a japanese. norman scott was in another ship. he was killed by friendly fire from the san francisco. oath and was killed in action on the night of friday the 13th the i don't think that's ever happened again. i think that might have been a first and last.

is that right? so we have this incredible battle, which once again stops a japanese compartment for some hitting the air force do. and, therefore, stopped the convoy, for coming down and landing and striking its troops on the beaches. the significance of callahan sacrifice is that the following day cactus air force is able to fly. having been spared yet another compartment of 14-inch shells. they fly out and find a japanese transports circling in the northern part of the slot and he worked them over. they send out i think four of six large japanese transports, most of the entire japanese division. so by his sacrifice that night, guadalcanal is once again say. two nights later, the japanese gather the remnants of this massive multi-task force order

of battle they've assembled and they try again. they circle back with the one battleship that survived the encounter with callahan. it comes back with a number of cruisers. they are determined to put henderson field out of business. callahan's forces rendered combat ineffective, and so now here's admiral halsey, the riverboat gambler, all he has got now are the battleships he has been holding with his carriage to guess the uss enterprise, the last kerry in the pacific are just two battleships, the washington and the south dakota. these are middle-class battleship. the reason the old pearl harbor battleships are here, all the ships hit at pearl harbor, the reason they're not here is fuel. they didn't have the fuel storage to operate the tankers. so the old battleship state on the west coast. this was the cruisers,

destroyers, carriers, until the new more efficient fast ships came in. admiral halsey has two battleships that holding close to the enterprise. as the japanese come back the night of the 15th, halsey's only choice to oppose this renewed attack, which he is detected from air search and coast watchers is to release these two magnificent ships and send them into these confined waters. that'll ships are supposed to fight in confined kind of either natural waters like this. these are massive ships with huge turning radius. but is the only choice that halsey has at night. he releases the washington and the south dakota under command of the one naval officer in the entire south pacific who knows how to use greater control gunfire. he comes from naval training center. he helped install the hardware on the ships. he wrote the first manuals that hadn't even been yet distributed

to the fleet the a kentucky rifleman, a champion pistol shooter, epileptic medalist with a pistol and a rifle, master of every gun from .45 caliber to a 16-inch from his the man you want and demand for a fight like this. and for an end to take these two capital ships into harm's way. so that night the night of november 14-15, willis lee goes forth with washington as flagship and the south dakota and makes short work of the last japanese battleship, a regional. and with this, with this the japanese psychological route, the size -- it is complete and the japanese point of view. they have lost two battleships in action at close range, fist fighting range, against american squadron. and never again, remember this is 1942, it won't be until the end of 1944, almost two years,

the japanese battleships come forward and engage american forces in a beautiful way. i think that the psychological effects of this campaign was crushing for the japanese. there's one final battle that is fodder for the japanese, essentially major -- there's one final battle, the battle of tassafaronga. i treated briefly in the book, part of me probably wondered if i could sustained interest and get another midnight slugfest, five in a row here, but tassafaronga was frustrating because after willis lee's exhibition of his master on the night of november 15, you want there to be an exclamation point on u.s. performance, but we don't get there. what we get is another abject u.s. defeat in the battle of tassafaronga equate u.s. cruisers under command of a new naval officer. he has the playbook from scott.

is the fighting example of callahan. he knows that uses radar. is all the advantage. he surprises a force of japanese destroyers whose decks are little with supplies the coming down to dump off the water which is north of guadalcanal our troops all assure. so here comes the admiral and here comes admiral right. surprise them, opened fire and they concentrate on one ship, the leader store, blow it out of the water. the japanese we act with her master of nighttime torpedo warfare, just pays a huge dividend at the command reacts and the split-second fires there to peters, reverse course and those torpedoes into the crucial line and eviscerate three of the heavy cruisers inflicting just a shameful defeat. the virtue for the american point of view of the situation now though is this defeat simply doesn't matter. the trains are running, so to speak, the supplies are coming

in from the logistical infrastructure, the docs, the cranes, the lighters ring to it ashore from cargo ships, all of it is an place no. and there's really no unseating the americans at guadalcanal by the time the japanese athletes kind of this last kind of defined the last victory on a superior american forster so tassafaronga goes down. the south pacific force can't absorb that he be. by february the japanese are attempting their own, they're able to effect it the last of their starved, drag figures out of guadalcanal. utah, their starvation victims. that was the state of the japanese infantry in guadalcanal because the constructive force of our naval forces stopping the tokyo express from we enforcing figures and. a six-month campaign of

attrition is frankly, it is ghastly. what happens to ship when it is hit like this, what happens to the men on board this ship, you know. but it was necessary because there was only way to be the japanese and that was to step up and smack them in the mouth. we did at midway, and that guadalcanal we did it the old-fashioned way. it's a story that i tried to bring together comprehensively and read-only. certainly after writing my first book, "the last stand of the tin can sailors," was about a single naval engagement the last about two hours and it goes in close for one battle, extraordinary victory fought late in the work to my second book was a sort of one ship, "ship of ghosts," about the uss houston lost early in the works and the side of her crew captivity. but with "neptune's inferno" i've tried to attack an entire campaign which frankly i've never understood. the last book attempts what "neptune's inferno" attempt to do, was to take the whole naval

expense of guadalcanal campaign, and it's crucial i think to illustrate the success here because it says something about how america fights when it's been provoked, about the losses and sacrifices that one will take the wind when it knows that there's only one way through, and that is to win. all these questions will be on the table tomorrow for the panel on afghanistan in the new era, the new day, but boy, things sure seem cleared 70 years -- seven years ago. the men who won the south pacific, there still a few them around and they have my undying gratitude and my admiration. it's been a privilege to be able to interview some of the men from san francisco, uss atlanta, admiral scott flagship, and to capture their story. and so i appreciate your interest in coming to hear about it.

and if we're time i'll be happy to take any questions that you might have. thank you. [applause] >> take a couple of questions. i have to run up to the northfield in, but jim, can you -- >> absolutely, sure. >> take as many questions as you want. >> okay. sounds good. thank you very much. >> it's a wonderful read. >> thank you. anything? >> of the 80 ships, because i think you mentioned there were 80 ships at the beginning of this campaign, how many of them remained seaworthy after?

>> the 80 ships was the size of the additional anti-force and that would've included the carrier task forces as well as their supporting ships. both sides, the americans and japanese sustained about equal losses in the campaign to each side loss 24 major warships. and so, me, the losses were so great that they eventually coined the nickname for sabo sound, where all the fighting took place, ironbottom sound. and effect the man who discovered the titanic wreck followed up that by taking one of his submersibles with his kenneth cohen went in and found a number of the wrecks from the guadalcanal campaign. there's a wonderful book called the goes ships of guadalcanal. a very good history. some stunning photography of the wrecks of the quincy, and they are still down there. these wrecks will be with us forever, you know? nature is reclaiming all that metal.

and so, you know, being able to grab history like that i think is very valuable. yes, sir. >> did we not have coast watchers all down toward the slot, giving us some advance warning of what was coming? >> we did. the question is about the coast watchers. these were brave souls in the pic if you look at this chain of islands, the gentlemen mentioned -- they were essentially rogue agents equipped with radios. these were australians, these were men who have been working, they might have some kind of administrative role on one of the islands. this was basically a british protectorate on these islands, and so you had agents of the ground. you had people who are attached to one or another, one or another business, such as the pineapple trade or what have you, maybe some kind of a

government role as well. when the japanese invaded they headed to the hills and they supplied the crucial function of observing movements of japanese ships up and down the waterways. with their radio signaling term usually signaling to australia to eventually get word to ally forces and he very quickly when the japanese were coming. without warning, -- with that warning they usually allow the men of the cactus force to get up to altitude. so this, without those coast watchers we would've been relying on our own research, which was fraught with all kinds of unanticipated will problems, whether, you know, miscommunication, that can thing. coast watchers were crucially important to the allied success. >> could you compare what you it is a in your book versus what john keegan said in the price of

admiralty? are you familiar -- >> about what? >> just the course of combat and -- >> well, i mean, i think, i'm not sure what argument you're referring to or what -- >> kind of locked into. they can be like you're saying, almost fatalistic been in there, the battleship fleet. >> there is certainly a sense of fatalism i think. the fatalism seemed to be most definite on the japanese a picnic and it felt like somehow they were going to materialize this decisive battle where they are fighting, their spirit which carried them to victory and all of a sudden the war would be over because they one this big battle. they had this faith that such a thing would come to them and it would be this decisive battle. [inaudible] >> the losses as i said were about equal. there were about 24 ships. the losses and battleships were two to zero our favor, cruisers were skewed on the japanese side

but by the end of the day they were about even. the japanese are slow to realize that guadalcanal was, in fact, a decisive battle. they had always, the japanese naval command had a certain idea i think drawn from jutland in world war i that they would be, but they were slowly whittle away american naval forces if delivered across the pacific, and at the moment of their choosing, say off the philippines or somewhere, they would finally commit their battleship force and would be this majestic engagement on the high seas and they would crush us. guadalcanal didn't look like that. guadalcanal wasn't quite that dramatic. it was a stinky, lousy, disgusting place. the island is something the waters around were confined and hazardous and lend themselves really to, you know, used by smaller ships but none of that told the japanese this was a decisive battle. i think they realized it too late. all through the campaign, i

pointed out, trucks earlier. the great battleship yamato was anchored was never sent into the combat area. really for lack of fuel but i think the japanese ever saw the urgency of it. a number of their other major naval elements of the force never committed to the battle. it was to our good fortune ultimately, but it's also important to observe, old sides are fighting so far from home. just look off our guadalcanal is until key over and pearl harbor. the logistics train to sustain naval operations. it was far more than anybody could manage easily. these constraints of fuel and supply, and the japanese suffered as we did. anything else? if there's nothing else, i thank you for your attention to you've been a great audience, and i'm very proud to be with you here. so we will look forward to hearing what some other authors had to say as this symposium

rolls along. thank you. [applause] >> is there a nonfiction author or book you would like to see featured on booktv? c send us an e-mail at nice booktv@c-span.org. ng tweet us at twitter.com/booktv.he spinning it was a w silver opeld no one in america knows about. but again, the suspicion wasici raised whenwa i realized the bak of the car was a little lower te the ground than the front. and given the rules of engagement, you can't just shoos someone because they looked suspicious well, sir, scott, why did you shoot him? well, i got scared. you got scared? so you killed a man? well, yeah, sir. like, i have a gun.

like, you can't do that. and given the rules of engagement, you can't just shoot someone unless you know they have the weapon, you know they're aiming, or you know that they've been -- they've killed someone or they're in, i should say, they're in the action. so given the rules of engagement, i couldn't just shoot someone that looked suspicious. so i knew the best thing to do was to yell at him to get out of his car. so as i did, i was looking over my left shoulder kind of facing him. i was in the lead stryker vehicle, had metal basically up to my neck, i was inside the stryker standing up. i still had my m-4, my oakley m frames on, i was looking cool. had my kevlar on. doing everything that i was supposed to do. looked at him and said, hey, get out of your vehicle. and i knew he heard me because he looked over his shoulder straight at me and raised his hands off the steering wheel and

then put 'em back down. nothing happened. i was like, okay, well, maybe he understood or maybe he's saying i don't know where i am, i'm lost. i didn't know. so i yelled at him again. he raised his hands up again off the steering wheel and shook his hands no and let his foot off the brake. i then had to make a decision. so i shot two rounds in front of his vehicle with my m4 and, boom, my world went black. i woke up a week or so laettner walter reed army medical center, my life forever changed. my world went black not only physically, being blind the rest of my life, the shrapnel had cut my left eye in half, entered the frontal lobe on the left side of my brain and metal went through my cornea and taking out my

optic nerve. i saw nothing but blackness and was told by the ophthalmologist that you would never be able to see again. so my life went physically black. that day. but it also went spiritually black. i no longer believed in god. everything that i'd done, everything that i believed in now no longer meant anything to me. i remember one of my best friends, edward, coming into the room. i think it was before one of my surgeries and said, hey, scotty, why don't you say a prayer? i said, no. i don't know how to pray, and i don't know god. and i think it, the room went dead silent. like if there were cockroaches in the room, you would have heard 'em. my wife went back to her room realizing, you know, i'd been married to an awesome man, and i still am, and i'd be fine married to a blind guy, but being married to someone who didn't believe in what he

believed in before, that was something different. so she began to pray. friends began to pray all around the world. and for me it was a choice that i had to make. it was a personal choice that i had to make. i knew i had support. friends would come into my room on a daily basis singing christian songs. i know doctors thought our room was creepy because balloons would be coming out, i thought the room was huge. apparently, it was like a little match boxcar. but it was that support. but again, it still came back to me. i was the one that had to make a choice. i was the one that had to choose to make a difference. my company commander called me every other day to see how i was doing. we were awesome friends. my brigade commander would call me every week to see how i was doing. something that doesn't normally happen in an organization, to have the top leadership call you to see how you're doing? the support that i had was amazing, was awesome. and people like toby keith, country singer, gary sinise, the

actor, generals, three-star, four-star would come in and try to see me and i'd say, no, no thank you. and one day my wife said, scotty, andrew wants to see you. she didn't say who it was, but something hit me. it was andrew harris, the boy who i had taught sunday school with three years earlier had driven down from west point, new york, with his dad to come and see me. and i don't know if i knew that day or in the days to come that the impact that i had made on >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. you've been watching booktv, 48 hours about programming