Talk:Battle of Kolombangara

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In editing this, I was intrigued by the POV that "in every respect this was a major defeat for the Allies," considering that three weeks later New Georgia fell to the Allies (it took six weeks to capture it, whereas it took six months to capture Guadalcanal), and that the losses did not approach the magnitude of the defeats at Tassafaronga or Savo island. So I went back to Morison and several other sources to see why each side was there and what they hoped to accomplish. Morison's remark was quite telling, all the moreso because he was on the bridge of Admiral Ainsworth's flagship when this battle took place. He wrote that during the pursuit Ainsworth had held fire after an agony of indecision because he wasn't sure if the approaching ships were Japanese (they were) or his own returning destroyers--thus allowing his cruisers to fall prey to the torpedoes. However the relevance to the action to the campaign was as noted: they were forced to use a roundabout and difficult to thread route which opened them up to effective night attack from PTs and destroyers. It was such a major defeat for the Allies that they won the entire campaign in much less time than Guadlacanal and at much less cost.--Buckboard 06:13, 16 April 2006 (UTC)