Talk:Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands

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[edit] Casualties

US casualties in the info box lists 1 carrier twice. So were 2 carriers sunk or just 1? - RoyBoy 800 18:24, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

1 carrier sunk, 1 carrier heavily damaged. Cla68 20:11, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Removal of uncited passage in Aftermath section

I removed the following passage from the Aftermath section, not because it wasn't a valid point, which it was, but because it was uncited (except for the date in the first sentence):

“ The Japanese fleet had been sailing since October 11 [1], and had already engaged US ships, sinking Meredith and harassing convoys bound for Guadalcanal; since then it had been hovering to the Northeast of the island. Hadn´t US carriers been sent to attack the Japanese ships, the most likely result was that upon noticing the failure of the land offensive at Henderson Field, Japanese carriers would have retreated to their base at Truk. It must be noted that this is what happened in September, when Japanese carriers retreated upon knowing of their land defeat at the Battle of Edson's Ridge, even though they had not engaged US forces in the area, which were in a particularly weak state after the loss of Wasp and damage of Saratoga by submarines. Although the IJN suffered serious losses (see below), the loss of ships and aircraft of the US Navy can hardly justify this small strategic success. Had Japanese carriers been available for the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, it is unlikely that they could have changed the outcome of the battle, since surface actions were at night and the convoy could not be protected constantly from air attacks. Hence, the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands can be seen as an atrittion clash that didn´t change the essential keys of the Guadalcanal campaign, apart from further reducing the carrier strength of both sides. ”

Please cite a reference that supports the assertions in this paragraph, and then I'll help rewrite it into smoother English for inclusion in the article. Cla68 23:12, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Time of the 1st Val impact

Hi! I'm now writing an article about USS Hornet on czech Wikipedia [1] and I've found a few discrepancies… (I'll pass over discrepancy between description in Hammel's Carrier Strike (or it's citations) on one side and Hubáček's Vítězství v Pacifiku and ENEMY ATTACKS ON THE HORNET GROUP on the other… And I'll fixate just about the first suicide Val attack)

The description of USS_Hornet_(CV-8)_during_battle_of_the_Santa_Cruz_Islands.jpg picture in this article says that it was at 9:13. But the time mentioned in the text is 9:14 with citation of Frank's Guadalcanal p. 386 and Hammel's Carrier Strike p. 262–267. Which variant is correct or what timestamp is exactly used in this cited books? (I don't have them so I can't check it personaly Y_Y).

Thanks for help and bye…--Sceadugenga (talk) 11:22, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Frank, 385–386:
"... the second Val detachment burst through to lead the throng of nearly twenty dive-bombers into wailing dives at 0910.
... At 0912 a bomb punctured the flight deck ... A few moments later, two more bombs with crisscrossing trajectories pierced the flight deck ... About 0914 a Val dove vertically into the ship ..." (emphasis added)
The article's image captions say "A damaged Japanese Val dive bomber (upper left) purposely dives towards Hornet at 09:13... ...and seconds later crashes into the carrier."
Even if the times are exact, the plane could have been diving at 0913 and not crashed until 0914. But it sounds like the sailors were pretty busy, and may not have been perfectly meticulous in their recording of events.
I'm a little uncomfortable with the characterization of the attack: "The Val's pilot, in an apparently spontaneous, kamikaze-style attack, then purposely crashed his aircraft into Hornet’s stack,"
It seems to me the essence of a kamikaze is that it's planned as a suicide, not spontaneous. A damaged dive bomber is going to crash somewhere, so it's not that surprising that the pilot would try to do the most good with the last moment of his life.
—WWoods (talk) 16:12, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
The sources mentioned the similarity between this pilot's decision in this case to crash his aircraft into the ship instead of trying to recover and escape with later, willful, kamikaze attacks, which is why I described it that way. But, I don't have any problem with taking that description off of the page. I think it's also ok to change the image caption so that it won't look like there is a contradiction in the times, which I will do right now. Cla68 (talk) 23:03, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks ^_^ --Sceadugenga (talk) 07:18, 9 April 2008 (UTC)