Death of IJN Battleship Kirishima: Second Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, 1942 - Animated

After the fierce fighting in the First Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, where the Japanese lost their first battleship, Hiei, both sides took heavy casualties but neither could claim full control. No side was decisively defeated, leading to the Second Naval Battle of Guadalcanal. The American battleships USS Washington and USS South Dakota faced off against the Japanese battleship Kirishima and a large fleet of heavy and light cruisers, and destroyers...

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0:00 Introduction

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Written by House of History

🎵 Music courtesy of Epidemic Sound

🖼 Photos, paintings and imagery: Public Domain, Wikicommons
🧾Machinima: Total War, Creative Assembly

#HouseofHistory #History

[redcamaro]

The Rear Admiral Willis Lee won 7 medals at the 1920 Olympics. That's wild.

[georgepatton]

everyone is gangster until they heard "stand aside, I'm coming through, this is Ching Lee"

[alexanderleach]

'Step aside. I'm coming through.'
Immortal words of Adm. Lee.

[jollyjohnthepirate]

They found the wreck of Kirashima. She took some 16 to 17 hits from Washington's main 16 inch guns. Many of the hits were underwater on Kirashima. The 16 inch shells hit the water and continued on to penatrate the ships hull. Since the Kongo class were originally designed as World War 1 battle cruisers they had absolutely no protection from this kind of damage.

[sirql]

Pop was a gunner's mate on the Washington here. In the chaos, Lee refrained from firing until he had certain ID of Kirishima. During this interval, Dakota had silhouetted itself against the flaming Walker, singlehandedly drawing Japan's fire. Now certain the radar blip was indeed Kirishima, the veiled Washington now blasted her and then retired presenting only the stern to the enemy. At flank speed, a long-lance detonated in Washington's wake. Angry at Washington crew for waiting too long to engage, S. Dakota crew instigated a shore leave brawl on Espiritu Santo 2 days later.

[MaxwellAerialPhotography]

USS Washington, did you mean: Ching Lee's personal sniper rifle?

[anselmdanker]

Thank you for covering the battle ship action of Guadalcanal 😊

[Backwardlooking]

My father was transferred from the Royal Navy to the South Dakota when she and her sister ship the Alabama served with our Home Fleet. The American crew told him of the Guadalcanal battle. I still have his souvenirs from the ship.

[asianbandit]

Vice Admiral Ching Kirishima I Don't See Her Lee Jr, the Man with nine 16" Sniper Rifles, 7 Olympic medals in shooting and a veteran of two World Wars. The man behind American Levels of anti-air defence on all ships in the US Navy. The victor of the last big-gun capital ship to ever sink another in battle. And apparently had too poor eye sight to serve. Dude earnt a Navy Cross. Enough said.

[Titus-as-the-Roman]

Originally what observers thought were the first short salvo misses to Kirishima from Washington, A UAV recently found the Kirishima and everyone of those near misses had submarined and put a Hull hole into the ship. This stuff is All Good.

[rickbrandon]

Another great production! Keep doing what you’re doing!

[richardkeilig]

It was a terrible battle. RIP to all the sailors. Pray for peace.

[danielsantiagourtado]

Been loving these naval videos! Keep up the good work 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉

[JohntheLNERP]

I'd like to see you cover the destruction of Gneisenau mate

[Edwards]

Always a great watch on my Saturday afternoon👍

[Stormoak]

Very good representation of the Battle i never realized how close the Ships were by Standards of the time

[SRR-]

The whole timeline here is off by an hour, its the incorrect version thats often reported due to many books repeating it, but if you read South Dakota's after action report and Washington's deck log you'll see the fighting didn't start till after midnight. I believe this is due to most accounts being added on Samuel E. Morrison's book, he visited USS Washington shortly after the battle to learn about it but the crew and especially Admiral Lee were not fond of him and didn't really like talking to him about it so I wonder if they gave him bad information on purpose, or perhaps it's just based on a random sailor's recollection instead of the official deck logs. Morrison's book was published in 1949 and because he is a well regarded naval historian I think people generally took him at his word. It's curious that Ivan Musicant's book Battleship at War uses Morrison's timeline given that Musicant knew many of the surviving crew members and was named an honorary member of the crew, I suppose it's possible that many crew members had read Morrison's book and assumed he was correct as the average sailor probably wasn't keeping minute by minute account of the battle. Ray Hunter's deck logs definitely disagrees with Morrison though, as does Hank Seely, the Spot 1 officer who has written a full detailed account of the battle in the book "USS Washington BB56". South Dakota's deck logs and gunnery summary also support the later timeline, that's why I believe this.

[Traderspirit]

My family has roots in the US navy, my great-grandfather served on the USS Little Rock, my grandfather served on the USS Oklahoma City during the Korean War, and one of my uncles served on the USS Asheville, a nuclear submarine

[gregbellinger]

Excellent animation and voice commentary. Thanks, GB

[sillyone]

USS South Dakota was probably the most severely damaged American battleship outside of Pearl Harbor. Her repair process was quite brief, proving that BB's could take a licking and keep on ticking.