Episode Details

• The fight the night before, 13-14 November had beaten both naval forces down.  
• US forces had been beaten to a bloody pulp, as had the Japanese.  Yet despite the beating, the Japanese still held a significant numerical advantage.
• As Jon said last episode, the Japanese still held 3-4 BBs in reserve and had yet to commit them to the fight around Guadalcanal, for who knows what reasons.
• The US on the other hand, quite literally were scraping the bottom of the barrel.  That’s not to say that the battleships sent to IBS were scows, not at all, but Halsey was hesitant to commit his battleships to the close waters off Savo, but honest to God had no choice at this time BUT to commit them.
• Let’s talk about Halsey’s decision to send the battleships to IBS.
• BB56 was designed to be a long range sniper, not a close range brawler.  
• She was designed in the 1930’s with limitations on armor and gunnery.
• The USN decided in the 1930’s to throw out their previous slow battleship designs, heavy on armor, heavy on firepower and low on speed, for more modern designs that emphasized gunnery, speed and cruising range.
• The culmination of this decision was the North Carolina class battleship, of which BB56 was the last of two.  She was fast by BB standards, capable of bending on upwards of 28-30 knots with a breeze behind her, but did not have the armor to withstand hits from weapons of her own size, that being 16 inch rifles.
• Washington’s companion, the USS South Dakota BB57, carried the same rifles, but carried more armor, had a smidgen less speed, but had negligible torpedo protection in order to pack on more armor to withstand the hits from 16 inch rifles like she packed herself.
• All that being said, the decision to send his 2 BBs, literally all he had left, to deal with another heavy Japanese surface force in the claustrophobic, torpedo infested waters of IBS was incredibly ballsy…but did he really have a choice?

Ching

• The man who was in command of the battleships was quite honestly the perfect choice to be in that slot.  
• Naval Academy Class of 1908, his fondness of asian culture and desire to serve in the asiatic theater earned him the nickname “Ching”.
• Ching was an avid shooter.  He absolutely loved firearms of all sorts, even building a few of his own from scratch.  
• He joined and shot on the Naval Academy rifle team multiple times, eventually competing in the 1920 Summer Olympics.
• In those games, Lee earned 5 (!) gold medals, 1 silver and 1 bronze in team events, consistently shooting in the top three in every event.  His record of 7 medals for the olympics would not be topped until 1980.  
• The majority of his early service was in BBs, Cruisers, including command of USS Concord, and a destroyer division command.   In 1942 he was promoted to rear admiral.
• In the interwar years, Lee served on many Bureau of Ordnance boards, practicing naval gunnery, experimenting with powder calculations, windage, fire control systems theory and practical usage of heavy naval rifles.  To say that he was an expert marksman and an expert regarding naval gunnery would be an understatement.  In 1942, Lee was considered the US Navy’s foremost expert on anything regarding gunnery and accuracy. 
• A fanatic for anything that aided in gunnery, Lee was a quick advocate and an even quicker study on the new radar sets entering USN service in the late 30’s early 40’s. 
• He advocated that the Navy should start a new school for the instruction of radar and also was a very vocal advocate for the new technology’s installation aboard BBs, CA, and CLs.
• His subordinates absolutely adored him, and in a statement you will probably never hear again, so did Admiral King.  Admiral Nimitz, upon sending him to Guadalcanal stated, “Now we’ll see what a real fighter can do.”
• Initially ta