Category
Textual or Investigative
Description
The development of cruisers and their accompanying doctrine played a critical role in the hotly contested night engagements during the Guadalcanal Campaign of the Second World War. Upon entering the war, the US Navy’s doctrine focused on long range, open seas, decisive battles centered on a battleship battleline with cruisers serving as scouts or fleet screens/escorts. However, this research will focus on the Guadalcanal campaign, which saw close range, nighttime, defensive battles fought by vessels not designed for the task and men untrained for that type of combat. While the historiography surrounding the Guadalcanal campaign is vast, there are practically no works that discuss pre-war training and doctrinal developments that directly influenced how the campaign was fought. One author, Trent Hone, does discuss the influence of these pre-war thought processes as they related to the use of cruisers, but he does so in brief and tentative article length works. Other works will focus on the evolutions of ship design or the development of a common naval doctrine but will not discuss how that doctrine played out in the Second World War.
Thus, the research will initially focus on the connection of secondary sources regarding pre-war developments to the actual campaign for Guadalcanal, specifically the nighttime cruiser engagements. After this foundational work, primary sources will be used to track how specific decisions influenced pre-war planning and the engagements around Guadalcanal. Unfortunately, the archive containing the most relevant primary sources regarding pre-war planning, located at the Naval War College in Newport, is currently closed for renovations until further notice. This opens the necessity for additional research at a future date as this project will be inherently incomplete. The work itself holds intrinsic value in the way it connects long term planning to that plans execution in unforeseen circumstances.
The Influence of Pre-War Cruiser Design and Doctrine on the Guadalcanal Campaign of World War II
Textual or Investigative
The development of cruisers and their accompanying doctrine played a critical role in the hotly contested night engagements during the Guadalcanal Campaign of the Second World War. Upon entering the war, the US Navy’s doctrine focused on long range, open seas, decisive battles centered on a battleship battleline with cruisers serving as scouts or fleet screens/escorts. However, this research will focus on the Guadalcanal campaign, which saw close range, nighttime, defensive battles fought by vessels not designed for the task and men untrained for that type of combat. While the historiography surrounding the Guadalcanal campaign is vast, there are practically no works that discuss pre-war training and doctrinal developments that directly influenced how the campaign was fought. One author, Trent Hone, does discuss the influence of these pre-war thought processes as they related to the use of cruisers, but he does so in brief and tentative article length works. Other works will focus on the evolutions of ship design or the development of a common naval doctrine but will not discuss how that doctrine played out in the Second World War.
Thus, the research will initially focus on the connection of secondary sources regarding pre-war developments to the actual campaign for Guadalcanal, specifically the nighttime cruiser engagements. After this foundational work, primary sources will be used to track how specific decisions influenced pre-war planning and the engagements around Guadalcanal. Unfortunately, the archive containing the most relevant primary sources regarding pre-war planning, located at the Naval War College in Newport, is currently closed for renovations until further notice. This opens the necessity for additional research at a future date as this project will be inherently incomplete. The work itself holds intrinsic value in the way it connects long term planning to that plans execution in unforeseen circumstances.
