Episode 27: Sabers in the Sun

With the fleet withdrawing and the marines isolated in the vicinity of Henderson field, the immediate morale victory went to the Japanese. Through their domestic and English language propaganda channels they boasted of sinking the american destroyers at the battle of Savo island and of the abandoned marines now stranded on Guadalcanal. It didn’t help matters stateside when the Navy was caught flat-footed by reporters when asked what had happened. With no real official word from the Navy the story ran as the Japanese had described it in american newspapers.