In the climactic phase of the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, American cruisers and battleships intercepted a Japanese force attempting to bombard U.S. Marine positions and land reinforcements on the island. The USS Washington and USS South Dakota engaged the Japanese battleship Kirishima at close range, ultimately sinking it and forcing Japan to abandon its resupply effort, a turning point in the Pacific campaign.
By November 1942, the fight for Guadalcanal had ground into a brutal war of attrition on land, sea, and air. Japan desperately needed to land 7,000 reinforcement troops and resupply its starving garrison, while the U.S. Navy was determined to stop them and protect the Marines clinging to Henderson Field.
On the night of November 14-15, American Rear Admiral Willis Lee positioned the battleships USS Washington and USS South Dakota to intercept a Japanese bombardment force built around the battleship Kirishima. In a chaotic, close-range night battle illuminated by searchlights and gunfire, South Dakota suffered serious damage after a power failure blinded her systems, but Washington's radar-directed guns found their mark.
Washington pounded Kirishima with dozens of hits in a matter of minutes, setting her ablaze and jamming her rudder. The great battleship, one of the pride of the Imperial Japanese Navy, sank the following morning after her crew scuttled her. The battle marked the last major surface action of the Guadalcanal campaign and confirmed that Japan could no longer contest American naval power in the southern Solomons, hastening its eventual withdrawal from the island.