For the present, however, there was to be no relief for men starting their third month on Guadalcanal. The Japanese would not abandon their plan to seize back Guadalcanal and gave painful evidence of their intentions near mid-October. General Hyakutake himself landed on Guadalcanal on 7 October to oversee the coming offensive. Elements of Major General Masao Maruyama’s _Sendai Division_, already a factor in the fighting near the Matanikau, landed with him. More men were coming. And the Japanese, taking advantage of the fact that Cactus flyers had no night attack capability, planned to ensure that no planes at all would rise from Guadalcanal to meet them.
[Illustration: _By October, malaria began to claim as many casualties as Japanese artillery, bombs, and naval gunfire. Shown here are the patients in the division hospital who are ministered to by physicians and corpsmen working under minimal conditions._]
On 11 October, U.S. Navy surface ships took a hand in stopping the “Tokyo Express,” the nickname that had been given to Admiral Tanaka’s almost nightly reinforcement forays. A covering force of five cruisers and five destroyers, located near Rennell Island and commanded by Rear Admiral Norman Scott, got word that many ships were approaching Guadalcanal. Scott’s mission was to protect an approaching reinforcement convoy and he steamed toward Cactus at flank speed eager to engage. He encountered more ships than he had expected, a bombardment group of three heavy cruisers and two destroyers, as well as six destroyers escorting two seaplane carrier transports. Scott maneuvered between Savo Island and Cape Esperance, Guadalcanal’s western tip, and ran head-on into the bombardment group.
Alerted by a scout plane from his flagship, _San Francisco_ (CA 38), spottings later confirmed by radar contacts on the _Helena_ (CL 50), the Americans opened fire before the Japanese, who had no radar, knew of their presence. One enemy destroyer sank immediately, two cruisers were badly damaged, one, the _Furutaka_, later foundered, and the remaining cruiser and destroyer turned away from the inferno of American fire. Scott’s own force was punished by enemy return fire which damaged two cruisers and two destroyers, one of which, the _Duncan_ (DD 485), sank the following day. On the 12th too, Cactus flyers spotted two of the reinforcement destroyer escorts retiring and sank them both. The Battle of Cape Esperance could be counted an American naval victory, one sorely needed at the time.