Click to view track charts of the battle from Fletcher’s perspective, which have been prepared using the following data:  • 2308 radar contact, 285° T, 14,000 yards.  • 2310 change course.  • 2315 change course.  • 2316 request permission to fire torpedoes.  • 2320 receive permission to fire torpedoes.  • 2322 fire torpedoes.  • 2323 all ships open gunfire.  • 2325 cease fire.  • 2327 change course.

The Battle of Tassafaronga, fought off Guadalcanal 30 November 1942, was perhaps Fletcher’s finest hour. In it, an American task force of six destroyers and five cruisers succeeded in surprising eight Japanese destroyers and in executing its planned approach, with Fletcher leading van destroyers Perkins, Maury and Drayton into an ideal position for a radar-informed torpedo attack.
   Stunningly, RAdm. Carleton H. Wright, the task force commander, had delayed granting Fletcher’s Comdr. William M. Cole permission to open fire; then, when the battle thereafter went badly wrong, he took Cole as scapegoat and had him relieved of command on 11 December.
   Not until half a century later did Capt. Russell S. Crenshaw, Jr., in his book The Battle of Tassafaronga, identify the real causes of failure at Tassafaronga and pointedly vindicate Comdr. Cole.

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