The fight that was taking shape in the southern Solomons was going to be neither a single, climactic World War I–style daylight slugfest nor a repeat of Midway, a dance of search planes and long-range naval air strikes. The South Pacific Forces would draw strength from a foundation of supply and reinforcement built far south of the point of contact with the enemy. And the point of the spear that dueled with the enemy would be the surface fleet—destroyers, cruisers, and battleships, aided by aircraft, whose job would be to seize control of the seaways from the enemy. Neither the Navy nor the
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