Sunday 14th October

58 days to go.

I got up at 0600 to watch the Rugby World Cup semi final, between France and England. I was not confident of an England win, France had beaten England in their last 2 games. Then with a bad call against Jonny Wilkinson for reaching in, when in fact the French had knocked on, I thought the end had come. Added to this was the kick that rebounded from the post. Never mind they gained position and 2 kicks from Jonny sealed an unlikely win and England go back to back in WC Finals. I think this week was the last.

Stats Guru Tweety and I drove as far as we could on the road to the west and back, took 3 hours. It was about 120km there and back.

Naval Battle 6 was the “Battle of Tassafaronga”. It took place on the 30th November 1942 and lasted about 35 minutes. US ships made up of 4 Heavy Cruisers, 1 Light Cruisers and 6 Destroyers fought a Japanese force of 8 Destroyers. All 4 of the US Heavy Cruisers were damaged, one sank on the 1st of December. None of the other US vessels were hit. The Japanese lost 1 Destroyer, none of the others received serious damage.

This was a major defeat for the US Navy.

This Battle was fought half way between the Cape and from where the photo (below) was taken