Flying his flag in "Washington", Lee engaged an Imperial Japanese Navy surface fleet under the command of Vice Admiral Kondō during the second night of the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal on the night of 14–15 November 1942. While riding in the battleship "Washington", which served as his flagship during this sea-fight, Lee's battleship decisively gunned the battleship "Kirishima" into a wreck, resulting in her scuttling shortly afterwards. With 300 Imperial sailors still entombed within her hull, she slid into Ironbottom Sound, leaving Admiral Lee's flagship "Washington" the only American battleship during World War II to sink an enemy battleship in a "one on one" gunfight.