During the later part of the Guadalcanal campaign in fall 1942, Japan and the U.S. were both forced to commit their battleships to surface combat, due to the need to carry out night operations, and because of the exhaustion of their carrier forces. The Japanese used battleships a single time for shore bombardment, sending and against Henderson Field. In the most successful Japanese battleship action of the war, this action killed 41 defenders and put the airfield out of action for about 12 hours. During the First Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, battleships and attempted a second bombardment of Henderson Field but were driven off by a force of U.S. cruisers and destroyers. Several USN ships were lost and others were crippled, but they inflicted critical damage on "Hiei", which was abandoned after being subject to repeated air attacks that made salvage impossible. The following evening, at the Second Naval Battle of Guadalcanal on 15 November 1942, the United States battleships and fought and defeated a bombardment force centered around "Kirishima". Although "South Dakota" was incapacitated early on by a faulty circuit breaker and suffered moderate damage, "Washington's" accurate radar-directed fire fatally crippled "Kirishima".