Cassin Young
Unable to fire her main or secondary batteries at the three destroyers causing her so much trouble, "Hiei" instead concentrated on "San Francisco", which was passing by only away. Along with "Kirishima", "Inazuma", and "Ikazuchi", the four ships made repeated hits on "San Francisco", disabling her steering control and killing Callaghan, Captain Cassin Young, and most of the bridge staff. The first few salvos from "Hiei" and "Kirishima" consisted of the special fragmentation bombardment shells, which caused less damage to the interior of "San Francisco" than armor-piercing shells would have done; this may have saved her from being sunk outright. Not expecting a ship-to-ship confrontation, it took the crews of the two Japanese battleships several minutes to switch to armor-piercing ammunition, and "San Francisco", almost helpless to defend herself, managed to momentarily sail clear of the melee. She had landed at least one shell in "Hiei"s steering gear room during the exchange, flooding it with water, shorting out her power steering generators, and severely inhibiting "Hiei"s steering capability. "Helena" followed "San Francisco" to try to protect her from further harm.