In 1942, the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal took place on Friday, October 13th. Two American Admirals (Scott and Callahan) were killed on that night.
Halsey was a very superstitious man, as was the navy in general. Ships, as a rule, would not set sail on Friday the 13th, and would often wait until after midnight to set sail.
That early morning of Friday, 10/13/1942, Callaghan’s force comprised two heavy cruisers, three light cruisers, and eight destroyers, going up against a heavier Japanese force containing battleships.
From Wikipedia: “Around 01:30 on 13 November, Callaghan’s force intercepted Abe’s bombardment group between Guadalcanal and Savo Island. In addition to the two battleships, Abe’s force included one light cruiser and 11 destroyers. In the pitch darkness,the two warship forces intermingled before opening fire at unusually close quarters. In the resulting mêlée, Abe’s warships sank or severely damaged all but one cruiser and one destroyer in Callaghan’s force and both Callaghan and Scott were killed.”
There were so many plays on the number 13, the Captain of one of the ships graduated from the Naval Academy in 1913, the hull number of a ship added up to 13 and so on.
Ships were so close they were firing point blank into each other, it turned out to be a great equalizer of the lighter US ships because at that range (less than 400 yards in many cases) even a battlship’s heavier armor was no good against the six or eight inch shells.
It was a night battle, and they said when they fired the guns, they could see the impact on the enemy ships nearly instantaneously. It sounded like an old time battle between two sailing ships of the line with their cannons.
Scott survived being on a hip sunk by a German submarine in World War I.