 Yamamoto detailed aircraft carriers Junyō and Zuiho , battleships Kongō and Haruna — with four heavy cruisers and a destroyer as the screening force — under Nobutake Kondō to provide distant cover for Ke around Ontong Java in the northern Solomons . The evacuation runs were to be carried out by Mikawa 's 8th Fleet , consisting of heavy cruisers Chōkai and Kumano , light cruiser Sendai , and 21 destroyers . Mikawa 's destroyers were charged with conducting the actual evacuation . Yamamoto expected that at least half of Mikawa 's destroyers would be sunk during the operation . 
