August 7, 1942 – February 9, 1943
Japanese soldier throwing a Type 91 grenade, Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands
The surprise of the Doolittle Raid and the victory at Midway raised the morale among the Allied forces fighting in the Pacific.
But Japan was still winning the war.
Island after island, the Japanese steamrolled through the South Pacific. Soon Japan would control enough territory to dominate the entire region.
The only way to fight back, the American military decided, was to choose which islands had to be kept or reclaimed, and which islands could be occupied by the Japanese.
Guadalcanal was one of the most crucial islands.
Located among the chain of Solomon Islands, about 2,000 miles north of Australia, Guadalcanal is ninety miles long and twenty-five miles wide. Although covered by tropical jungles, it’s big enough for an airfield.
In 1942, Japanese troops were already on the neighboring island of Tulaghi (pronounced “too-log-ee”). If the Japanese also took Guadalcanal, they could easily cut off a sea route that linked Australia to the United States. Then the Japanese Air Force could launch strikes on the West—just as Midway Island would allow America to attack Japan. And finally Guadalcanal would give Japan more of a defensive buffer zone around its mainland.
In early 1942, Admiral Ernest King presented a plan to block Japan from building land and air bases in the Solomon Islands. But the navy turned down King’s plan because of costs and manpower shortages. The war in Europe was taking first priority.
But that changed in July, when America learned that Japan already sent a 3000-man construction battalion to Guadalcanal.
Now America would need to take Guadalcanal.
And to do that, it needed the toughest men, trained to fight on both land and sea, men who would not back down no matter what the enemy threw at them: the marines.
The marines on Guadalcanal were so tough that later the Japanese called them “gangsters” and “thugs.”
Marines landing on Guadalcanal
THE PLAN
Admiral King’s plan to take Guadalcanal seemed straightforward. The 1st and 5th Marine Divisions would sail for the island, secure a beachhead, and then assist other American landing forces.
Reality was more complicated.
The marines sent to the island were young. Many of them were barely out of high school. Enlisting right after the attack on Pearl Harbor, they had almost no combat experience. The navy assured their commander, Major-General Alexander Vandergrift, that these boys would get trained once they reached the Pacific. Unfortunately, more than half of the divisions arrived only weeks before the landing.
It was trial by fire.
And there were other problems. The naval force bringing the marines had little experience with amphibious—land and sea—missions. Also, they lacked field supplies such as accurate maps, tidal charts, and information about the underwater hazards near the beaches. To get that information the marines read old National Geographic magazines and dug up German nautical charts from World War I.
On August 7, 1942, ten thousand marines reached Guadalcanal, supported by the most powerful amphibious force ever assembled at that time: three carriers, one battleship, five cruisers, and twenty-four support ships. Why so much support? Because everyone expected the Japanese to fight hard against this landing.
But oddly, when the marines headed for the beaches, there was almost no opposition.
It would be the last time anything was easy on Guadalcanal.
Japanese officials in Tokyo heard about the American landing and dispatched a naval force. Two days later at nearby Savo Island, Japan struck the American task force so fiercely that America yanked every one of its ship from the area. Only seven months after Pearl Harbor, America couldn’t afford to lose any more ships or troops.
The Japanese navy scooped up almost all of the marine’s supplies, stealing almost everything the marines needed to survive on Guadalcanal: food, fresh water, ammunition, barbed wire, and anti-personnel mines.
And now that Japan was controlling the water around island, the marines were surrounded.
Despite the dire circumstances, the marines pushed across the island to the Japanese-built airfield. Then they drove out the enemy forces.
Japan then bombed the runway.
The marines repaired it—using equipment the Japanese left behind.
Then, in late August, nineteen Wildcat fighters and twelve Dauntless Dive Bombers managed to land at the newly-named Henderson Field (named for Lofton Henderson, a Marine pilot killed during the Battle of Midway).
But conditions were extremely dire. The tropical jungles and heat bred mosquitoes that carried malaria. Never every Marine on Guadalcanal suffered from the disease's symptoms: fevers, chills, headaches, and vomiting. Guadalcanal’s other dangers included enormous poisonous spiders hiding everywhere, crabs that crawled up the sand from the sea and bit people, and deadly crocodiles that slithered through the water, eager to devour any living creature.
A U.S. Marine patrol crosses the Matanikau River on Guadalcanal, September, 1942
And then came the heavy tropical rains. The marines were often forced to sleep in foxholes full of water. Constant dampness rotted away their boots. And since there were no supplies to replace their boots, men fought barefoot.
Soon, the food shortages became so chronic that men ate anything even remotely edible, including leaves and bugs. When some marines captured a Japanese encampment, they celebrated because it included barrels of fish heads and rice. But the starving marines suddenly realized the food was moving. It was full of worms! They ate it anyway, choosing illness over starvation.
But though they young and inexperienced, the marines continued to fight their way across Guadalcanal, learning about Japanese tactics the hard way. At one point, some island natives approached the Americans, telling them that some Japanese troops were ready to surrender. Twenty-five marines took boats to where the Japanese soldiers stood waving a white flag. Only three Marines returned. The “surrender” was an ambush. One of the captured marines was even used for Japanese bayonet practice—stabbed while still alive.
The marines kept up constant patrols across the island. And when the enemy attacked, it usually ended up in hand-to-hand combat. The marines used everything to stay alive, from knives to shovels to guns.
Later, General Vandergrift would say, “There were a hundred reasons why this operation should fail.”
Sick, barefoot, starving, and exhausted, the Guadalcanal marines fought at least a dozen significant battles over the course of six months. To describe them all here would take a very long time. But below are some of the most important battles for this island.
Marine on Guadalcanal
Aug 9, 1942 Naval Battle of Savo Island.
The Japanese navy forced the American navy to retreat, leaving the marines alone on Guadalcanal short of supplies and ammunition.
Aug 21st Naval Battle of Tenaru
During the night, Japanese Colonel Kiyanao Ichiki and 800 of his men attacked a perimeter held by America's 2nd Battalion. The Japanese hoped to destroy the Henderson Field airstrip.
They first killed an American gunner with a bullet to the head, then wounded the gun commander. Shredding the water jacket of a machine gun, they lobbed a grenade into the machine gun pit.
That explosion blinded marine Al Schmid. However, Schmid kept firing. Because Schmid couldn’t see, the wounded gun commander tapped Schmid’s arm to tell him where to aim. By the next morning, those two marines were still alive but more than 200 Japanese soldiers lay dead in front of them. Schmid was later awarded the Navy Cross, along with the gun commander and the dead gunner.
Sept 12-14th Battle of the Ridge
When the Americans took Henderson Airfield, they formed a defensive perimeter. But one side was bordered by the Pacific Ocean, and Commander Vandergrift figured the Japanese would attack from there. Sure enough, on September 12th, Japanese bombers struck the airfield from the ocean. Later that night, Japanese destroyers and a cruiser shelled the same area, and then the Japanese infantry attacked from land.
But those Japanese infantry troops were exhausted from marching through Guadalcanal's thick jungle. And the tropical humidity ruined their communications equipment, so the assault failed.
The following day, the Japanese renewed their attack. Two thousand soldiers struck the American lines. They were confronted by marine machine guns and artillery fire. By the next night, this battle had killed or wounded many men from both sides: 448 marines and paramarines (Marine paratroopers), along with 1,200 Japanese soldiers.
Officials in Tokyo realized these Americans were not going to stop fighting for Guadalcanal, so they sent more resources to the island, including another 20,000 Japanese troops.
But the marines also received reinforcements, boosting their numbers to about 23,000. However, one-third of these men were unable to fight because of various sicknesses and diseases, including dysentery, a painful intestinal infection caused by the water-borne bacteria and parasites. Since the Japanese troops had been fighting in this area, they were not as weakened by the same sicknesses.
Oct 13-14th Henderson Field is shelled again.
Two Japanese battleships fire more than 700 fourteen-inch shells. Each shell contains 600 steel cylinders filled with magnesium and barium nitrate. When detonated, these incendiaries burn at 3000 degrees. The shelling continued all night against the Americans. But the marines don’t surrender.
Oct 22-25th Japanese counteroffensive
Around 5,000 Japanese soldiers attacked the American positions around Henderson airfield, with another 7,000 soldiers concentrated to the south. Several Japanese troops managed to breach the defensive perimeter. The marines drove them back. The Japanese lost 3,500 men in that attack.
Oct 26-27th Naval Battle of Santa Cruz Island
As these battles continued, and the marines refused to back down, the Japanese forces fell into disarray. Vandergrift decided it was time to fight offensively, instead of defensively guarding American positions. But the marines who landed on Guadalcanal in August were ravaged from months of jungle fighting, and in November, the 1st Marine Division was replaced by the 25th Infantry Division and the 2nd Marine Division.
Japanese officials in Tokyo also sent more troops to Guadalcanal.
Nov 12-15th Naval Battle of Guadalcanal
Eleven Japanese transport ships arrived with reinforcements. American pilots sank six ships, damaged another, and forced four ships to be beached. Only 2,000 Japanese troops reached the island, and most of them lost their equipment at sea.
Dec 17th General Patch's offensives
The marine offensive is so powerful it convinces the Emperor of Japan to withdraw forces. By February, 1943, all the enemy forces had departed.
Japan had lost the Battle of Guadalcanal.
This American victory didn’t just boost morale among the troops and people back home. Now America controlled an important airfield complex in the South Pacific, and a valuable anchorage from which it could secure sea routes to Australia, protecting the Aussies from a Japanese invasion.
But the victory cost many lives on both sides.
Some 14,000 Japanese troops were killed at Guadalcanal, another 9000 died of diseases. Japan also lost 26 naval ships, 600 airplanes, and six submarines.
About 1600 American soldiers were killed in action at Guadalcanal. Thousands more died of tropical diseases. Another 4300 were wounded. America also lost eight cruisers, two heavy carriers, and 14 destroyers.
In fact, so many ships were lost on both sides that a channel north of Guadalcanal was nicknamed “Iron Bottom Sound.”
WHO FOUGHT?
John Basilone, wearing his Medal of Honor
The marines and paramarines who fought at Guadalcanal were among the finest soldiers America has ever had, including Marine Sgt. John Basilone.
When Japanese grenades and mortar fire reduced his fifteen-man unit to two, Basilone moved an extra gun into position, manning it himself while he repaired the gun damaged by enemy fire. Almost single-handedly, Basilone held the line until replacements arrived. Then, when the Japanese cut off supply lines and ammunition was running low, Basilone fought his way—once again under continual fire—through enemy lines to bring shells to his gunners.
When the smoke cleared, Basilone’s platoon had stopped an entire Japanese regiment. More than 300 enemy soldiers lay dead.
Basilone was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. Later, he would also receive the Navy Cross, the only enlisted Marine to receive both medals in World War II.
FIND OUT MORE
BOOKS
Guadalcanal Diary by Richard Tregaskis
Fight to the Death by Larry Hama
The Battle of Guadalcanal: Land and Sea Warfare in the South Pacific by Larry Hama and Anthony Williams
Hero of the Pacific by James Brady. Esteemed author’s biography of Marine John Basilone.
I’m Staying With My Boys: The Heroic Life of Sgt. John Basilone USMC by Jim Proser, Jerry Cutter. Family-authorized biography.
The Ghosts of Iron Bottom Sound by Sandy Nelson. A New Zealand schoolboy becomes obsessed with the wrecks of warships sunk in the battles at Guadalcanal.
INTERNET
Probably the finest collection of online information about Guadalcanal comes from the National WWII Museum. The site offers some interesting activities online, from making your own WWII-era armed services patch to teaching you how to send messages with navy flags.
You can read about each Medal of Honor soldier from Guadalcanal here.
MOVIES
Guadalcanal Diary
The Galant Hours
Pride of the Marines (the story of Al Schmidt)