- Guadalcanal Ww2
- Guadalcanal Island
- Guadalcanal Battle Photos
- Guadalcanal Map
- Guadalcanal Solomon Islands
Guadalcanal is one of the Solomon Islands. The island was the scene of fierce fighting during the Second World War; see Pacific War. Honiara is the capital of the Solomon Islands. Guadalcanal definition, the largest of the Solomon Islands, in the W central Pacific: U.S. Victory over the Japanese 1942–43.
On August 7, 1942 mostly American allied forces landed on the Island of Guadalcanal and soon after on Tulagi and Florida. The first objective of what would become the Battle of Guadalcanal was to prevent the Japanese from interrupting the communication and supply transport between the U.S., Australia and New Zealand, with the secondary objective being the capture of a major Japanese military base at Rabul, New Britain. The Battle of Guadalcanal Campaign would result in a significant strategic, combined arms victories by the Allied Forces over the Japanese in the Pacific Theater of World War 2. This campaign would also mark the change of Allied Operations from defense to offense during this phase of the war. The Battle of Guadalcanal Campaign would last from August 7th, 1942 to February 9th, 1943. The Naval Battle of Guadalcanal would primarily take place between November 12th and 15th of 1942.
Contents
Battle of Guadalcanal Commanders
The Guadalcanal Campaign was fought between August 7, 1942, and February 9, 1943, in the Pacific theatre of World War II.This campaign, which was a decisive and strategically important campaign of World War II, was fought on the ground, at sea, and in the air between Allied forces against Imperial Japanese forces. The multiphase Naval Battle of Guadalcanal consisted of a series of destructive air and sea engagements closely related to a Japanese effort to reinforce land forces on the island. In early November, the Japanese organized another Guadalcanal convoy, embarking 7,000 troops and their equipment in another attempt to retake Henderson Field. In conjunction with their troop landings, Japanese naval.
Allied Powers (United States)
Robert L. Ghormley
William Halsey, Jr.
Richmond K. Turner
Alexander A. Vandegrift
Alexander Patch
Empire of Japan
Isoroku Yamamoto
Nishizo Tsukahara
Jinichi Kusaka
Hitoshi Imamura
Harukichi Hyakutake
Guadalcanal Ww2
Guadalcanal Order of Battle
Guadalcanal Island
Empire of Japan
36,200
2 battleships
6 heavy cruisers
4 light cruisers
16 destroyers
11 transports
Allied Powers (United States Marine Corps, United States Army)
60,000
1 carrier
2 battleships
2 heavy cruisers
3 light cruisers
12 destroyers
Specific Units serving in the battle
Guadalcanal Casualties
Allied Powers
7,100 dead
4 captured
29 ships lost
615 aircraft lost
Empire of Japan
31,000 dead
1,000 captured
38 ships lost
683–880 aircraft lost
Battle of Guadalcanal Map
Battle of Guadalcanal Video
Battle of Guadalcanal Summary
When the Allied forces landed on Guadalcanal and the other islands they quickly overwhelmed the Japanese forces and captured the islands of Tulagi and Florida together with an airport that the Japanese had under construction. The landing was supported by considerable U.S. naval forces.
Taken by surprise by this offensive the Japanese tried to retake the airport that was now renamed to Henderson Field. The islands in question here had no value by themselves, but they were strategically important for both sides of the conflict. If the Americans could gain control of them they would be able to protect the transport between Australia and the U.S. and it would give them a place from where they could launch an attack on the Japanese forces in the Pacific. In Japan not everyone agreed on the strategic value of these small islands. Many senior officials thought it would be best to get their army, which was already stretched too thin to defend what they already had. It was decided that backing down would only be seen a sign of weakness. After that the Japanese launched an attack on the Solomon islands with the goal of establishing an army and naval base there and by May 1942 the Japanese landed at Guadalcanal.
US Admiral Ernest King wanted to launch a full-scale attack and his plan seemed to be simple enough. The 1st division of the US Marines would get to Guadalcanal and secure a beach there for the other US forces. The problem was that the 1st division had a lot of officers with no combat experience. When they finally arrived they didn’t get any chance to work with the naval force that would accompany them into action and to make matters worse they didn’t have reliable tie charts, maps and so on. Because of this the attack was postponed several times.
Finally on the 7th of August the American attack on Guadalcanal began. It was quite an impressive ensemble. It was the most powerful amphibious force ever, up to the battle of Guadalcanal. There were 3 carriers giving air support, with the support of 25 other ships for protection of the carriers.
To the Japanese the attack was a complete surprise. When the Marines arrived at Red Beach they were expecting to find major defenses
but there wasn’t anything of the sort. When the Americans started going inland towards the airfield under construction they discovered another huge problem. The hot and humid jungle, the Americans were carrying a lot of equipment and the climate quickly took it’s toll on them but in the first 24 hours of the landing there was no actual fitting between the Americans and the Japanese.
The marines that landed on the islands of Tulagi, Guvutu and Tanambogo but the Marines that landed north of Guadalcanal weren’t so lucky. Very quickly the Marines found strong Japanese resistance and it took them 24 hours to secure Tulagi. American paratroopers had similar experiences when they landed on Gavutu and they actually needed help from nearby naval ships to secure the island.
The Japanese sent more and more troops and even a ship but all of them were defeated at the hands of the Americans. When this news reached Tokyo they simply refused to believe that they could lose time after time so they sent more and more men to the battle of Guadalcanal. In November 1942 U.S. planes destroyed Japanese ships that were bringing reinforcements to Guadalcanal. Of the 11 transport ships that the Japanese sent to Guadalcanal six were destroyed and four were beached.
Battle of Guadalcanal Conclusions
Finally, in December 1942 the emperor ordered the Japanese troops to withdraw from Guadalcanal. The soldiers were being withdrawn from January to February of 1943 but there was another lesson to be learned, Japanese don’t become any softer when defeated. The American victory in the battle of Guadalcanal was important to the war effort, because it secured the safety of Australia from Japanese invasion. This would once again protect the sea route from America to Australia.
Battle of Guadalcanal References
The following references were used in writing this article and may prove helpful for those looking for additional information on the battle:
Miller, Jr., John (1949). “Chapter 7. Decision at Sea”. Guadalcanal: The First Offensive. United States Army in World War II: The War in the Pacific. United States Army Center of Military History. CMH Pub 5-3. Retrieved March 9th, 2013.
Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, Wikipedia. Retrieved March 9th, 2013
Tully, Anthony P. (1997). “Death of Battleship Hiei: Sunk by Gunfire or Air Attack?”. Retrieved March 9th, 2013. Article on the battle of Friday the 13th that gives additional details on the demise of Hiei.
For the infantryman, the campaign on Guadalcanal was synonymous with misery. The Americans who had the misfortune to serve on the island, particularly from August through October 1942, were denied the very basics of living as we know it. Those ashore faced a constant day-to-day battle of life and death. Death could wear many faces on Guadalcanal. A man could be weakened by tropical disease and malnutrition just as easily as being killed by enemy fire.
Following the Navy’s disastrous August defeat at Savo Island, the Marines’ supplies, or at least the vast majority of them, were pulled away from the island. The men ashore were left without sufficient medical provisions, and very little of their own food. Following their rapid capture of the airfield the day after landing, the Marines seized large stores of Japanese rice. Rice became the main item on the menu until early November for the Marines ashore.
If one asked any early veteran of the campaign about food, the veteran would almost certainly mention the lack of food and the constant daily rations of the maggot- and worm-infested rice issued to them by the 1st Marine Division’s cooks, who ate the same unappetizing two-tablespoon meal day after day. Combined with the hot, humid weather, the stress of combat, and the inadequate diet, the men ashore lost weight at an acute rate. The Marines ashore, children of the Great Depression, were already thin and soon became downright skinny. It was not uncommon for men on Guadalcanal to lose as much as 40 pounds due to malnutrition and tropical diseases.
Guadalcanal’s hot, humid weather and wet jungle terrain created a perfect breeding ground for disease. Clouds of malaria-carrying mosquitoes were a constant threat for any man ashore. The men were instructed to take an anti-malaria drug called Atabrine in order to ward off the disease. When taken regularly, Atabrine proved to be somewhat effective. However, rumors began to circulate among the men that taking Atabrine would make them sterile and render them sexually impotent. The rumors were untrue, of course, but that didn’t change the fact that many a Marine would spit out the little yellow pill once out of sight of the Navy corpsman who administered it. Malaria cases were rampant on Guadalcanal in the autumn of 1942, so much so that having malaria became a sort of badge of honor among those who served on the island. It is estimated that by the time the division was relieved in December 1942, over 8,000 men of the 1st Marine Division had malaria. Tropical diseases, of which malaria was one of many, disabled nearly two-thirds of the division. Wounds caused by enemy fire accounted for only one-third of disabled Marines on Guadalcanal.
Guadalcanal Battle Photos
Another unpleasant daily occurrence for the men ashore were Japanese bombardments. By night the Japanese would shell the Marine positions, specifically targeting Henderson Field. Japanese destroyers and cruisers would send shell after shell at the Marines, causing men to scramble for dugouts and shelters. Most enemy shellings lasted only a few minutes and were relatively ineffective—more of a nuisance to the Marines than anything else. That description, however, could not be used for the Japanese bombardment on the night of October 14, 1942. On that night, the Japanese battleships Harunaand Kongosailed up the slot and opened fire on Henderson Field with their 14-inch rifles. At 0133 hours, the battlewagons opened fire and for the next 83 minutes hurled 970 heavy naval shells at Henderson Field and the surrounding area. Two-ton shells as large as a Volkswagen Beetle smashed into the Marine positions, shaking everything from dental fillings to the emotions of the men themselves. The explosions sucked air from lungs and the concussion blew over trees and collapsed coconut log dugouts with ease. Men were buried alive in what they thought were safe shelters. While physical casualties were light as a result of the battleship shelling, mental casualties were high. Men emerged from their dugouts shaking violently, eyes wide, ears bleeding, unable to hear anything or see straight. Blast concussion rendered many men helpless and disoriented for hours and even days after an attack. Veterans of the Tenaru River and Bloody Ridge battles—who had stared death directly in the face—all recalled the night of October 14 to be the most frightening night of the entire campaign.
Guadalcanal was a campaign unlike any other in the Pacific. Most campaigns were usually violent but short. The entire operation to capture the Marianas in 1944 spanned a period of five months and comprised large-scale invasions of several enemy-occupied islands. The Guadalcanal campaign centered on one island and encompassed six months. Unlike later campaigns that saw steady if not constant combat, Guadalcanal was marked by long periods of utter boredom. Japanese attacks on the ground could take place weeks or even months apart. To keep the men in fighting shape (despite disease and lack of food) the Marines instituted working parties, which covered everything from clearing fields of fire and establishing new defensive positions to filling in the holes made by enemy shells and bombs on the airfield. Despite being off the line and theoretically away from enemy fire, men on working parties on Guadalcanal still faced the prospect of death at all times.
Sid Phillips oral history: Life on Guadalcanal.
Similar to their nightly naval shellings, the Japanese would bombard Henderson Field nearly every day from the air. Usually the aerial attacks consisted of one or two airplanes making nuisance attacks doing little but creating holes to fill and knocking the random tree down. But occasionally the attacks were more concentrated and more deadly. On September 12, 1942, a working party consisting of men from H Company 2nd Battalion 1st Marines was working on a section of Henderson Field, filling bomb craters and patching the runway when the air-raid alarm sounded. The Marines scrambled to shelters only to see two enemy aircraft appear, make a half-hearted attack, and eventually be driven off by American fighter planes. Irritated by the interruption, the Marines left their shelters and went back to work. (It was not uncommon for the air-raid alarm to be sounded for a minimal or phantom attack. Men would scramble and wait for an attack that never came. The more this happened, the more complacent the Marines became. Air-raid alarms would scream and the Marines would move to their shelters at a slow pace, if at all.) Later in the afternoon, their work now complete, the Marines of H Company began to filter back to their lines and prepare for the night’s defense. Frank Pomroy, a young veteran 37mm gunner from the Tenaru River battle, was walking along the road next to the airfield with one of his best friends, James Mangin. Pomroy and Mangin both enlisted in the Marines on the same day, January 4, 1942, and were both from Massachusetts—Pomroy from Danvers and Mangin from Pittsfield. The two men went through boot camp together and, as luck would have it, were both assigned to the same company as machine gunners. The men were inseparable, one usually not found without the other close by. That day they had been working together filling in the craters on the airfield and had both scattered when the earlier air raid sounded.
Now, as the afternoon turned to evening, the two Marines walked along the runway back toward the jungle. “We were just talking about home when we heard the air-raid alarm go off again,” Pomroy said. “I took off running and hollered to Jim to come on.” Pomroy ran at full speed toward the nearest shelter, but Mangin, unconcerned over the alarm, did not. “I guess he had heard the alarm too much and thought it wasn’t anything to worry about,” Pomroy said. “He didn’t run.” Unlike the attack earlier in the day, this one was a serious threat. Several Japanese bombers appeared over the field and dropped their payloads. Pomroy was nearing shelter when the first few bombs fell, and he dove toward safety, covering his head with his hands as the bombs exploded around him. The bombardment ended quickly. When the dust cleared, Pomroy stood up and began to look for his friend. He found him sprawled across the runway, dead. The official report from the Marine Corps does not state a cause of death, but it likely was blast concussion from a string of bombs dropped by a Japanese aircraft. Mangin, weary from the day’s work and unworried about the air-raid alarm due to so many false alarms, failed to seek cover the one time he should have. Far away from the front lines, the veteran of the Tenaru River battle felt safe from enemy fire. Yet he met his end on the assumed relative safety of the airfield. “I was devastated,” Pomroy said. “I carried his body to the hospital and we buried him the next day in the division cemetery. I visited him often. And I think about him to this day.”
Guadalcanal Map
James Francis Mangin’s remains were removed from Guadalcanal in 1947 and reburied in the Punchbowl Cemetery on Oahu, Hawaii.
Life on Guadalcanal could at times be marked with sheer terror and utter boredom split by only a few seconds. Under the constant threat of attack from both the enemy and Mother Nature, the young Marines, and soon their Army comrades, were weakened to the state of collapse physically but never mentally. Despite the lack of proper diet and medical supplies, proliferation of tropical disease, constant enemy bombardments, and the threat of being overrun by a fanatical enemy, the Americans continued to hold the island the Japanese now termed “The Island of Death” through the month of September and into October. As tough as the going had been through August and September, October proved to be the turning point in the campaign, and decided once and for all who controlled the island.
Guadalcanal Solomon Islands
Frank Pomroy, pictured during his oral-history interview with The National WWII Museum in 2005.
Comments are closed.