First Offensive:
The Marine Campaign
For Guadalcanal

Marines in
WWII
Commemorative Series

By Henry I. Shaw, Jr.

1

by Henry I. Shaw, Jr.

In the early summer of 1942, intelligence reports about the construction of a Japanese airfield near Lunga Point on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands pushed for offensive action in the South Pacific. The main supporter of this offensive in Washington was Admiral Ernest J. King, Chief of Naval Operations (CNO). In the Pacific, Admiral Chester A. Nimitz, Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet (CinCPac), shared this view and had already suggested sending the 1st Marine Raider Battalion to Tulagi, an island 20 miles north of Guadalcanal across Sealark Channel, to take out a Japanese seaplane base there. Although the Battle of the Coral Sea had prevented a Japanese amphibious assault on Port Moresby, the Allied supply base in eastern New Guinea, the completion of the Guadalcanal airfield could signal the start of a renewed enemy push to the south and a greater threat to the American supply line to New Zealand and Australia. On July 23, 1942, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) in Washington agreed that the communication lines in the South Pacific needed to be secured. The Japanese advance had to be halted. Thus, Operation Watchtower, the capture of Guadalcanal and Tulagi, was initiated.

The Solomon Islands are located in the remote areas of the South Pacific. Spanish treasure hunters found them in the mid-1500s, but no European power realized their worth until Germany aimed to grow its emerging colonial empire over two centuries later. In 1884, Germany declared a protectorate over northern New Guinea, the Bismarck Archipelago, and the northern Solomons. Great Britain responded by establishing a protectorate over the southern Solomons and by annexing the rest of New Guinea. In 1905, the British crown transferred administrative control of all its territories in the area to Australia, leading to the creation of the Territory of Papua, with its capital in Port Moresby. After World War I, the League of Nations took over Germany’s territories in the region, with the colonial government based in Rabaul on New Britain. The Solomons are located 10 degrees south of the Equator—hot, humid, and frequently hit by heavy rains. The famous adventure novelist, Jack London, is said to have remarked: “If I were king, the worst punishment I could impose on my enemies would be to exile them to the Solomons.”

On January 23, 1942, Japanese forces took control of Rabaul and heavily fortified it. The location had an excellent harbor and many potential airfield sites. The significant losses of enemy carriers and planes at the Battle of Midway (June 3–6, 1942) led the Imperial General Headquarters to cancel plans for invading Midway, New Caledonia, Fiji, and Samoa, but they moved ahead with plans to build a major seaplane base at Tulagi. This site offered one of the best anchorages in the South Pacific and was strategically positioned: 560 miles from the New Hebrides, 800 miles from New Caledonia, and 1,000 miles from Fiji.

The outposts at Tulagi and Guadalcanal were clear signs of a significant Japanese presence in the area, starting with the Seventeenth Army, based in Rabaul. The enemy's Eighth Fleet, Eleventh Air Fleet, and 1st, 7th, 8th, and 14th Naval Base Forces were also stationed in New Britain. Starting on August 5, 1942, Japanese signal intelligence units began intercepting communications between Noumea in New Caledonia and Melbourne, Australia. Enemy analysts determined that Vice Admiral Richard L. Ghormley, who was in charge of the South Pacific Area (ComSoPac), was signaling a British or Australian force preparing for an offensive in the Solomons or New Guinea. These warnings were sent to Japanese headquarters in Rabaul and Truk, but they were disregarded.

The invasion force was indeed on its way to its targets: Guadalcanal, Tulagi, and the small islets of Gavutu and Tanambogo near Tulagi’s shore. The landing force was made up of Marines; the covering and transport forces were U.S. Navy, with additional support from Australian warships. There wasn’t much mystery in choosing the 1st Marine Division for the landings. Five U.S. Army divisions were stationed in the South and Southwest Pacific:2 three in Australia, the 37th Infantry in Fiji, and the Americal Division in New Caledonia. None of them were trained for amphibious landings and all were considered crucial parts of the defensive garrisons. The 1st Marine Division, minus one of its infantry regiments, began arriving in New Zealand in mid-June when the division headquarters and the 5th Marines reached Wellington. At that time, the rest of the reinforced division’s major units were preparing to depart. The 1st Marines were in San Francisco, the 1st Raider Battalion was in New Caledonia, and the 3rd Defense Battalion was at Pearl Harbor. The 2nd Marines of the 2nd Marine Division, which would replace the 1st Division’s 7th Marines stationed in British Samoa, was loading out from San Diego. All three infantry regiments of the landing force had artillery battalions attached, with the 11th Marines supporting the 5th and 1st; the 2nd Marines received its additional 75mm howitzers from the 2nd Division’s 10th Marines.

The news that his division would be the landing force for Watchtower surprised Major General Alexander A. Vandegrift, who had expected the 1st Division would train for six months in the South Pacific before entering combat. The shift from loading supplies for administrative purposes to loading them for combat—where essential equipment, weapons, ammunition, and rations were arranged to be unloaded first with the assault troops—created an unforgettable scene at Wellington’s docks. Combat troops replaced civilian stevedores, unloading and reloading cargo and passenger ships in an escalating series of work parties, often during rainstorms that made the task harder, but they got it done. As different shipping groups arrived and time ran short, various levels of the division’s forces all contributed their share of labor on the docks. General Vandegrift managed to persuade Admiral Ghormley and the Joint Chiefs that he couldn't meet the proposed D-Day of August 1, but the new landing date of August 7 did little to improve the situation.

An amphibious operation is a highly complex undertaking, especially when the forces involved are pulled together quickly from various locations across the Pacific. The pressure that Vandegrift experienced was not exclusive to the landing force commander. The U.S. Navy’s ships were crucial for success, and they were limited and invaluable. Even though the Battles of Coral Sea and Midway had severely weakened the Japanese fleet’s offensive capabilities and damaged its carrier forces, enemy naval aircraft could perform just as effectively on land as at sea, and enemy warships were still abundant and dangerous. American losses at Pearl Harbor, Coral Sea, and Midway were significant, and Navy admirals knew that the ships they commanded were in short supply. A day would come when America’s shipyards and factories would flood the seas with all types of warships, but that day hadn’t come yet in 1942. Taking calculated risks was essential for the Navy, and if the risks seemed too high, the Watchtower landing force could become a casualty. In reality, the Navy consistently took risks with its ships in the waters of the Solomons, but at times, the naval support for the troops on land got extremely stretched.

Tactical command of the invasion force heading to Guadalcanal in early August was assigned to Vice Admiral Frank J. Fletcher as the Expeditionary Force Commander (Task Force 61). His force included the amphibious ships transporting the 1st Marine Division, led by Rear Admiral Richmond K. Turner, and the Air Support Force headed by Rear Admiral Leigh Noyes. Admiral Ghormley provided land-based air forces commanded by Rear Admiral John S. McCain. Fletcher’s support force comprised three fleet carriers, the Saratoga (CV 3), Enterprise (CV 6), and Wasp (CV 7); the battleship North Carolina (BB 55), 6 cruisers, 16 destroyers, and 3 oilers. Admiral Turner’s covering force included five cruisers and nine destroyers.

On the transport ships heading to the Solomons, the Marines were preparing for a tough battle. They didn’t know much about their targets and even less about the enemy. The maps they had were inadequate, based on outdated hydrographic charts and information from previous island inhabitants. Although maps created from aerial photos had been made, they were lost by the Navy in Auckland, New Zealand, and never reached the Marines in Wellington.

On July 17, a couple of division staff officers, Lieutenant Colonel Merrill B. Twining and Major William McKean, managed to join the crew of a B-17 flying from Port Moresby on a reconnaissance mission over Guadalcanal. They reported what they observed, and their analysis, along with aerial photographs, showed that there were no significant defenses along the beaches of Guadalcanal's north shore.

This news was definitely good to hear. The division intelligence officer (G-2), Lieutenant Colonel Frank B. Goettge, determined that around 8,4005 Japanese forces were occupying Guadalcanal and Tulagi. Admiral Turner’s staff estimated the Japanese numbers to be 7,125 men. Admiral Ghormley’s intelligence officer assessed the enemy strength at 3,100, which was closest to the actual total of 3,457 Japanese troops; 2,571 of them were stationed on Guadalcanal and mainly worked as laborers on the airfield.

To fight against the Japanese, the Marines had a clear advantage in numbers. At that time, the organizational charts for a Marine Corps division showed a total of 19,514 officers and enlisted personnel, including naval medical and engineer (Seabee) units. Infantry regiments consisted of 3,168 troops, made up of a headquarters company, a weapons company, and three battalions. Each infantry battalion (933 Marines) was structured into a headquarters company (89), a weapons company (273), and three rifle companies (183). The artillery regiment included 2,581 officers and men divided into three 75mm pack howitzer battalions and one 105mm howitzer battalion. A light tank battalion, a special weapons battalion featuring antiaircraft and antitank guns, and a parachute battalion contributed additional combat strength. An engineer regiment (2,452 Marines), with battalions of engineers, pioneers, and Seabees, added significant combat and support capacity. This was completed by the division headquarters battalion’s elements, including headquarters, signal, and military police companies, as well as the division’s service troops—comprising service, motor transport, amphibian tractor, and medical battalions. For Watchtower, the 1st Raider Battalion and the 3rd Defense Battalion were added to Vandegrift’s command to boost the number of infantrymen and provide essential coast defense and antiaircraft guns and crews.

Unfortunately, the division's heaviest weapons were left behind in6 New Zealand. Limited shipping space and time meant that the division's big guns, a 155mm howitzer battalion, and all the two-and-a-half-ton trucks from the motor transport battalion were not loaded. Colonel Pedro A. del Valle, who commanded the 11th Marines, was upset about losing his heavy howitzers and equally distressed that critical sound and flash-ranging equipment needed for effective counter-battery fire was also left behind. Additionally, all spare clothing, bedding rolls, and supplies necessary to support the reinforced division beyond 60 days of combat didn’t make the cut for shipping. Ten days' worth of ammunition for each of the division’s weapons remained in New Zealand.

In the view of the 1st Division’s historian and a veteran of the landing, the guys on the approaching transports “thought they’d have a tough time getting ashore.” They were definitely confident and sure they couldn’t be beaten, but most of the men were experiencing combat for the first time. There were veteran officers and noncommissioned officers (NCOs) in the division, but the majority of the men were heading into their first battle. Colonel Clifton B. Cates, the commanding officer of the 1st Marines, estimated that 90 percent of his men had enlisted after Pearl Harbor. The legendary 1st Marine Division, which later gained fame during World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the Persian Gulf War, becoming the most highly decorated division in the U.S. Armed Forces, had not yet built its reputation.

The convoy of ships, accompanied by a protective screen of carriers, arrived at Koro in the Fiji Islands on July 26. Practice landings mostly served to exercise the transports’ landing craft, as reefs made a real beach landing impossible. The meeting at Koro allowed the senior commanders to have a face-to-face discussion. Fletcher, McCain, Turner, and Vandegrift met with Ghormley’s chief of staff, Rear Admiral Daniel J. Callaghan, who informed them that ComSoPac had ordered the 7th Marines on Samoa to be ready to embark on four days’ notice as a reinforcement for Watchtower. To this encouraging news, Admiral Fletcher added some bad news. Due to the threat from enemy land-based aircraft, he could not “keep the carriers in the area for more than 48 hours after the landing.” Vandegrift protested that he needed at least four days to get the division’s equipment ashore, and Fletcher reluctantly agreed to keep his carriers at risk for one more day.

On the 28th, the ships left the Fijis, making it seem like they were heading to Australia. At noon on August 5, the convoy and its escorts turned north toward the Solomons. Unnoticed by the Japanese, the assault force arrived at its target during the night of August 6–7 and split into two landing groups: Transport Division X-Ray, which included 15 transports going to the north shore of Guadalcanal east of Lunga Point, and Transport Division Yoke, which had eight transports heading for Tulagi, Gavutu, Tanambogo, and the nearby Florida Island, which towered over the smaller islands.

Vandegrift’s plans for the landings involved putting two of his infantry regiments (Colonel LeRoy P. Hunt’s 5th Marines and Colonel Cates’ 1st Marines) ashore on both sides of the Lunga River, ready to push inland and capture the airfield. The 11th Marines, the 3rd Defense Battalion, and most of the division’s supporting units would also land near the Lunga to take advantage of the beachhead. Across the 20 miles of Sealark Channel, the division’s assistant commander, Brigadier General William H. Rupertus, led the forces set to capture Tulagi, Gavutu, and Tanambogo: the 1st Raider Battalion (Lieutenant Colonel Merritt A. Edson), the 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines (Lieutenant Colonel Harold E. Rosecrans), and the 1st Parachute Battalion (Major Robert H. Williams). Company A of the 2nd Marines would scout the nearby shores of Florida Island, while the rest of Colonel John A. Arthur’s regiment would stay in reserve to land where needed.

As the ships moved through the7 channels on both sides of rugged Savo Island, which divided Sealark near its western end, heavy clouds and pouring rain covered the task force. Later, the moon came out and outlined the islands. On his command ship, Vandegrift wrote to his wife: “Tomorrow morning at dawn we land in our first major offensive of the war. Our plans are set, and I hope our judgment is solid ... whatever happens, you’ll know I did my best. Let’s hope that best is enough.”

At 6:41 AM on August 7, Turner signaled his ships to “land the landing force.” Just 28 minutes earlier, the heavy cruiser Quincy (CA 39) had started shelling the landing beaches at Guadalcanal. The sun rose that fateful Friday at 6:50, and the first landing craft carrying troops from the 5th Marines arrived at 9:09 on Red Beach. To the men’s surprise (and relief), no Japanese forces appeared to oppose the landing. Hunt quickly moved his troops off the beach and into the surrounding jungle, waded across the steep-banked Ilu River, and headed for the enemy airfield. The following 1st Marines were able to cross the Ilu on a bridge that engineers had hurriedly built with an amphibian tractor supporting its middle. The silence was unsettling, and the lack of resistance made the riflemen uneasy. The Japanese troops, most of whom were Korean laborers, had retreated to the west, spooked by a week of B-17 bombardments, the pre-assault naval gunfire, and the sight of the ships offshore. The situation was different across Sealark. The Marines on Guadalcanal could hear faint sounds of a firefight across the waters.

The Japanese on Tulagi were elite naval landing force sailors, and they were determined not to give up what they had without a brutal, no-surrender fight. Edson’s men landed first, followed by Rosecrans’ battalion, hitting Tulagi’s south coast and pushing inland toward the ridge that ran along the island's length. The battalions faced pockets of resistance in the dense undergrowth of the island's thick vegetation and maneuvered to outflank and overpower the enemy. The Marines advanced steadily, but casualties were frequent. By nightfall, Edson had reached the former British residency overlooking Tulagi’s harbor and set up for the night on a hill that overlooked the Japanese's final position, a ravine at the island's southern tip. The 2d Battalion, 5th Marines, had pushed through to the northern shore, clearing its area of enemies; Rosecrans positioned himself to support the raiders. By the end of their first day on land, the 2d Battalion had lost 56 men killed and wounded, and the 1st Raider Battalion had suffered 99 casualties.

Throughout the night, the Japanese surged from hillside caves in four separate attacks, trying to break through the raider lines. They were unsuccessful, and most died in the attempts. At dawn, the 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marines, landed to support the attackers, and by the afternoon of August 8, the clean-up was done, and the battle for Tulagi was over.

The fight for tiny Gavutu and Tanambogo, both just small hills rising out of the sea and connected by a hundred-yard causeway, was just as intense as the battle at Tulagi. The combat area was much smaller, and the chances of getting fire support from offshore ships and carrier planes were really limited once the Marines landed. After naval gunfire from the light cruiser San Juan (CL 54) and two destroyers, along with a strike by F4F Wildcats flying from the Wasp, the 1st Parachute Battalion landed around noon in three waves, totaling 395 men, on Gavutu. The Japanese, fortified in cave positions, opened fire on the second and third waves, pinning down the first Marines on the beach. Major Williams was shot in the lungs and had to be evacuated; 32 Marines were killed in the intense enemy fire. This time, 2d Marines reinforcements were urgently needed; the 1st Battalion’s Company B landed on Gavutu and tried to take Tanambogo, but the attackers were forced to the ground and had to retreat back to Gavutu.

After a tough night of close combat with the defenders on both islands, the 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marines, supported the troops already on land and finished clearing each island. The number of Marines killed across the three islands was 144, and the wounded reached 194. The few Japanese soldiers who survived the fighting escaped to Florida Island, which the 2nd Marines had checked on D-Day and found free of enemy presence.

The Marines' landings and the buildup of ships in the waters around Guadalcanal drew the Japanese from Rabaul. At Admiral Ghormley’s headquarters, Tulagi's radio was heard on D-Day “frantically calling for [the] dispatch of surface11 forces to the scene” and identifying transports and carriers as targets for heavy bombing. The messages were clear and straightforward, highlighting the situation of the besieged garrison. The enemy response was swift and typical of the naval air and surface attacks that would follow in the months ahead.

At 10:30 AM on August 7, an Australian coastwatcher hiding in the hills of the islands north of Guadalcanal reported that a Japanese airstrike made up of heavy bombers, light bombers, and fighters was on its way to the island. Fletcher’s pilots, whose aircraft carriers were located 100 miles south of Guadalcanal, engaged the approaching planes 20 miles northwest of the landing zones before they could interfere with the operation. However, the Japanese were undeterred by this setback; more planes and ships were on their way to the tempting target.

On August 8, the Marines solidified their positions on land, taking control of the airfield on Guadalcanal and setting up a beachhead. Supplies were being unloaded as quickly as the landing craft could shuttle them from the ships to the shore, but the shore party was seriously underprepared to manage the flood of ammunition, food, tents, aviation fuel, vehicles—all the equipment needed to support the Marines. The beach itself turned into a dumpsite. Almost immediately after the first supplies arrived, they had to be relocated to areas closer to Kukum village and Lunga Point within the established perimeter. Fortunately, the lack of Japanese ground resistance allowed Vandegrift to move the supply beaches west to a new beachhead.

Japanese bombers managed to get past the American fighter cover on August 8. They dropped their bombs from over 20,000 feet to avoid anti-aircraft fire, but their aim wasn’t very precise. They focused on the ships in the channel, damaging several and sinking the destroyer Jarvis (DD 393). In their efforts to fend off the incoming planes, the carrier fighter squadrons lost 21 Wildcats on August 7-8.

The main Japanese targets were the Allied ships. At this time, and for a thankfully and unbelievably long time to come, the Japanese commanders at Rabaul seriously underestimated the strength of Vandegrift’s forces. They believed the Marine landings were just a reconnaissance operation with maybe 2,000 men on Guadalcanal. By the evening of August 8, Vandegrift had 10,900 troops on the ground on Guadalcanal and another 6,075 on Tulagi. Three infantry regiments had landed, each with a supporting 75mm pack howitzer battalion—the 2nd and 3rd Battalions, 11th Marines on Guadalcanal, and the 3rd Battalion, 10th Marines on Tulagi. The 5th Battalion, 11th Marines’ 105mm howitzers were in general support.

That night, a cruiser-destroyer force from the Imperial Japanese Navy reacted to the American invasion with a sharp response. Admiral Turner had positioned three cruiser-destroyer groups to block the Tulagi-Guadalcanal approaches. At the Battle of Savo, the Japanese showcased their dominance in night fighting at this point in the war, decimating two of Turner’s supporting forces without taking any losses themselves. Four heavy cruisers sank—three American and one Australian—while another lost its bow. As the sun rose over what would soon be known as “Ironbottom Sound,” Marines grimly watched as Higgins boats rushed out to rescue survivors. About 1,300 sailors died that night, and another 700 were wounded or severely burned. Japanese casualties were less than 200 men.

The Japanese only lost one ship in the encounter, the cruiser Chokai. The American cruisers Vincennes (CA 44), Astoria (CA 34), and Quincy (CA 39) went down, along with the Australian Navy’s HMAS Canberra, which was so badly damaged that it had to be sunk by American torpedoes. Both the cruiser Chicago (CA 29) and the destroyer Talbot (DD 114) were heavily damaged. Fortunately for the Marines onshore, the Japanese force—comprising five heavy cruisers, two light cruisers, and a destroyer—left before dawn without trying to disrupt the landing any further.

When the attack force leader, Vice Admiral Gunichi Mikawa, got back to Rabaul, he thought he would be praised by his superiors. He did receive some praise, but he also faced criticism. Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the Japanese fleet commander, reprimanded his subordinate for not attacking the transports. Mikawa could only respond, somewhat weakly, that he hadn’t realized Fletcher’s aircraft carriers were so far away from Guadalcanal. Equally important to the Marines on the beach, the Japanese naval victory led to celebrating superiors in Tokyo allowing the event to overshadow the13 significance of the amphibious operation.

The disaster led the American admirals to rethink the Navy's support for land operations. Fletcher was worried about the safety of his carriers; he had already lost about a quarter of his fighter jets. The commander of the expeditionary force had lost a carrier at Coral Sea and another at Midway. He felt he couldn’t risk losing a third, even if it meant leaving the Marines to fend for themselves. Before the Japanese cruiser attack, he got Admiral Ghormley’s permission to pull out of the area.

At a conference on board Turner’s flagship transport, the McCawley, on the night of August 8, the admiral informed General Vandegrift that Fletcher’s planned withdrawal meant he would have to evacuate the amphibious force’s ships. The Battle of Savo Island reinforced the decision to leave before enemy aircraft, unopposed by American interceptors, attacked. On August 9, the transports retreated to Noumea. The unloading of supplies stopped suddenly, and ships that were still half-full set sail. The forces on the ground had 17 days’ worth of rations—after including captured Japanese food—and only four days’ worth of ammunition for all their weapons. Not only did the ships take the rest of the supplies, but they also evacuated the Marines still on board, including the 2d Marines’ headquarters element. Dropped off at the island of Espiritu Santo in the New Hebrides, the infantry Marines and their commander, Colonel Arthur, were very unhappy and stayed that way until they finally arrived at Guadalcanal on October 29.

Ashore at the Marine beachheads, General Vandegrift ordered rations to be cut down to two meals a day. This reduced food supply would last for six weeks, and the Marines would quickly become very familiar with Japanese canned fish and rice. Most of the Marines smoked, and they soon found themselves disgustedly using Japanese-issue brands. They realized that the separate paper filters that came with the cigarettes were essential to prevent the fast-burning tobacco from burning their lips. The retreating ships had also taken away empty sandbags and valuable engineer tools, so the Marines used Japanese shovels to fill Japanese rice bags with sand to reinforce their defensive positions.

The Marines settled along the beaches between the Tenaru and the ridges west of Kukum. A Japanese counter-landing was a real possibility. Inland from the beaches, defensive gun pits and foxholes lined the west bank of the Tenaru and topped the hills that faced west toward the Matanikau River and Point Cruz. South of the airfield, where dense jungles and ravines were common, the beachhead perimeter was protected by outposts, mostly staffed by combat support troops. The engineer, pioneer, and amphibious tractor battalions all had their positions on the front line. In fact, any Marine with a rifle—basically every Marine—was on night defensive duty. There was no spot within the perimeter that could be considered safe from enemy infiltration.

Almost as soon as Turner's transports set sail, the Japanese started a pattern of annoying air attacks on the beachhead. Sometimes the raids occurred during the day, but the 3d Defense Battalion’s 90mm anti-aircraft guns forced the bombers to fly too high to bomb effectively. However, the erratic pattern of bombs meant that no area near the airfield, the main target, was safe, and no one could say it was bomb-free.16 The most troubling aspect of the Japanese air attacks quickly became the nightly harassment by Japanese aircraft that seemed to fly over the perimeter, dropping bombs and flares without care. The night visitors, whose plane engines became familiar sounds, earned the nickname “Washing Machine Charlie” at first, and later, “Louie the Louse,” when their presence signaled upcoming Japanese shore bombardment. Technically, “Charlie” referred to a twin-engine night bomber from Rabaul, while “Louie” was a cruiser float plane that signaled the bombardment ships. But the stressed-out Marines used the names interchangeably.

Even though most of the division's heavy engineering equipment had disappeared with the Navy's transports, the resourceful Marines quickly finished the airfield's runway using captured Japanese gear. On August 12, Admiral McCain's aide flew in a PBY-5 Catalina flying boat and came to a stop on what was now officially Henderson Field, named after Marine pilot Major Lofton R. Henderson, who was lost at Midway. The Navy officer declared the airfield ready for fighter use and took off with a load of wounded Marines, the first of 2,879 to be evacuated. Henderson Field was the centerpiece of Vandegrift's strategy; he was determined to hold it at all costs.

Although it was only 2,000 feet long and didn’t have a taxiway or proper drainage, the small airstrip, often full of potholes and made unusable by frequent heavy rain, was crucial to the success of the landing force. With it working, supplies could be flown in and the wounded could be flown out. At least in the Marines’ view, Navy ships were no longer the only lifeline for the defenders.

While Vandegrift’s Marines fortified positions east and west of Henderson Field, Japanese headquarters in Rabaul strategized what they thought would be an effective answer to the American offensive. Misled by intelligence estimates that suggested the Marines numbered around 2,000, Japanese staff officers believed that a small force dispatched quickly could easily overpower the invaders.

On August 12, CinCPac decided that a large Japanese force was gathering at Truk to head to the Solomons and try to push the Americans out. Worryingly, the group included the heavy carriers Shokaku and Zuikaku, along with the light carrier Ryujo. Despite the heavy losses at Savo Island, the only significant addition to American naval forces in the Solomons was the deployment of a new battleship, the South Dakota (BB 57).

Imperial General Headquarters in Tokyo had ordered Lieutenant General Haruyoshi Hyakutake’s Seventeenth Army to attack the Marine perimeter. For his assault force, Hyakutake chose the 35th Infantry Brigade (Reinforced), commanded by Major General Kiyotake Kawaguchi. At the time, Kawaguchi’s main force was in the Palaus. Hyakutake selected a top infantry regiment—the 28th—led by Colonel Kiyono Ichiki to land first. Alerted for its mission while it was in Guam, the Ichiki Detachment assault echelon, consisting of one battalion of 900 men, was transported to the Solomons on the only available shipping, which were six destroyers. Consequently, the troops carried only small amounts of ordnance and supplies. A follow-on echelon of 1,200 of Ichiki’s troops was set to join the assault battalion on Guadalcanal.

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While the Japanese landing force was on its way to Guadalcanal, the Japanese already on the island served as a harsh reminder that they were also ready for a fight. A captured enemy sailor, taken during the ongoing patrols to the west of the perimeter, revealed that a group of Japanese wanted to surrender near the village of Kokumbona, seven miles west of the Matanikau. This was the area that Lieutenant Colonel Goettge believed contained most of the enemy troops who had escaped from the airfield. On the night of August 12, a reconnaissance patrol of 25 men, led by Goettge himself, left the perimeter by landing craft. The patrol reached its target but was ambushed and almost entirely wiped out. Only three men managed to swim and wade back to the Marine lines. The bodies of the other patrol members were never located. To this day, the fate of the Goettge patrol continues to captivate researchers.

After the loss of Goettge and his men, security tightened along the perimeter. On the 14th, a legendary figure, the coastwatcher Martin Clemens, emerged from the jungle into the Marine lines. He had observed the landing from the hills south of the airfield and was accompanied by his team of local police. A retired sergeant major from the British Solomon Islands Constabulary, Jacob C. Vouza, also stepped up around this time to hunt for Japanese forces to the east of the perimeter, where patrol sightings and reports suggested the Japanese might have made a landing.

The alarming reports of Japanese sightings to the east and west of the area were offset by the exciting news that more Marines had arrived. This time, the new arrivals were aviators. On August 20, two squadrons from Marine Aircraft Group (MAG)-23 took off from the escort carrier Long Island (CVE-1), which was positioned 200 miles southeast of Guadalcanal. Captain John L. Smith led 19 Grumman F4F-4 Wildcats from Marine Fighting Squadron (VMF)-223 onto Henderson’s narrow runway. Smith’s fighters were followed by Major Richard C. Mangrum’s Marine Scout-Bombing Squadron (VMSB)-232, which included 12 Douglas SBD-3 Dauntless dive bombers.

From this point in the campaign, the radio call sign for Guadalcanal, Cactus, became more and more associated with the island. The Marine planes became the first units of what would casually be called the Cactus Air Force.

Wasting no time, the Marine pilots were quickly engaged against the Japanese naval aircraft that frequently attacked Guadalcanal. Smith shot down his first enemy Zero fighter on August 21; three days later, VMF-223’s Wildcats intercepted a strong Japanese air attack force and took down 16 enemy planes. In this encounter, Captain Marion E. Carl, a veteran of Midway, shot down three planes. On the 22nd, coastwatchers alerted Cactus about an incoming air attack, resulting in 13 out of 16 enemy bombers being destroyed. At the same time, Mangrum’s dive bombers damaged three enemy destroyer-transports that were trying to reach Guadalcanal. On August 24, the American attacking aircraft, which now included Navy scout-bombers from the Saratoga’s Scouting Squadron (VS) 5, successfully turned back a Japanese reinforcement convoy of warships and destroyers.

On August 22, five Bell P-400 Air Cobras from the Army's 67th Fighter Squadron landed at Henderson, followed within the week by nine more Air Cobras. The Army planes, which had significant altitude and climb-rate issues, were mainly going to be used for ground combat support roles.

The intense action in what became known as the Battle of the Eastern Solomons was matched on land. Japanese destroyers had dropped off the first wave of the Ichiki force at Taivu Point, 25 miles east of the Marine perimeter. A long-range patrol of Marines from Company A, 1st Battalion, 1st Marines ambushed a large Japanese force near Taivu on August 19. The dead Japanese soldiers were clearly identified as Army troops, and the aftermath of their defeat included new uniforms and a significant amount of communication equipment. Obviously, a new phase of the fighting had begun. Up to this point, all the Japanese forces encountered had been naval troops.

Alerted by patrols, the Marines now took up positions along the Ilu River, frequently misnamed the Tenaru on Marine maps, and were prepared for Colonel Ichiki. The Japanese commander’s orders instructed him to “quickly reclaim and hold the airfield at Guadalcanal,” and his own message to his troops stressed that they would fight “to the last breath of the last man.” And they did.

Too focused on his mission to wait for the rest of his regiment and confident he was only up against a few thousand men, Ichiki marched from Taivu to the Marines’ lines. Before he attacked on the night of the 20th, a bloodied figure stumbled out of the jungle with a warning that the Japanese were coming. It was Sergeant Major Vouza. Captured by the Japanese, who found a small American flag hidden in his loincloth, he was tortured in a failed attempt to extract information about the invasion force. Tied to a tree, bayonetted twice in the chest, and beaten with rifle butts, the determined Vouza chewed through his bindings to escape. He made it to Lieutenant Colonel Edwin A. Pollock, whose 2d Battalion, 1st Marines defended the Ilu mouth, and gasped a warning that an estimated 250–500 Japanese soldiers were following him. The resilient Vouza was rushed immediately to an aid station and then to the division hospital, and miraculously survived his ordeal. He was awarded a Silver Star for his heroism by General Vandegrift and later received a Legion of Merit. Vandegrift also made Vouza an honorary sergeant major of the U.S. Marines.

At 1:30 AM on August 21, Ichiki’s troops charged the Marines’ lines in a chaotic, loud display of the “spiritual strength” they had been promised would easily overcome their American foes. As the Japanese rushed across the sandbar at the mouth of the Ilu, Pollock’s Marines mowed them down. After a mortar barrage, the Japanese attempted again to break through the sandbar. A section of 37mm guns unleashed deadly canister fire on the enemy force. Lieutenant Colonel Lenard B. Cresswell’s 1st Battalion, 1st Marines advanced upstream on the Ilu at dawn, waded through the sluggish, 50-foot-wide stream, and flanked the Japanese. Wildcats from VMF-223 strafed the beleaguered enemy force. Five light tanks fired on the retreating Japanese. By 5:00 PM, as the sun was setting, the battle came to an end.

Colonel Ichiki, feeling ashamed after his defeat, burned his regimental colors and took his own life. Nearly 800 of his men followed him in death. The few survivors fled east toward Taivu Point. Rear Admiral Raizo Tanaka, whose reinforcements of transports and destroyers were mainly responsible for the Japanese troop buildup on Guadalcanal, realized that the unsupported Japanese attack was complete madness and noted that “this tragedy should have taught us the hopelessness of bamboo spear tactics.” Luckily for the Marines, Ichiki’s overconfidence wasn’t unusual among Japanese commanders.

Following the 1st Marines’ encounter with the Ichiki detachment, General Vandegrift felt motivated to write to the Marine Commandant, Lieutenant General Thomas Holcomb, and report: “These young guys are the craziest people when they get going21 you’ve ever seen.” And all the Marines on the island, both young and old, novices and veterans, were becoming skilled jungle fighters. They were no longer “trigger happy” like many had been in their early days on shore, shooting at shadows and imagined enemies. They were waiting for targets, patrolling with enthusiasm and confidence. The inaccurately named Battle of the Tenaru had cost Colonel Hunt’s regiment 34 killed in action and 75 wounded. All the division’s Marines now felt they had earned their stripes. What the men on Tulagi, Gavutu, and Tanambogo and those of the Ilu did proved that the 1st Marine Division would hold firmly to what it had gained.

While the Marines and sailors of the division had earned a break as the Japanese regrouped for another attack, the action in the skies over the Solomons ramped up. Almost daily, Japanese aircraft showed up around noon to bomb the perimeter. Marine fighter pilots found the twin-engine Betty bombers to be easy targets; Zero fighters were a different story. Although the Wildcats were sturdier aircraft, the Japanese Zeros’ superior speed and better maneuverability gave them a clear advantage in dogfights. However, when the American planes were alerted by the coastwatchers about Japanese attacks, they had time to climb above the incoming enemy and ideally attacked by diving in at high speed. Their tactics made the airspace over the Solomons risky for the Japanese. On August 29, the carrier Ryujo launched aircraft for a strike against the airstrip. Smith’s Wildcats shot down 16 enemy planes, losing four of their own. Still, the Japanese kept up their attacks on Henderson Field relentlessly. Two days after the Ryujo raid, enemy bombers caused significant damage to the airfield, igniting aviation fuel and destroying parked aircraft. VMF-223’s retaliation resulted in another 13 enemy planes shot down.

On August 30, two more MAG-23 squadrons, VMF-224 and VMSB-231, arrived at Henderson. The additional air support was greatly appreciated. Continuous combat losses, frequent damage both in the air and on the ground, and limited repair facilities and parts made the number of available aircraft a shrinking resource.

Clearly, General Vandegrift needed22 infantry reinforcements just as much as he needed more aircraft. He brought the combined raider and parachute battalions, both under Edson’s command, and the 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines, over to Guadalcanal from Tulagi. This allowed the division commander to send out larger reconnaissance patrols to search for the Japanese. On August 27, the 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, landed near Kokumbona and returned to the beachhead without any significant results. If the Japanese were out there beyond the Matanikau—and they were—they observed the Marines and waited for a better chance to attack.

Admiral McCain visited Guadalcanal at the end of August, arriving just in time to meet the aerial reinforcements he had ordered and experience Japanese nightly bombing. He also faced another unwanted aspect of Cactus nights: bombardment from Japanese cruisers and destroyers. General Vandegrift noted that McCain had received his share of the “normal ration of 23 shells.” The admiral saw enough to inform his superiors that more support for Guadalcanal operations was essential and that the “situation admits no delay whatsoever.” He also sent a prophetic message to Admirals King and Nimitz: “Cactus can be a sinkhole for enemy air power and can be consolidated, expanded, and exploited to the enemy’s mortal hurt.”

On September 3, the Commanding General of the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing, Brigadier General Roy S. Geiger, and his assistant wing commander, Colonel Louis Woods, advanced to Guadalcanal to take over air operations. The arrival of these experienced Marine pilots instantly boosted the morale of the pilots and ground crews. It reinforced their belief that they were at the forefront of air combat, setting the standard for the rest of Marine aviation. Vandegrift was thankfully able to hand over the daily management of the aerial defenses of Cactus to the capable and seasoned Geiger. There were plenty of targets for the mixed air force of Marine, Army, and Navy flyers. Daily air assaults by the Japanese, combined with ongoing reinforcement attempts by Tanaka’s destroyers and transports, meant that every type of aircraft that could take off from Henderson’s runway was in the air as often as possible. The Seabees had started work on a second airstrip, Fighter One, which could help ease some of the pressure on the main airfield.

Most of General Kawaguchi’s brigade had reached Guadalcanal. Those who hadn’t would miss their landing forever due to American air attacks. Kawaguchi planned a surprise attack on the center of the Marine position, moving from the jungle directly toward the airfield. To get to his starting point, the Japanese general needed to navigate through tough terrain without being seen, cutting his way through the thick vegetation out of sight of Marine patrols. The challenging route would take him to a prominent ridge covered in Kunai grass, which snaked through the jungle to within a mile of Henderson’s runway. Unbeknownst to the Japanese, General Vandegrift intended to move his headquarters to a sheltered spot at the inland base of this ridge, a location that was hoped to be better protected from enemy bombing and shellfire.

The success of Kawaguchi’s plan depended on the Marines keeping the inland perimeter lightly defended while they focused their forces on the east and west flanks. This didn’t happen. Available intelligence, including a captured enemy map, indicated a likely attack on the airfield, so Vandegrift moved his combined raider-parachute battalion to the most obvious enemy approach route, the ridge. Colonel Edson’s men, who had scouted Savo Island after moving to Guadalcanal and destroyed a Japanese supply base25 at Tasimboko in another shore-to-shore raid, took positions on the forward slopes of the ridge at the edge of the advancing jungle on September 10. Their commander later said that he “was firmly convinced that we were in the path of the next Jap attack.” Earlier patrols had spotted a sizable Japanese force heading their way. Accordingly, Edson patrolled extensively as his men dug in on the ridge and in the surrounding jungle. On the 12th, the Marines encountered enemy patrols that confirmed that Japanese troops were definitely “out front.” Kawaguchi had about 2,000 of his men with him, enough he thought to break through to the airfield.

Japanese planes had dropped 500-pound bombs along the ridge on the 11th, and enemy ships started shelling the area after dark on the 12th, once the threat of American air attacks eased. The first Japanese push hit Edson’s left flank at 9 PM. Rushing out of the jungle, the enemy soldiers charged fearlessly into rifle and machine gun fire, getting close enough to use bayonets. They were pushed back. They attacked again, this time on the right flank, breaking through the Marines’ positions. Once more, they were thrown back. A third attack wrapped up the night’s fighting. It was another close battle, but by 2:30 AM, Edson told Vandegrift that his men could hold. And they did.

On the morning of September 13, Edson gathered his company commanders and said, “They were just testing, just testing. They'll be back.” He ordered improvements to all positions, consolidated defenses, and pulled his lines toward the airfield along the center spine of the ridge. The 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines, his backup on Tulagi, moved into position to reinforce once more.

The attacks the next night were as fierce as anything anyone had ever witnessed. The Japanese were everywhere, battling hand-to-hand in the Marines’ foxholes and gun pits and sneaking past forward positions to attack from behind. Division Sergeant Major Sheffield Banta shot one in the new command post. Colonel Edson showed up wherever the fighting was toughest, motivating his men to give it their all. The man-to-man battles spilled over into the jungle on either side of the ridge, and engineer and pioneer positions were under attack. Reserves from the 5th Marines were brought into the fight. Artillerymen from the 5th Battalion, 11th Marines, just like the night before, fired their 105mm howitzers at any designated target. The range shrank to as short as 1,600 yards from the tube to impact. The Japanese finally could take no more. They retreated as dawn approached, leaving over 600 bodies on the slopes of the ridge and in the surrounding jungle; another 600 men were wounded. The remnants of the Kawaguchi force staggered back toward their lines to the west, enduring a grueling, hellish eight-day march that caused many more of the enemy to perish.

The cost to Edson’s force for its epic defense was also high. Fifty-nine men were dead, 10 were missing in action, and 194 were wounded. These losses, along with the casualties at Tulagi, Gavutu, and Tanambogo, marked the end of the 1st Parachute Battalion as an effective fighting unit. Only 89 men of the27 parachutists’ original strength could walk off the ridge, which would soon become legendary as “Bloody Ridge” or “Edson’s Ridge.” Both Colonel Edson and Captain Kenneth D. Bailey, who led the raider’s Company C, were awarded the Medal of Honor for their heroic and inspirational actions.

On September 13 and 14, the Japanese tried to back up Kawaguchi’s attack on the ridge by launching assaults on the sides of the Marine perimeter. To the east, enemy troops trying to break through the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines’ lines were exposed on a grassy plain and were overwhelmed by artillery fire; at least 200 were killed. To the west, the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, defending the ridge positions along the coastal road, successfully repelled a determined attacking force that reached their front lines.

28 The victory at the ridge gave a huge boost to Allied morale at home and strengthened the belief among the troops on Guadalcanal that they could handle anything the enemy threw at them. However, the top leaders weren't as confident that the Marines and their diverse air force could hold their ground. Intercepted Japanese messages revealed that the idea of a 2,000-man defending force was completely debunked. Significant naval forces and two divisions of Japanese troops were now committed to defeating the Americans on Guadalcanal. The Cactus Air Force, often supported by Navy carrier squadrons, turned the planned reinforcement effort into a high-risk operation. But it was a risk the Japanese were ready to take.

On September 18, the long-awaited 7th Marines, along with the 1st Battalion, 11th Marines, and other division troops, arrived at Guadalcanal. As the men from Samoa landed, they were met with friendly teasing by the Marines already on the island. The 7th had been the first regiment of the 1st Division to go overseas; many believed at the time that its men would be the first to see combat. The division had been careful to send some of its best troops to Samoa and now had them back. One of the seasoned combat veterans from the 5th Marines jokingly told a friend in the 7th that he had been waiting a long time “to see our first team get into the game.” Fortunately, a separate supply convoy arrived on the island at the same time as the 7th, bringing much-needed aviation fuel and the first resupply of ammunition since D-Day.

The Navy's protective force for American reinforcement and supply convoys took a heavy hit from Japanese submarines. The carrier Wasp was torpedoed and sunk, the battleship North Carolina (BB 55) was damaged, and the destroyer O’Brien (DD 415) was hit so badly that it broke apart and sank while heading to drydock. The Navy had completed its mission, and the 7th Marines had landed, but it came at a terrible cost. One of the few positive outcomes from the devastating Japanese torpedo attacks was that the surviving aircraft from the Wasp joined the Cactus Air Force, just like the planes from the Saratoga and Enterprise had done when their carriers needed combat repairs. Now, the Hornet (CV 8) was the only fully operational fleet carrier left in the South Pacific.

As the ships that brought the 7th Marines pulled away, they took with them the survivors of the 1st Parachute Battalion and sick bays filled with badly wounded men. General Vandegrift now had 10 infantry battalions, one understrength raider battalion, and five artillery battalions on the ground; the 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marines, had also arrived from Tulagi. He reorganized the defensive perimeter into 10 sectors for better control, assigning the engineer, pioneer, and amphibian tractor battalions sectors along the beach. Infantry battalions covered the other sectors, including the inland perimeter in the jungle. Each infantry regiment had two battalions in the front line and one in reserve. Vandegrift also had access to a select group of infantrymen who were training to become scouts and snipers under Colonel William J. “Wild Bill” Whaling, an experienced jungle expert, marksman, and hunter, whom he had appointed to run a school to enhance the division’s combat skills. As men completed their training under Whaling and returned to their units, others took their place, keeping the Whaling group available to scout and lead operations.

Vandegrift now had enough troops on Guadalcanal, totaling 19,200, to enhance his defensive strategy. He chose to take a forward position along the east bank of the Matanikau River, effectively strengthening his western flank defenses against the likelihood of strong enemy attacks from the area where most Japanese forces were landing. First, though, he planned to assess the Japanese response with a significant probing force.

He selected the fresh 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, led by Lieutenant Colonel Lewis B. “Chesty” Puller, to advance inland along the slopes of Mt. Austen and patrol north toward the coast and the Japanese-controlled area. Puller’s battalion encountered Japanese troops camped on the slopes of Austen on the 24th, and in a fierce firefight, seven men were killed and 25 were wounded. Vandegrift sent the 2d Battalion, 5th Marines, forward to reinforce Puller and provide the manpower needed to carry the casualties out of the jungle. Now reinforced, Puller continued his advance, moving down the east bank of the Matanikau. He reached the coast on the 26th as planned, where he came under heavy fire from enemy positions on the ridges west of the river. An attempt by the 2d Battalion, 5th Marines, to cross was repelled.

Around this time, the 1st Raider Battalion, originally tasked with setting up a patrol base west of the Matanikau, arrived near the firefight and joined in. Vandegrift sent Colonel Edson, now in charge of the 5th Marines, forward to lead the expanded force. He was instructed to launch an attack on the 27th and decided to send the raiders inland to flank the Japanese defenders. The battalion, led by Edson’s former executive officer, Lieutenant Colonel Samuel B. Griffith II, encountered a swarm of Japanese troops who had crossed the Matanikau during the night. A confusing message made Edson think that Griffith’s men were advancing as planned, so he decided to land the companies of the 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, behind the enemy’s position at the Matanikau and hit the Japanese from the rear while Rosecran’s men attacked across the river.

The landing was completed without any problems29 and the 7th Marines’ companies moved inland, only to be ambushed and cut off from the sea by the Japanese. A rescue force of landing craft struggled through Japanese gunfire, pushed on by Puller, who was onboard the destroyer Ballard (DD 660). The Marines were evacuated after fighting their way back to the beach, covered by the destroyer’s fire and the machine guns of a Marine SBD overhead. Once the 7th Marines companies returned to the perimeter, landing near Kukum, the raider and 5th Marines battalions pulled back from the Matanikau. The realization that the Japanese would fiercely oppose any westward advance cost the Marines 60 men killed and 100 wounded.

The Japanese the Marines faced were mostly soldiers from the 4th Regiment of the 2d (Sendai) Division; prisoners confirmed that this division was landing on the island. The enemy reinforcements included 150mm howitzers, which could bombard the airfield from spots near Kokumbona. It was clear that a new and stronger enemy attack was on the horizon.

As September came to an end, a wave of promotions hit the division. Nine lieutenant colonels were promoted to colonel, and there were also 14 new lieutenant colonels. Vandegrift appointed Colonel Gerald C. Thomas, his former operations officer, as the new division chief of staff, and had recently given Edson command of the 5th Marines. Many of the older, senior officers, mostly selected in the order they joined the division, were now being sent back to the States. There, they would bring new combat experience to the training and organization of the many Marine units that were forming. The air wing wasn't quite ready to send its experienced pilots back to support areas yet, but their critical combat knowledge was needed in the training pipeline. The survivors would soon rotate back to support areas as well, some for a much-needed break before returning to combat, and others to lead new squadrons into battle.

On September 30, unexpectedly, a B-17 carrying Admiral Nimitz made an emergency landing at Henderson Field. The CinCPac seized the opportunity. He visited the front lines, checked out Edson’s Ridge, and spoke with several Marines. He reassured Vandegrift that his main mission was to hold the airfield. He promised all the support he could offer, and after presenting Navy Crosses to several Marines, including Vandegrift, he left the next day feeling visibly encouraged by what he had observed.

The next move by the Marines involved a tough return to the Matanikau, this time with five infantry battalions and the Whaling group. Whaling led his men and the 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marines, in an advance inland to clear the way for two battalions of the 7th Marines, the 1st and 2nd, to push through and head toward the coast, targeting the Japanese troops holding31 along the Matanikau. Edson’s 2nd and 3rd Battalions would launch an attack across the river mouth. All the division’s artillery was set up to provide support.

On the 7th, Whaling’s troops moved into the jungle about 2,000 yards upstream on the Matanikau, facing some harassment from Japanese troops. However, the enemy wasn’t strong enough to halt their advance. They bypassed the enemy positions and set up camp for the night. Behind them, the 7th Marines were ready to move through their lines, cross the river, and launch an attack north against the Japanese on the 8th. The assault battalions of the 5th Marines moving toward the Matanikau on the 7th encountered a solid Japanese force about 400 yards from the river. Unknowingly, the Marines had come across strong advance elements of the Japanese 4th Regiment, which had crossed the Matanikau to establish a position from which they could shell the Marine perimeter. The fighting was fierce, and the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, struggled to make any headway, while the 2nd Battalion faced only minor resistance and reached the river bank. It then turned north to attack the inland flank of the enemy troops. Vandegrift sent in a company of raiders to support the 5th, which took up a holding position on the right, toward the beach.

Rain poured down on the 8th all day long, almost stopping any progress, but it didn’t stop the close combat around the Japanese pocket. The enemy troops eventually retreated, trying to escape the Marines who were gradually surrounding them. They charged at the raider's position closest to their escape route. A chaotic hand-to-hand battle broke out, and a few Japanese managed to break through and cross the river. The others died fighting.

On the 9th, Whaling’s force, supported by the 2nd and then the 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, crossed the Matanikau and then turned, following the ridges down to the sea. Puller’s battalion found several Japanese soldiers in a ravine ahead, fired mortars, and brought in artillery, while his men used rifles and machine guns to take down enemy troops trying to escape what turned out to be a trap. As his mortar ammo started to run low, Puller moved toward the beach, joining the rest of Whaling’s force, which hadn't faced any resistance. The Marines then recrossed the Matanikau, teamed up with Edson’s troops, and marched back to the perimeter, leaving a strong combat outpost at the now-cleared Matanikau. General Vandegrift, informed by intelligence that a major Japanese attack was imminent from the west, decided to consolidate his positions, ensuring that no significant Marine force was more than a day’s march from the perimeter. The Marine advance from October 7 to 9 had disrupted Japanese plans for an early attack and cost the enemy over 700 men. The Marines also paid a price, with 65 dead and 125 wounded.

32 Guadalcanal was taking a heavy toll on both sides. Disease was starting to take down soldiers in numbers that matched battle injuries. Besides gastroenteritis, which left those affected with debilitating stomach cramps, there were various tropical fungus infections, commonly called “jungle rot,” causing painful rashes on the feet, armpits, elbows, and groin, mostly because the men rarely stayed dry. If it wasn’t raining, sweating provided enough moisture. On top of all this, there were hundreds of malaria cases. Atabrine tablets offered some relief but also turned skin yellow, and they weren’t effective enough to prevent the spread of the mosquito-borne disease. Malaria attacks were so widespread that only complete exhaustion, landing someone in the hospital, could grant a break. Unsurprisingly, these illnesses hit hardest the men who had been on the island the longest, especially those who faced the early days of limited rations. Vandegrift had already argued with his superiors that when his men finally got relieved, they shouldn’t be sent to another tropical island hospital, but rather to a place with a significant change in atmosphere and climate. He suggested that Auckland or Wellington, New Zealand, be considered.

For now, though, there was no relief for the troops starting their third month on Guadalcanal. The Japanese weren't backing down from their plan to reclaim Guadalcanal and showed clear signs of their intentions around mid-October. General Hyakutake himself arrived on Guadalcanal on October 7 to oversee the upcoming offensive. Elements of Major General Masao Maruyama’s Sendai Division, already involved in the fighting near the Matanikau, landed with him. More troops were on the way. And the Japanese, exploiting the fact that Cactus flyers couldn't launch night attacks, were determined to make sure no planes would take off from Guadalcanal to confront them.

On October 11, U.S. Navy surface ships got involved in stopping the "Tokyo Express," the nickname given to Admiral Tanaka's nearly nightly reinforcement missions. A covering force of five cruisers and five destroyers, located near Rennell Island and led by Rear Admiral Norman Scott, received word that many ships were heading toward Guadalcanal. Scott's mission was to protect an incoming reinforcement convoy, and he raced toward Cactus at full speed, eager to engage. He encountered more ships than he had expected: a bombardment group consisting of three heavy cruisers and two destroyers, along with six destroyers escorting two seaplane carrier transports. Scott maneuvered between Savo Island and Cape Esperance, the western tip of Guadalcanal, and ran directly into the bombardment group.

Alerted by a scout plane from his flagship, San Francisco (CA 38), later confirmed by radar contacts on the Helena (CL 50), the Americans opened fire before the Japanese, who had no radar, realized they were there. One enemy destroyer sank immediately, two cruisers were heavily damaged, one, the Furutaka, later sank, and the remaining cruiser and destroyer turned away from the hell of American fire. Scott’s own force took hits from enemy return fire, damaging two cruisers and two destroyers, one of which, the Duncan (DD 485), sank the next day. On the 12th as well, Cactus pilots spotted two of the reinforcement destroyer escorts retreating and sank both of them. The Battle of Cape Esperance was an American naval victory, which was badly needed at the time.

Its path opened by Scott’s encounter with the Japanese, a much-needed reinforcement convoy reached the island on October 13 when the 164th Infantry of the Americal Division arrived. The soldiers, part of a National Guard unit from North Dakota, were armed with Garand M-1 rifles, a weapon that most Marines overseas had only heard about. In terms of fire rate, the semiautomatic Garand could easily surpass the single-shot, bolt-action Springfields that the Marines carried and the bolt-action rifles used by the Japanese, but most Marines from the 1st Division claimed that the Springfield was inherently more accurate and a better weapon. However, this didn’t stop some crafty Marines from snagging Garands whenever they could. And an opportunity did arise while the soldiers were landing and their supplies were being moved to storage. Several groups of Japanese bombers appeared over Henderson Field, relatively unharmed by the defending fighters, and started dropping their bombs. The soldiers took cover, while alert Marines, accustomed to the bombing, used the time to “liberate” interesting boxes and crates. The news that the Army had arrived spread across the island like wildfire, as it meant for all Marines that they would eventually be relieved. There was hope.

As if the bombing wasn’t enough pain, the Japanese also targeted the airfield with their 150mm howitzers. Altogether, the men of the 164th received a harsh welcome to Guadalcanal. That night, from October 13 to 14, they went through a terrifying experience with the Marines that no one would ever forget.

Determined to take out Henderson Field and protect their soldiers landing in force west of Koli Point, the enemy commanders sent the battleships Kongo and Haruna into Ironbottom Sound to bombard the Marine positions. The usual Japanese flare planes signaled the start of the bombardment, 80 minutes of complete chaos with 14-inch shells exploding so violently that the cruiser fire barely registered. No one was safe; no place was safe. No dugout could withstand 14-inch shells. One witness, a seasoned veteran who remained remarkably calm under enemy fire, stated that there was nothing worse in war than being helplessly subjected to naval gunfire. He recalled “huge trees being torn apart and flying around like toothpicks.” And he was on the front lines, not the primary target. The airfield and its surroundings were a wreck when dawn broke. The naval shelling, combined with the night’s artillery fire and bombing, left Cactus Air Force’s commander, General Geiger, with just a few aircraft still operational, an airfield heavily cratered by shells and bombs, and a death toll of 41. Nonetheless, from Henderson or Fighter One, which now became the main airstrip, the Cactus Flyers needed to launch attacks, as the morning revealed a shore and sea filled with tempting targets.

The expected enemy convoy made it through, and Japanese transports and landing craft were everywhere around Tassafaronga. At sea, the escorting cruisers and destroyers formed a strong anti-aircraft barrier. Every American plane that was able to fly did. General Geiger’s aide, Major Jack Cram, took off in the general’s PBY, quickly modified to carry two torpedoes, and hit one of the enemy transports while it was unloading. He landed the bulky flying boat with enemy aircraft chasing him. A new squadron of F4Fs, VMF-212, led by Major Harold W. Bauer, arrived during the day’s action, landed, refueled, and took off to join the fight. An hour later, Bauer landed again, this time with four enemy bombers credited to him. Bauer, who increased his tally of Japanese aircraft kills in later air battles, was ultimately lost in action. He was awarded34 the Medal of Honor, along with four other Marine pilots from the early Cactus Air Force: Captain Jefferson J. DeBlanc (VMF-112); Captain Joseph J. Foss (VMF-121); Major Robert E. Galer (VMF-224); and Major John L. Smith (VMF-223).

The Japanese had sent enough troops to wipe out the Marine beachhead and take the airfield. At least, that’s what General Hyakutake believed, and he fully backed General Maruyama’s plan to move most of the Sendai Division through the jungle, away from the Marines’ sight and contact, to launch an attack from the south near Edson’s Ridge. About 7,000 men, each carrying a mortar or artillery shell,35 began their journey along the Maruyama Trail, which had been partially carved out of the jungle far from Marine positions. Maruyama had approved the trail's name to show his confidence and planned to support this attack with heavy mortars and infantry guns (70mm pack howitzers). The soldiers who had to carry, push, and drag these supporting weapons over rough terrain, across two major streams, the Mantanikau and the Lunga, and through thick underbrush, might have had a different name for their commander’s path to expected glory.

General Vandegrift knew the Japanese were planning to attack. Patrols and reconnaissance flights had clearly indicated that the push would come from the west, where enemy reinforcements had landed. The American commander adjusted his plans accordingly. There were also Japanese troops east of the perimeter, but they were not in significant numbers. The new infantry regiment, the 164th, reinforced by Marine special weapons units, was deployed to hold the eastern flank along 6,600 yards, curving inland to connect with the 7th Marines near Edson’s Ridge. The 7th held 2,500 yards from the ridge to the Lunga. From the Lunga, the 1st Marines covered a 3,500-yard stretch of jungle running west to where the line curved back to the beach in the 5th Marines’ sector. Since the attack was expected from the west, the 3rd Battalions of both the 1st and 7th Marines established a strong outpost position forward of the 5th Marines’ lines along the east bank of the Matanikau.

In the quiet before the attack, if a time filled with patrol clashes, Japanese cruiser-destroyer bombardments, bomber attacks, and artillery harassment could be called a lull, Vandegrift was visited by the Commandant of the Marine Corps, Lieutenant General Thomas Holcomb. The Commandant flew in on October 21 to see for himself how his Marines were doing. It also became an opportunity for both senior Marines to meet the new ComSoPac, Vice Admiral William F. “Bull” Halsey. Admiral Nimitz had announced Halsey’s appointment on October 18, and the news was welcomed by Navy and Marine ranks throughout the Pacific. Halsey’s well-earned reputation for flair and aggressiveness promised renewed focus on the situation in Guadalcanal. On the 22nd, Holcomb and Vandegrift flew to Noumea to meet with Halsey and to receive and provide briefings on the Allied situation. After Vandegrift described his position, he strongly argued against diverting reinforcements intended for Cactus to any other South Pacific location, a sometimes factor in Admiral Turner’s strategic vision. He insisted that he needed all of the Americal Division and another 2nd Marine Division regiment to strengthen his forces, and that more than half of his veterans were worn out from three months of fighting and jungle-related diseases. Admiral Halsey told the Marine general: “You go back there, Vandegrift. I promise to get you everything I have.”

When Vandegrift got back to Guadalcanal, Holcomb moved on to Pearl Harbor to meet with Nimitz, bringing along Halsey’s recommendation that, in the future, landing force commanders, once on land, would have equal command authority as Navy amphibious force commanders. At Pearl, Nimitz approved Halsey’s recommendation—which Holcomb had written—and so did King in Washington. Essentially, the command structure for all future Pacific amphibious operations was shaped by what happened at Guadalcanal. Another piece of news Vandegrift received from Holcomb was also promising for the future of the Marine Corps. Holcomb mentioned36 that if President Roosevelt didn’t reappoint him, which was unlikely given his age and two terms in office, he would recommend that Vandegrift be the next Commandant.

This news about future events barely distracted Vandegrift as he flew back to Guadalcanal, since the Japanese were in the middle of their planned offensive. On the 20th, an enemy patrol backed by two tanks attempted to break through the line held by Lieutenant Colonel William N. McKelvy, Jr.’s 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines. A skilled 37mm gun crew took out one tank, causing the enemy force to retreat while bombarding the Marine positions with artillery. Near sunset the following day, the Japanese tried again, this time with heavier artillery fire and more tanks leading the charge, but once again a 37mm gun took out a lead tank and discouraged the assault. On October 22, the enemy paused, waiting for Maruyama’s force to position itself further inland. On the 23rd, planned as the day for the Sendai’s main attack, the Japanese unleashed a heavy barrage of artillery and mortar fire on McKelvy’s positions near the Matanikau River mouth. As dusk approached, nine 18-ton medium tanks emerged from the trees onto the river’s sandbar, and just as quickly, eight of them were hit by the 37mm guns. One tank managed to cross the river, but a Marine destroyed a track with a grenade, and a 75mm halftrack finished it off in the ocean surf. The enemy infantry that followed was overwhelmed by Marine artillery fire as all battalions of the reinforced 11th Marines unleashed shells on the massed attackers. Hundreds of Japanese were casualties, and three more tanks were destroyed. Later, an inland advance further upstream was easily pushed back. The unsuccessful coastal attack did almost nothing to support Maruyama’s inland offensive, but it prompted Vandegrift to move one battalion, the 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines, out of the lines to the east and into the 4,000-yard gap between the Matanikau position and the perimeter. This decision turned out to be fortuitous since37 one of Maruyama’s planned attacks was aimed directly at this area.

Although patrols had not found any Japanese forces east or south of the jungle boundary by the 24th, the Matanikau attempts had raised everyone's alertness. When General Maruyama finally felt that his troops had made it to the right assault positions, after pushing back his attack three times, he was ready on October 24. The Marines were prepared.

An observer from the 1st Battalion, 7th Marines spotted an enemy officer looking over Edson’s Ridge on the 24th. Scout-snipers reported smoke rising from several rice fires in a valley about two miles south of Lieutenant Colonel Puller’s positions. Six battalions of the Sendai Division were ready to attack, and near midnight, the first elements of the enemy struck and bypassed a platoon-sized outpost ahead of Puller’s barbed-wire defenses. Alerted by the outpost, Puller’s men waited, trying to see through the dark night and pouring rain. Suddenly, the Japanese charged out of the jungle, attacking in Puller’s area near the ridge and the flat ground to the east. The Marines responded with38 everything they had, calling in artillery, firing mortars, and relying heavily on crossing fields of machine gun fire to take down the enemy infantry. Fortunately, the enemy’s artillery, mortars, and other supporting units were scattered back along the Maruyama Trail; they had become too much of a burden for the infantry to carry forward.

A wedge was forced into the Marine lines, but eventually straightened out with repeated counterattacks. Puller quickly realized that his battalion was being hit by a strong Japanese force capable of ongoing assaults. He called for reinforcements, and the Army’s 3rd Battalion, 164th Infantry (Lieutenant Colonel Robert K. Hall), was sent forward, its soldiers sliding and slipping in the rain as they trudged a mile south along Edson’s Ridge. Puller met Hall at the head of his column, and the two officers walked down the Marine lines, taking one Army squad at a time to bolster the defenses. When the Japanese launched another attack, as they did all night long, the soldiers and Marines fought back together. By 0330, the Army battalion was fully integrated into the 1st Battalion, 7th Marines’ lines, and the enemy attacks were getting weaker. The American return fire—including flanking fire from machine guns and the Weapons Company, 7th Marines’ 37mm guns still in the positions held by the 2nd Battalion, 164th Infantry, on Puller’s left—was just too much for the enemy to withstand. Near dawn, Maruyama pulled his men back to regroup and prepare for another attack.

With daylight, Puller and Hall reorganized the lines, placing the 3rd Battalion, 164th, into its own positions on Puller’s left, connecting with the rest of the Army regiment. The heavy rains had turned Fighter One into a muddy mess, effectively grounding Cactus flyers. Japanese planes took advantage of the situation to bomb Marine positions. Their artillery fired non-stop, and a couple of Japanese destroyers contributed to the bombardment until they got too close to the shore, where the 3rd Defense Battalion’s 5-inch guns drove them away. As the sun beat down, the runways dried, and afternoon enemy attacks were met by Cactus fighters, who shot down 22 Japanese planes while losing three of their own.

As night fell again, Maruyama attempted more of the same but got the same result. The Army-Marine lines held, and the Japanese soldiers were mowed down in large numbers by rifle, machine gun, mortar, 37mm, and artillery fire. To the west, an enemy battalion launched three determined attacks against the positions held by Lieutenant Colonel Herman H. Hanneken’s 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines, which were only loosely connected with Puller’s battalion on the left and the 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, on the right. The enemy finally broke through Company F’s positions, but a counterattack led by Major Odell M. Conoley, the battalion’s executive officer, pushed the Japanese back. Once again at daylight, the American positions were secure, and the enemy had retreated. They wouldn't return; the major Japanese offensive of the Sendai Division was over.

About 3,500 enemy troops died during the attacks. General Maruyama’s proud claim that he “would wipe out the enemy around the airfield in one fell swoop” turned out to be hollow. What was left of his force now struggled back over the Maruyama Trail, losing, like the Kawaguchi force in a similar predicament, most of its seriously wounded39 men. The Americans, including both Marines and soldiers, probably lost 300 men killed and wounded; available records are patchy and incomplete. One outcome of the battle, however, was a warm welcome for the 164th Infantry from the 1st Marine Division. Vandegrift especially praised Lieutenant Colonel Hall’s battalion, saying the “division was proud to have another unit with it that had endured the test of battle.” And Colonel Cates sent a message to the 164th’s Colonel Bryant Moore stating that the 1st Marines “were proud to serve alongside a unit like yours.”

Amidst all the heroics of the two nights of fighting, many men were singled out for recognition, and an equally large number performed great deeds that went unnoticed. Two men distinguished themselves above all others, and on subsequent nights, Sergeant John Basilone of the 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, and Platoon Sergeant Mitchell Paige of the 2d Battalion, both heads of machine gun sections, were acknowledged for having acted “above and beyond the call of duty,” as noted in their inspiring Medal of Honor citations.

While the soldiers and Marines were fighting the Japanese on land, a patrol plane spotted a large Japanese fleet near the Santa Cruz Islands, east of the Solomons. The enemy force was powerful: 4 aircraft carriers, 4 battleships, 8 cruisers, and 28 destroyers, all ready for a successful attack when Maruyama captured Henderson Field. Admiral Halsey’s response to the tempting targets was typical; he signaled Rear Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid, whose carrier groups, including the Hornet and Enterprise, were positioned north of the New Hebrides: “Attack. Repeat: Attack.”

Early on October 26, American SBDs found the Japanese carriers just as Japanese scout planes spotted the American carriers. The Japanese Zuiho’s flight deck was damaged by the scout bombers, which canceled flight operations, but the other three enemy carriers launched strikes. The two air fleets clashed as each tried to reach the other's carriers. The Hornet was hit multiple times by bombs and torpedoes; two Japanese pilots also crashed their planes onto the deck. The damage to the ship was so severe that the Hornet was abandoned and sunk. The Enterprise, the battleship South Dakota, the light cruiser San Juan (CL 54), and the destroyer Smith (DD 378) were also hit; the destroyer Porter (DD 356) was sunk. On the Japanese side, no ships were sunk, but three carriers and two destroyers were damaged. One hundred Japanese planes were lost; 74 U.S. planes went down. Overall, the results of the Battle of Santa Cruz were a draw. The Japanese naval leaders might have continued their attacks, but instead,40 discouraged by the defeat of their ground forces on Guadalcanal, withdrew to fight another day.

The enemy naval force leaving signaled a time when significant reinforcements arrived on the island. The 2d Marines' headquarters had finally secured transport to come up from Espiritu Santo, and on October 29 and 30, Colonel Arthur moved his regiment from Tulagi to Guadalcanal, swapping his 1st and 2d Battalions for the battle-hardened 3d, which took over the duties at Tulagi. The 2d Marines' battalions at Tulagi had carried out the crucial work of scouting and securing all the small islands in the Florida group while they camped, feeling frustrated as they watched the battles across Sealark Channel. The men were no longer going to be spectators in the big show.

On November 2, planes from VMSB-132 and VMF-211 flew into the Cactus fields from New Caledonia. MAG-11 squadrons moved forward from New Caledonia to Espiritu Santo to be closer to the battle scene; the flight echelons could now operate forward to Guadalcanal with relative ease. On the ground, two batteries of 155mm guns, one from the Army and one from the Marine Corps, landed on November 2, providing Vandegrift with his first artillery units capable of matching the enemy’s long-range 150mm guns. On the 4th and 5th, the 8th Marines (Colonel Richard H. Jeschke) arrived from American Samoa. The full-strength regiment, reinforced by the 75mm howitzers of the 1st Battalion, 10th Marines, added another 4,000 men to the defending forces. All the fresh troops reflected a renewed emphasis at all levels of command on ensuring Guadalcanal would be held. The reinforcement-replacement pipeline was being filled. On the way as part of the Guadalcanal defending force were the rest of the Americal Division, the remainder of the 2nd Marine Division, and the Army’s 25th Infantry Division, which was then in Hawaii. More planes of every type from both Allied and American sources were scheduled to reinforce and replace the worn-out Cactus veterans.

The push for the increased pace of reinforcement came from President Roosevelt. Cutting through the countless demands for American troops around the world, he told each of the Joint Chiefs on October 24 that Guadalcanal needed to be reinforced immediately.

On the island, the pace of operations didn't slow down after the Maruyama offensive was pushed back. General Vandegrift wanted to clear the area immediately west of the Matanikau of all Japanese troops to prevent, if possible, another buildup of attacking forces. Admiral Tanaka’s Tokyo Express was still in operation, and despite heavy attacks from Cactus aircraft and new deadly opponents, American motor torpedo boats, now based at Tulagi.

On November 1, the 5th Marines, supported by the newly arrived 2nd Marines, launched an attack across bridges that engineers had set up over the Matanikau41 the night before. Inland, Colonel Whaling led his scout-snipers and the 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, in a movement to safeguard the flank of the main attack. The fighting was intense along the shore where the 1st Battalion, 5th, advanced toward Point Cruz, but further inland, the 2nd Battalion and Whaling’s group faced minimal resistance. By nightfall, as the Marines established their positions, it became apparent that the only significant enemy force was in the Point Cruz area. During the brutal fighting of those days, Corporal Anthony Casamento, a seriously injured machine gun squad leader in Edson’s 1st Battalion, performed so admirably that he was recommended for a Navy Cross; many years later, in August 1980, President Jimmy Carter approved awarding him the Medal of Honor instead.

On the 2nd, the attack continued with the reserve 3rd Battalion joining the fight and all three units of the 5th Marines moving to encircle the enemy defenders. On November 3, the Japanese stronghold just west of the base at Point Cruz was wiped out; well over 300 enemies were killed. Meanwhile, the attacking Marines faced scattered resistance and slowly advanced across tough terrain to a point about 1,000 yards beyond the 5th Marines' position. Just when the offensive's goals seemed within reach, the advance was stopped. Once again, the intelligence that a massive enemy reinforcement was on the way forced Vandegrift to pull back most of his men to protect the crucial airfield perimeter. This time, however, he left a regiment to secure the ground that had been gained, led by Colonel Arthur’s 2nd Marines, supported by the Army’s 1st Battalion, 164th Infantry.

Emphasizing the need for caution in Vandegrift’s mind was the fact that the Japanese were once again found in force east of the perimeter. On November 3rd, Lieutenant Colonel Hanneken’s 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines, conducting a reconnaissance mission towards Koli Point, could see the Japanese ships grouped near Tetere, eight miles from the perimeter. His Marines faced strong Japanese resistance from obviously fresh troops, and he started to pull back. A regiment from the enemy’s 38th Division had landed, as Hyakutake tried out a scheme promoted by the Japanese Navy to attack the perimeter from both flanks.

As Hanneken’s battalion carried out a fighting retreat along the beach, they started taking fire from the jungle inland as well. A rescue team was quickly organized under General Rupertus: two tank companies, the 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, and the 2nd and 3rd Battalions of the 164th. The Japanese troops, part of the 38th Division regiment and remnants of Kawaguchi’s brigade, fought hard to maintain their position as the Marines pushed forward along the coast and the soldiers tried to outflank the enemy in the jungle. The running battle went on for days, backed by Cactus air support, naval gunfire, and the newly arrived 155mm guns.

The enemy commander received new orders while he was struggling to hold off the Americans. He was instructed to pull back, move inland, and march to rejoin the main Japanese forces west of the perimeter, which was a tough task to accomplish. The plan for a two-pronged attack had been scrapped. The Japanese managed the first part; on the 11th, the enemy forces found a gap in the 164th's line and broke through along a winding jungle stream. They left behind 450 dead over the course of a seven-day battle; the Marines and soldiers had lost 40 dead and 120 wounded.

Basically, the Japanese who broke free from the surrounding Americans escaped one danger only to run straight into another. Admiral Turner finally managed to implement one of his various plans for alternative landings and beachheads, all of which General Vandegrift strongly opposed. At Aola Bay, 40 miles east of the main perimeter, the Navy landed an airfield construction and defense team on November 4. Then, while the Japanese were still fighting the Marines near Tetere, Vandegrift convinced Turner to detach part of this landing group, the 2nd Raider Battalion, to move westward and find and eliminate any enemy forces it came across.

Lieutenant Colonel Evans F. Carlson’s raider battalion had already seen action before reaching Guadalcanal. Two companies had reinforced the defenders at Midway Island during the Japanese attack in June. The rest of the battalion landed from submarines on Makin Island in the Gilberts on August 17-18, destroying the garrison there. For his role in the fighting on Makin, Sergeant Clyde Thomason was awarded a Medal of Honor posthumously, making him the first Marine enlisted man to receive the country’s highest award in World War II.

In its advance from Aola Bay, the 2nd Raider Battalion encountered the Japanese who were trying to retreat westward. On November 12, the raiders repelled attacks from two enemy companies and then relentlessly pursued the Japanese, engaging in a series of small skirmishes over the next five days before making contact with the main Japanese force. From November 17 to December 4, when the raiders finally emerged from the jungle ridges into the perimeter, Carlson’s men relentlessly targeted the retreating43 enemy. They killed nearly 500 Japanese soldiers, while their own losses were 16 killed and 18 wounded.

The Aola Bay project, which had given the 2d Raider Battalion a starting point for its month-long jungle campaign, turned out to be unsuccessful. The location selected for a new airfield was inadequate, too wet and unstable, and the entire force relocated to Koli Point in early December, where another airfield was eventually built.

The buildup on Guadalcanal continued by both sides. On November 11, a convoy protected by a cruiser-destroyer covering force brought in the 182nd Infantry, another regiment of the Americal Division. The ships were attacked by enemy bombers and three transports were hit, but the men made it ashore. General Vandegrift desperately needed the new troops. His veterans were truly ready for replacement; over a thousand new cases of malaria and related diseases were reported each week. The Japanese who had been on the island for any length of time were no better off; they were, in fact, in worse shape. Medical supplies and rations were in short supply. The whole focus of the Japanese reinforcement effort continued to be to get troops and combat equipment onto the island. The prevailing belief in Tokyo, despite all evidence to the contrary, was that one overwhelming coordinated assault would crush American resistance. The enemy's drive to take Port Moresby on New Guinea was put on hold to focus all efforts on driving the Americans off Guadalcanal.

On November 12, a diverse Japanese naval force gathered at Guadalcanal to support the landing of the main group of the 38th Division. Rear Admiral Daniel J. Callaghan’s cruisers and destroyers, providing close protection for the 182d’s transports, moved in to confront the enemy. Coastwatcher and scout plane sightings, along with intercepted radio communications, had identified two battleships, two aircraft carriers, four cruisers, and numerous destroyers all heading toward Guadalcanal. A bombardment group led by the battleships Hiei and Kirishima, along with the light cruiser Nagura and 15 destroyers, spearheaded the attack. Shortly after midnight, near Savo Island, Callaghan’s cruisers detected the Japanese on radar and continued to close in. The battle commenced at such close range that both sides sometimes fired upon their own ships. Callaghan’s flagship, the San Francisco, was hit 15 times, he was killed, and the ship had to retreat. The cruiser Atlanta (CL 104) was also hit and caught fire. Rear Admiral Norman Scott, who was on board, was killed. Despite heavy Japanese fire, the Americans held their ground and continued to fight. The battleship Hiei, hit by over 80 shells, withdrew, taking the rest of the bombardment force with it. Three destroyers were sunk, and four others were damaged.

The Americans had achieved their goal; they had forced the44 Japanese to retreat. The price was steep. Two antiaircraft cruisers, the Atlanta and the Juneau (CL 52), were lost; four destroyers, the Barton (DD 599), Cushing (DD 376), Monssen (DD 436), and Laffey (DD 459), also sank. Besides the San Francisco, the heavy cruiser Portland (CA 33) and the destroyers Sterret (DD 407) and Aaron Ward (DD 483) were damaged. Only one destroyer out of the 13 American ships involved, the Fletcher (DD 445), was undamaged when the survivors returned to the New Hebrides.

With daylight came the Cactus bombers and fighters; they found the damaged Hiei and attacked it relentlessly. On the 14th, the Japanese had no choice but to sink it. Admiral Halsey ordered his only remaining aircraft carrier, the Enterprise, to leave the Guadalcanal area to keep it out of reach of Japanese planes and sent his battleships Washington (BB 56) and South Dakota (BB 55) along with four escorting destroyers north to confront the Japanese. Some of the Enterprise’s planes flew into Henderson Field to help balance the situation.

On November 14, Cactus and Enterprise flyers discovered a Japanese cruiser-destroyer group that had bombarded the island on the night of November 13. They inflicted damage on four cruisers and one destroyer. After refueling and rearming, they targeted the incoming Japanese troop convoy. They struck several transports in one attack and sank one when they returned. Army B-17s from Espiritu Santo achieved one hit and several near misses while bombing from 17,000 feet.

Moving in a continuous cycle of attack, return, refuel, rearm, and attack again, the planes from Guadalcanal targeted nine transports, sinking seven. Many of the 5,000 troops aboard the damaged ships were rescued by Tanaka’s destroyers, which were firing heavily and laying smoke screens to protect the transports. The admiral later remembered that day vividly, with memories of “bombs dropping down from high-flying B-17s; of carrier bombers roaring toward targets as if to plunge straight into the water, dropping bombs and pulling up just in time, each miss creating huge clouds of mist and spray, every hit causing clouds of smoke and fire.” Despite the intense aerial assault, Tanaka continued on to Guadalcanal with four destroyers and four transports.

Japanese intelligence had detected the approaching American battleship group and informed Tanaka about it. In response, the enemy admirals dispatched their own battleship-cruiser group to intercept. The Americans, led by Rear Admiral Willis A. Lee on the Washington, arrived at Sealark Channel around 2100 on the 14th. An hour later, a Japanese cruiser was spotted north of Savo. Battleship fire quickly forced it to retreat. The Japanese then realized that their opponents would not be the cruisers they had anticipated.

The resulting battle, fought under the brightness of gunfire and Japanese searchlights, was probably the most important one fought at sea for Guadalcanal. When the fight was over, the American battleships’ 16-inch guns had more than held their own against the Japanese. Both the South Dakota and the Washington were badly damaged enough to force their retreat, but the Kirishima was hit hard enough to be abandoned and lost. One Japanese destroyer and three American destroyers, the Benham (DD 796), the Walke (DD 416), and the Preston (DD 379), were sunk. When the Japanese attack force pulled back, Admiral Tanaka ran his four transports onto the beach, knowing they would be easy targets at dawn. Most of the men on board, however, managed to get ashore before the inevitable onslaught from American planes, warships, and artillery.

Ten thousand troops from the 38th Division had landed, but the Japanese were not in any condition to try a massive reinforcement again. The terrible losses in the frequent naval battles, which sometimes seemed to favor the Japanese, didn’t really represent a stalemate. Every American ship that was lost or damaged could and would be replaced; every Japanese ship lost meant a shrinking fleet. In the air, the losses were significant for both sides, but the enemy’s naval air force would never recover from the loss of its experienced carrier pilots. Two years later, the Battle of the Philippine Sea between American and Japanese carriers would be fittingly referred to as the “Marianas Turkey Shoot” because of the incompetence of the Japanese trainee pilots.

The enemy troops that managed to reach land weren’t ready to attack the American positions right away. The 38th Division and the leftover Japanese units that had previously tried to break through the Marine lines needed to be organized into a unified attack force before General Hyakutake could make another attempt to capture Henderson Field.

General Vandegrift now had enough fresh units to start replacing his veteran troops along the front lines. The decision was made to replace the 1st Marine Division with the Army’s 25th Infantry Division. Admiral Turner told Vandegrift to leave all of his heavy equipment on the island when he pulled out “in hopes of getting your units re-equipped when you come out.” He also informed the Marine general that the Army would take command of the final phases of the Guadalcanal operation since it would provide most of the combat forces once the 1st Division left. Major General Alexander M. Patch, commander of the Americal Division, would take over from Vandegrift as the senior American officer on the ground. Air support would continue to be dominated by the Marines as General Geiger, now based on Espiritu Santo with the 1st Wing headquarters, dispatched his squadrons forward to keep the offensive going. The air command on Guadalcanal itself would remain a mixed group of Army, Navy, Marine, and Allied squadrons.

The sick list of the 1st Marine Division in November included over 3,200 men with malaria. The men of the 1st, still holding the front line and the back areas—if any place within Guadalcanal’s perimeter could truly be called a back area—were just plain exhausted. They had done their part and they knew it.

On November 29, General Vandegrift received a message from the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The main point was: "1st MarDiv is to be relieved without delay ... and will head to Australia for rehab and reassignment." Word quickly got out that the 1st was leaving and where it was headed. Australia hadn't yet become the beloved destination it would later be for the division, but any place was better than Guadalcanal.

On December 7, one year after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, General Vandegrift sent a message to everyone under his command in the Guadalcanal area, thanking them for their bravery and determination, especially the pilots and “everyone who worked hard and sweat within the lines on all kinds of incredible and important tasks.” He reminded them that their “unbelievable achievements had made ‘Guadalcanal’ a symbol of death and disaster in the eyes of our enemy.” On December 9, he handed over his command to General Patch and flew out to Australia47 as the first elements of the 5th Marines were boarding ships. The 1st, 11th, and 7th Marines would soon follow along with all the division’s support units. The men who were leaving were thin, exhausted, hollow-eyed, and indifferent; they were young men who had aged dramatically in just four months. They left behind 681 dead in the island’s cemetery.

The last unit of the Americal Division, the 132nd Infantry, arrived on December 8 as the 5th Marines were getting ready to leave. The regiments of the 2nd Marine Division already on the island—the 2nd, 8th, and part of the 10th—knew the 6th Marines were on their way back. Many of the guys in the 2nd Marines, who landed on D-Day, August 7, felt that they should also be leaving. They found little comfort in the idea that they should be the first from the 2nd to depart the island whenever that long-awaited day finally came.

General Patch received a continuous influx of ground reinforcements and replacements in December. He wasn’t ready to launch a full-scale offensive until the 25th Division and the rest of the 2nd Marine Division arrived, but he kept all frontline units engaged in combat and reconnaissance patrols, especially on the western flank.

The island commander’s air defense capabilities grew significantly. The Cactus Air Force, now organized into a fighter command and a strike (bomber) command, operated from a newly renamed Marine Corps Air Base. The Henderson Field complex featured a new airstrip, Fighter Two, which replaced Fighter One that had serious drainage issues. Brigadier General Louis Woods, who became the senior aviator when Geiger went back to Espiritu Santo, was replaced on December 26 by Brigadier General Francis P. Mulcahy, Commanding General of the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing. New fighter and bomber squadrons from both the 1st and 2nd Wings regularly sent their flight echelons forward. The Army added three fighter squadrons and a medium bomber squadron of B-26s. The Royal New Zealand Air Force brought in a reconnaissance squadron of Lockheed Hudsons. And the U.S. Navy sent a squadron of Consolidated49 PBY Catalina patrol planes, which had a much-needed night-flying capability.

The increase in aerial forces forced the Japanese to stop all air attacks and made attempting naval reinforcements during the day a thing of the past. The nighttime runs of the Tokyo Express destroyers now only delivered supplies in metal drums that were rolled off the ships in the hope that they would float to the shore. The troops on land desperately needed everything that could be sent, even using this method, but most of the drums never made it to the beaches.

Still, no matter how desperate the enemy's situation was getting, he was ready to fight. General Hyakutake kept planning to take the airfield. General Hitoshi Immamura, commander of the Eighth Area Army, arrived in Rabaul on December 2 with orders to keep the offensive going. He brought 50,000 troops to reinforce the beleaguered Japanese soldiers on Guadalcanal.

Before the new enemy units could be used, the Americans were ready to launch their own offensive. Aware that the Mt. Austen area posed an ongoing threat to his inland side during any push to the west, Patch assigned the Americal’s 132d Infantry the job of clearing the mountain’s wooded slopes on December 17. By early January, the Army regiment successfully isolated the main Japanese force in the area. The 1st Battalion, 2d Marines took up positions on the hillside southeast of the 132d to enhance flank protection.

By this time, the 25th Infantry Division (Major General J. Lawton Collins) had arrived, along with the 6th Marines (January 6) and the rest of the 2nd Division’s headquarters and support troops. Brigadier General Alphonse De Carre, the assistant commander of the Marine division, took charge of all Marine ground forces on the island. The commander of the 2nd Division, Major General John Marston, stayed in New Zealand because he outranked General Patch.

With three divisions under his command, General Patch was named Commanding General of XIV Corps on January 2. His corps headquarters had fewer than twenty officers and men, almost all from the Americal’s staff. Brigadier General Edmund B. Sebree, who had already led both Army and Marine units in attacks against the Japanese, took charge of the Americal Division. On January 10, Patch gave the order to launch the strongest American offensive so far in the Guadalcanal campaign. The goal for the troops was clear and straightforward: “Attack and destroy the Japanese forces still on Guadalcanal.”

The main goal of the corps' attack was a line about 1,000 to 1,500 yards west of the jump-off points. This line stretched inland from Point Cruz to around Hill 66, which is about 3,000 yards from the beach. To reach Hill 66, the 25th Infantry Division went in first, with the 35th and 27th Infantry advancing west and southwest across a jumbled series of ridges. The terrain was tough, and the entrenched enemy, made up of elements from two regiments of the 38th Division, put up a slow and reluctant fight. By the 13th, though, the American soldiers, supported by Marines from the 1st Battalion, 2d Marines, had pushed through to positions on the southern flank of the 2d Marine Division.

On January 12, the Marines started their advance with the 8th Marines along the coast and the 2nd Marines moving inland. At the base of Point Cruz, in the 3rd Battalion, 8th Marines’ area, the regimental weapons company halftracks took out seven enemy machine gun nests. The assault was then stalled by a significant enemy position until the weapons company commander, Captain Henry P. “Jim” Crowe, took command of a group of six Marine infantrymen who were taking cover from enemy fire and famously said, “You’ll never earn a Purple Heart hiding in a foxhole. Follow me!” The men followed him, and they eliminated the enemy position.

All along the front of the advancing assault companies, the situation was tough. The Japanese, who were remnants of the Sendai Division, were entrenched in the sides of a series of cross compartments, and their fire hit the Marines from the side as they moved forward. Progress was slow, despite heavy artillery support and naval gunfire from four destroyers offshore. In two days of intense fighting, flamethrowers were used for the first time, and tanks were brought into action. The 2nd Marines were now relieved, and the 6th Marines took over the attack along the coast while the 8th50 Marines advanced inland. Naval gunfire support, coordinated by naval officers onshore, significantly improved. On the 15th, the Americans, including both Army and Marine forces, reached their initial corps objective. In the Marine attack zone, 600 Japanese soldiers were killed.

The exhausted 2nd Marines had experienced their last infantry combat in Guadalcanal. A new unit was formed, a composite Army-Marine division, or CAM division, consisting of units from the Americal and 2nd Marine Divisions. The leadership came from the 2nd Division, since the Americal was in charge of the main perimeter. Two of its regiments, the 147th and the 182nd Infantry, moved up to attack alongside the 6th Marines still along the coast. The 8th Marines were effectively squeezed out of the front lines by a narrowing attack corridor as the inland mountains and hills closed in on the coastal path. The 25th Division, which was advancing through this rugged landscape, had the task of outflanking the Japanese near Kokumbona, while the CAM division moved west. On the 23rd, as the CAM troops approached Kokumbona, the 1st Battalion of the 27th Infantry surged north from the hills and took over the village site and Japanese base. There was only minimal but steady resistance to the American advance as the enemy retreated west toward Cape Esperance.

The Japanese had decided, though reluctantly, to abandon their efforts to retake Guadalcanal. Orders were issued in the name of the Emperor, and senior staff officers were dispatched to Guadalcanal to ensure compliance. The Navy would carry out the last runs of the Tokyo Express, but this time in reverse, to evacuate the garrison so it could regroup for future battles to defend the Solomons.

Receiving word that enemy ships were gathering again to the northwest, General Patch took precautions, just as Vandegrift had done many times before, to avoid overextending his forces in light of what seemed to be another enemy reinforcement attempt. He pulled the 25th Division back to strengthen the main perimeter defenses and instructed the CAM division to keep up its attack. When the Marines and soldiers moved out on January 26, they found it surprisingly easy, gaining 1,000 yards on the first day51 and 2,000 the next day. The Japanese were still fighting back at every turn, but not with much strength.

By January 30, the only frontline unit in the American advance was the 147th Infantry, while the 6th Marines held positions to its left rear.

The Japanese destroyer transports made their first trip to the island on the night of February 1–2, evacuating 2,300 men from their positions near Cape Esperance. On the night of February 4–5, they returned and rescued most of the Sendai survivors along with General Hyakutake and his Seventeenth Army staff. The last evacuation operation took place on the night of February 7–8, when a 3,000-man rear guard was brought on board. In total, the Japanese withdrew around 11,000 men over those three nights and evacuated about 13,000 soldiers from Guadalcanal overall. The Americans would encounter many of these soldiers again in later battles, but not the 600 evacuees who perished, too exhausted and ill to survive their rescue.

On February 9, American soldiers moving in from the east and west came together at Tenaro village on Cape Esperance. The only Marine ground unit still engaged was the 3rd Battalion, 10th Marines, providing support for the advance. General Patch was able to happily announce the “complete and total defeat of Japanese forces on Guadalcanal.” There were no organized Japanese units left.

On January 31, the 2nd Marines and the 1st Battalion, 8th Marines boarded ships to leave Guadalcanal. Just like the 1st Marine Division, some of these men were so weakened by malaria that they had to be carried on board. They all struck observers as young men who had aged “with their skins cracked and furrowed and wrinkled.” On February 9, the rest of the 8th Marines and a significant portion of the supporting division units boarded transports. The 6th Marines, thankfully only on the island for six weeks, left on the 19th. All were headed for Wellington, New Zealand, the 2nd Marines for the first time. Left behind on the island as a legacy of the 2nd Marine Division were 263 dead.

The total cost of the Guadalcanal campaign for the American ground combat forces was 1,598 officers and soldiers killed, including 1,152 Marines.52 The number of wounded reached 4,709, with 2,799 being Marines. Marine aviation casualties included 147 killed and 127 wounded. The Japanese, on the other hand, lost nearly 25,000 men on Guadalcanal, about half of whom were killed in action. The rest died from illness, wounds, and starvation.

At sea, the losses were nearly equal, with both sides losing about the same number of fighting ships. The enemy lost 2 battleships, 3 carriers, 12 cruisers, and 25 destroyers, which they couldn't replace. The Allied ship losses were significant but not devastating; essentially, all lost ships were replaced. In the air, at least 600 Japanese planes were shot down; even more damaging was the death of 2,300 skilled pilots and aircrew members. The Allied plane losses were less than half of the enemy’s, and the losses in pilots and aircrew were significantly lower.

President Roosevelt, expressing the gratitude of a thankful nation, awarded General Vandegrift the Medal of Honor for “outstanding and heroic accomplishment” in his leadership of American forces on Guadalcanal from August 7 to December 9, 1942. During the same period, he presented the Presidential Unit Citation to the 1st Marine Division (Reinforced) for “outstanding gallantry,” showcasing “courage and determination ... of an inspiring order.” The division’s citation and award included not just the organic units of the 1st Division, but also the 2nd and 8th Marines and attached units of the 2nd Marine Division, the entire Americal Division, the 1st Parachute and 1st and 2nd Raider Battalions, elements of the 3rd, 5th, and 14th Defense Battalions, the 1st Aviation Engineer Battalion, the 6th Naval Construction Battalion, and two motor torpedo boat squadrons. The essential Cactus Air Force was also acknowledged, represented by 7 Marine headquarters and service squadrons, 16 Marine flying squadrons, 16 Navy flying squadrons, and 5 Army flying squadrons.

The victory at Guadalcanal marked a crucial turning point in the Pacific War. The Japanese were no longer on the offensive. Some of the Japanese Emperor’s top infantrymen, pilots, and sailors had been defeated in close combat by the Americans and their Allies. There were years of fierce fighting ahead, but it was now clear what the outcome would be.

When the veterans of the 1st Marine Division came together in a grateful reunion 20 years later, they received a touching message from Guadalcanal. The sender was a legend to all "Canal" Marines, Honorary U.S. Marine Corps Sergeant Major Jacob C. Vouza. The Solomons native, speaking in his broken English, said: “Tell them I love them all. I’m old now, and I don’t look good anymore. But I will never forget.”

The main source for this booklet is the first volume in the series History of U.S. Marine Corps Operations in World War II, Pearl Harbor to Guadalcanal, written by LtCol Frank O. Hough, Maj Verle E. Ludwig, and Henry I. Shaw, Jr. (Washington: Historical Branch, G-3 Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1958). Other books referenced in writing this narrative include: BGen Samuel B. Griffith II, The Battle for Guadalcanal (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1963); Gen Alexander A. Vandegrift as told to Robert B. Asprey, Once a Marine: The Memoirs of General A. A. Vandegrift, USMC (New York: W. W. Norton, 1964); Col Mitchell Paige, A Marine Named Mitch (New York: Vantage Press, 1975); Burke Davis, Marine: The Life of Chesty Puller (Boston: Little, Brown, 1962); George McMillan, The Old Breed: A History of the 1st Marine Division in World War II (Washington: Infantry Journal Press, 1949); and Richard W. Johnston, Follow Me!: The Story of the Second Marine Division in World War II (New York: Random House, 1948).

The letters between General Vandegrift and General Holcomb, along with other senior Marines, stored at the Marine Corps Historical Center, were very useful. The conversations the author had with General Vandegrift after his retirement were equally valuable. Throughout his career as a Marine historian, the author has spoken with other Guadalcanal veterans of all ranks; hopefully, this has given him a good understanding of the campaign, which is essential for writing this overview.

The literature on the Guadalcanal operation is extensive. In addition to the books mentioned above, there are several that I personally recommend to interested readers: Robert Leckie, Helmet for My Pillow (New York: Random House, 1957); Herbert Merillat, Guadalcanal Remembered (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1982); John Miller, Jr., The United States Army in World War II: The War in the Pacific; Guadalcanal, The First Offensive (Washington: Historical Division, Department of the Army, 1949); T. Grady Gallant, On Valor’s Side (New York: Doubleday, 1963); Robert Sherrod, History of Marine Corps Aviation in World War II (Washington: Combat Forces Press, 1952); Maj John L. Zimmerman, The Guadalcanal Campaign (Washington: Historical Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1949); RAdm Samuel E. Morrison, The Struggle for Guadalcanal: History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Vol V (Boston: Little, Brown, 1950); and a recent, comprehensive account, Richard B. Frank, Guadalcanal (New York: Random House, 1990).

Henry I. Shaw, Jr., former chief historian of the History and Museums Division, was a Marine Corps historian from 1951 to 1990. He attended The Citadel from 1943 to 1944 and graduated cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in history from Hope College in Holland, Michigan. He earned a master’s degree in history from Columbia University. Mr. Shaw served as a Marine in both World War II and the Korean War. He co-authored four of the five volumes of the official history of Marine Corps operations in World War II and was the senior editor for most of the official histories of Marines in Vietnam. Additionally, he has written several brief histories about the Marine Corps and many articles on military history, along with over 50 signed book reviews.

The author sincerely thanks the Nautical and Aviation Publishing Company of America for allowing the use of the maps from BGen Samuel B. Griffith II’s The Battle for Guadalcanal and Doubleday Books and Jack Coggins for permitting the use of the sketches from his The Campaign for Guadalcanal. The author also appreciates Richard J. Frank and Herbert C. Merillat for granting permission to reproduce their photographs.