Guadalcanal
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Japanese Soldier's Poem Captures Guadalcanal Desperation February 09, 2023
he surprise attack on December 7, 1941, on U.S. military forces at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, by the Japanese air force was quickly followed by a string of dazzling Japanese military forays. This Japanese “blitzkrieg” captured tens of thousands of Allied ...
Guadalcanal: Malnutrition, Disease, Boredom, Terror February 09, 2023
For the infantryman, the campaign on Guadalcanal was synonymous with misery. The Americans who had the misfortune to serve on the island, particularly from August through October 1942, were denied the very basics of living as we know it. Those ashore...
Complete Naval Monograph of Guadalcanal Campaign February 08, 2023
As one who participated in the long-drawn campaign of Guadalcanal, I cannot find more appropriate words to characterize that operation than those of my predecessor, General Vandegrift, in his special prefatory note.To him, as to many thousands of oth...
WW II: Guadalcanal (Animated) February 07, 2023
On Surviving Iwo Jima and Guadalcanal January 30, 2023
On this episode of the RealClearDefense podcast “Hot Wash,” RCD contributor John Waters speaks with William Swanson, a Marine Corps veteran of the battle of Guadalcanal in World War II’s Pacific campaign. Now 98 years old, Swanson is the author of “T...
A Look Inside Company K at Guadalcanal September 20, 2022
Historian David (Crucible of Hell) recounts in this stirring saga the WWII campaigns of Company K, the 1st Marine Division unit whose exploits at Peleliu and Okinawa were documented by Eugene B. Sledge in his celebrated combat memoir With the Old Bre...
Munro's Devotion Saved Hundreds Of Marines September 13, 2022
Douglas Munro embodied honor and service. He would not leave his men behind during the battle of Guadalcanal and sacrificed his life for their safety and future....
Critical Role of Patrol Boats May 06, 2022
General Vandergrift could not have been more succinct to the U.S. Senate on May 6, 1946, when giving his now famous Bended Knee speech. He must have dutifully recalled the very horrors, difficulties, and triumphs that became Operation Watchtower at ...
Fending Off Japan's Coral Sea Invasion May 02, 2022
The battle of the Coral Sea (3-8 May 1942) ended as the first major Japanese setback of the Second World War, and marked the end of the period of rapid Japanese expansion across the Pacific that began after the attack on Pearl Harbor. By the early s...
10 Famous -- and Infamous -- Retreats January 14, 2022
On January 14, 1943, the Japanese Navy began their operation to successfully evacuate the remaining Japanese land forces from the Island of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands of the Pacific Ocean. Called Operation Ke, the withdrawal of the Japanese ...
Japanese Decisions in WW II Often Reckless December 31, 2021
At the height of the Pacific War, a strange theory about how long emaciated soldiers would live gained currency among starving Japanese troops fighting U.S. forces on the island of Guadalcanal.Soldiers who could manage to stand on their own two feet ...
Japan's Guadalcanal Humiliation December 31, 2021
The first Japanese general officer to suggest abandoning Guadalcanal to the Americans was probably Maj. Gen. Kenryo Sato, the War Ministry’s chief of its Military Affairs Bureau. More important, General Sato was also an adviser to General Hideki Tojo...
Pacific Theater Had Critical Consquences December 28, 2021
Eighty years ago this month, the American entry into World War II was precipitated by the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. But the ensuing clash in the war’s Pacific theater has long been overshadowed in American memory by the battles in Eur...
This Major Pacific Theater Battle Oft Overlooked December 16, 2021
I have had the occasion to search for available statistics over the internet regarding World War II and have discovered that the Battle for Luzon is commonly and, unfortunately, overlooked by the public when we recall World War II. Luzon was the seco...
Japan Strives to Forget Guadalcanal February 01, 2021
TOKYO – When dignitaries and guests gather on the remote island of Guadalcanal this week to commemorate the epic battle where Japan's relentless advance in World War II was finally halted, one group will be conspicuous by their absence – the Japanese...
WW II: Guadalcanal Landings August 07, 2020
Navy's Ability to Adapt Key at Guadalcanal August 07, 2020
The naval battles off Guadalcanal in 1942 were part of the first major U.S. amphibious offensive in the Pacific. Although the U.S. Navy’s performance in the campaign was mixed, the fighting at Guadalcanal resulted in the seizure of the strategic init...
WW II: 6 Times U.S. Army Crushed Japanese August 07, 2020
The general narrative of World War II credits the Marines and Navy for the victory in the Pacific and the Army and U.S. Army Air Corps for victory in Europe. In reality, there are actually a few Marine veterans of fighting in Europe and a massive num...
After Guadalcanal, Operation Cartwheel August 06, 2020
The bloody fight for Guadalcanal, where the string of Japanese conquests in the Pacific had finally run its course, was a turning point of World War II. Still, the long island road to Tokyo Bay would require fighting a tenacious foe across desolate i...
WW II: Selfless Acts, Crucial Results August 06, 2020
No one wants war. When economic, diplomatic, territorial or political/religious relationships have deteriorated to the point that the opposing sides feel there is nothing to be gained from continued negotiation and they resort to armed conflict, ever...
WW II: Close Combat on the Water June 15, 2020
In the Pacific Theater of World War II, many of the battles were either curb-stomp affairs by one side or the other — either because Japan was "running wild" in the early parts of the war, or because America brought its industrial might to bear.Many ...
Confidence, a Couple of Battleships Won Guadalcanal November 15, 2019
Burning ships and bodies littered the field of battle off the shores of Guadalcanal at dawn on November 13, 1942. The previous night, American and Japanese ships had clashed in arguably the most unorganized and chaotic naval battle of World War II. A...
U.S. Turns Tide at Guadalcanal November 14, 2019
At dawn on Friday, November 13, 1942, burning, wrecked ships littered the waters of Guadalcanal. At a cost of five ships and thousands of lives, the U.S. Navy had blunted Japan's drive to break the Guadalcanal stalemate. Despite the strategic defeat ...
U.S. Reversal at Guadalcanal October 25, 2019
Eight months after being attacked at Pearl Harbor, the U.S. finally sent ground forces up against the enemy. The site was a steaming, disease-ridden equatorial island northeast of Australia called Guadalcanal.The U.S. Navy had already engaged the Jap...
Guadalcanal Battle of Attrition October 10, 2019
The Japanese defeat at the Battle of Midway had forced planners in the Imperial Army to reconsider their plans of expansion and to concentrate their forces on consolidating the territory that they had captured. The victory at Midway was also a turnin...
