On this day in 1943, Japanese troops evacuate Guadalcanal, leaving the island in Allied possession after a prolonged campaign. The American victory paved the way for other Allied wins in the Solomon Islands.
Guadalcanal is the largest of the Solomons, a group of 992 islands and atolls, 347 of which are inhabited, in the South Pacific Ocean. The Solomons, which are located northeast of Australia and have 87 indigenous languages, were discovered in 1568 by the Spanish navigator Alvaro de Mendana de Neyra (1541-95). In 1893, the British annexed Guadalcanal, along with the other central and southern Solomons. The Germans took control of the northern Solomons in 1885, but transferred these islands, except for Bougainville and Buka (which eventually went to the Australians) to the British in 1900.
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The Japanese invaded the Solomons in 1942 during World War II and began building a strategic airfield on Guadalcanal. On August 7 of that year, U.S. Marines landed on the island, signaling the Allies’ first major offensive against Japanese-held positions in the Pacific. The Japanese responded quickly with sea and air attacks. A series of bloody battles ensued in the debilitating tropical heat as Marines sparred with Japanese troops on land, while in the waters surrounding Guadalcanal, the U.S. Navy fought six major engagements with the Japanese between August 24 and November 30. In mid-November 1942, the five Sullivan brothers from Waterloo, Iowa, died together when the Japanese sunk their ship, the USS Juneau.
Both sides suffered heavy losses of men, warships and planes in the battle for Guadalcanal. An estimated 1,600 U.S. troops were killed, over 4,000 were wounded and several thousand more died from disease. The Japanese lost 24,000 soldiers. On December 31, 1942, Emperor Hirohito told Japanese troops they could withdraw from the area; the Americans secured Guadalcanal about five weeks later.
The Solomons gained their independence from Britain in 1978. In the late 1990s, fighting broke out between rival ethnic groups on Guadalcanal and continued until an Australian-led international peacekeeping mission restored order in 2003. Today, with a population of over half a million people, the Solomons are known as a scuba diver and fisherman’s paradise.
The battle of Guadalcanal cost Americans 1600+ killed another 4200+ wounded .Not many know that more Americans died from Malaria and other tropical diseases then killed in combat.It did mark a turning point for ground forces in the Pacific.
I’m pretty certain the US casualty figures listed are low. A quick search found a different figure for deaths, 7,000…and they were probably higher than that. Bones of US marines in shallow graves are still being found in the area around Henderson field, the site of the bloodiest land battles…most recently when someone was planting a banana tree.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2221657/Battle-Guadalcanal-Photos-grueling-Second-World-War-combat.html
The war in the Pacific was horrific beyond the pale of anything human. One of the best first hand accounts I’ve ever read on what is was like to be in the thick of it. Also EB (Sledgehammer) ponders the perplexing question of why the US felt the need to invade island wastelands when they could have just as easily went around.
With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa Paperback – May 1, 2007
by E. B. Sledge
Eugene Sledge became more than a legend with his memoir, With The Old Breed. He became a chronicler, a historian, a storyteller who turns the extremes of the war in the Pacific—the terror, the camaraderie, the banal and the extraordinary—into terms we mortals can grasp.”—Tom Hanks
So glad you posted this comment flash. That book was instrumental in making me fiercely and proudly antiwar. Anyone who still has a U. S. government approved concept of combat needs to read this book. Here’s the book read aloud:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=e+b+sledge+with+the+old+breed+disk+1
I have always wondered why we took so many islands.
Why didn’t we only go after the ones that had airstrips,,which would have neutralized the Japs w/o killing so many Americans or Japanese.
After neutralizing them,the ones who were isolated could have either surrendered or starved but nobody would have been killed in combat.
Island hopping: When you start from Australia as the staging area and want to avoid the majority of Japanese troops and planes that were based in SE Asia and China, a map will show you that MacArthur’s strategy made sense.
My step-father was a B-24 co-pilot and based on Henderson Field. He had a few stories. I later worked with a geologist who had been a USMC medic from Guadalcanal to Iwo Jima. He, too, had a few observations.
Hindsight shows that our heavy artillery from battleships did not accomplish what was expected against the Japanese defenses. That led to the too-high casualty rate during landings and beach crossings.
Thanks-I have always read and understood the idea of island hopping but I was just questioning why we took any islands except the ones with airfields.
I guess it is easier to be an armchair warrior.