Tuesday, August 07, 2007
This Day in American History
On this day in 1942, the Battle of Guadalcanal began as U.S. Marines landed in force on a Japanese held island in the Pacific during World War II. Throughout most of this battle, the Americans ruled the surrounding waves by day and the Japanese owned the sea at night. Guadalcanal in the Solomons, east northeast of Australia, was the first of a string of tough island invasions, all of which we won, but at no small price as the Japanese fought tenaciously if not well and rarely surrendered. A very tough fight on Guadalcanal would last for the Marines until November, when they were relieved in large part by Army troops, who fought into February, 1943. The fight would cost us about 1,800 dead (nearly 5,000 out at sea) while we slaughtered them (sometimes as they made near suicidal 'banzai' charges) killing 25,000 out of the 36,000 troops on the island before the survivors were evacuated.
Labels: WWII history; Pacific theater
# posted by Roger Fraley @ 7:42 AM 
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There's a pretty good novel about this campaign called the Thin Red Line by James Jones. I believe he was there. He wrote a few other good books too.
# posted by 
: 7:24 PM
: 7:24 PM
I've read two thirds of the trilogy he wrote. His book starts in November with the Army troops going in (and getting chewed up). Thanks for the recommendation.
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