Guadalcanal, Tulagi and Gavutu: American Perseverance in the Summer of '42

The Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese surprise air strike on Pearl Harbor and subsequent attacks on American bases in the Philippines dealt U.S. naval and air forces a savage material blow.

For six months, Japan maintained what military analysts call "the strategic initiative." Japan acted, the U.S. and its allies reacted. Japanese forces, with their fast aircraft carriers providing the offensive muscle, seized territory and threatened allied lines of communication in the central, western and southern Pacific. Japanese commanders determined when and where major combat action would occur.

The heady, fast-paced and sensational days of Japanese offensive superiority lasted until the first week of June 1942, when the U.S. Navy skillfully ambushed an advancing Japanese fleet near Midway Island. The Battle of Midway ended on June 7 with four Imperial Japanese Navy carriers on the sea floor and the rest of the battered Midway invasion fleet retreating west toward Japan.

The strategic initiative had shifted. Where and when major offensive action occurred became American decisions.

U.S. intelligence discovered that Japanese troops were building an airfield on the island of Guadalcanal, in the Solomon Islands east of New Guinea. Guadalcanal and its small neighboring islands, Tulagi and Gavutu-Tanambogo, became the first offensive where.

Seventy years ago this month became the when. The 70th anniversary of the Guadalcanal invasion may not seem particularly significant, until we realize that by the 80th anniversary, the World War II generation will be gone.

On Aug. 7, 1942, the 1st Marine Division waded ashore on Guadalcanal and the Japanese garrison disappeared into the island's jungle. The Marines 1st Parachute Battalion hit Gavutu-Tanambogo. First Raider Battalion and 2nd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment landed on Tulagi.

The U.S. had previously struck back at Japanese territory with carrier air strikes on Japanese-held islands and the spectacular Doolittle air raid on Tokyo in April 1942. The Doolittle raid was a truly sensational operation, but a psychological counter to Japan's military and political successes, not a decisive military response.

At Guadalcanal, Tulagi and Gavutu, however, America was engaged in an actual take-back.

Take-back proved to be anything but heady and fast-paced. The Marine's who captured Guadalcanal's airfield (and renamed it Henderson Field) quickly discovered the island was a tropical morass of mud, jungle, oppressive heat and insects. In his official history of the battle, Samuel Eliot Morison described the island as the "happy hunting grounds of the malaria carrying mosquito," with vegetation that "gives the island a strange leprous appearance."

On Tulagi and Gavutu, however, the Japanese didn't flee. They resisted, fiercely. The troops on Tulagi were rikusentai -- Special Naval Landing Forces. First Raider's commanding officer, Lt. Col. Merritt A. Edson, had observed Japanese soldiers fighting in China, so stiff resistance didn't surprise him. As retired Marine Col. Joseph Alexander noted in his book "Edson's Raiders" (Naval Institute Press, 2001), the Raiders were prepared for night attacks and camouflaged log-and-coral fortifications.

"Yet there was one dramatic element of the Japanese defense of Tulagi," Alexander wrote, that neither Edson "nor anyone else in the Pacific anticipated. The Japanese defenders of the small islands, from Tulagi and Gavutu to Tarawa and Saipan, would fight to the death -- or commit suicide -- rather than surrender. ... The battle for the small islands of Tulagi and Gavutu ... provided a sobering foretaste of the battles to come across the Central Pacific."

Alexander could have added other Pacific island bloodbaths. Japanese defenders on Tulagi utilized caves and conducted local counterattacks in a manner that prefigured their bitter defense of Okinawa.

The Japanese Navy surprised U.S. naval forces near Guadalcanal on Aug. 8. The U.S. Navy temporarily withdrew, leaving the Marines short on heavy weapons and supplies. Japan ultimately reinforced the island. Subsequent Japanese Army attacks on Henderson Field were as ferocious as the death-fight on Tulagi.

The battle for Guadalcanal would last six months, until February 1943. It was a hard slog, anything but sensational. Securing victory over Japan would take another two-and-a-half years of slug-it-out perseverance. Japanese fanatical resistance exacted heavy casualties, which America accepted as the price of victory in the Pacific. Only the sensationally destructive atomic bomb attacks of August 1945 prevented the final battle for Tokyo from being a Tulagi and Okinawa writ large.

The sacrifices those who fought in WW2 were amazing. My dad was headed across the Pacific for the invasion and ended up with the occupation forces in Japan from August 1945 through January 1947. I remember pictures of Hiroshima he took while securing the city ... he died 10 years later.

I don't blame any one individual for wasting the legacy those brave soldiers left us, if I blame anybody, its the baby boomers for their refusal to support our troops in Vietnam which in my opinion started the decline in America we have seen since then. It is kinda ironic how so many of the sons and daughters of the greatest generation turned out to be such weenies and out right cowards. Thank you for your fathers service you have the right to be very proud.

The Baby Boomers, the damn blubbering Baby Boomers; and the ironic thing about it is that Bill Clinton, the biggest blubberer of them all was able to pull the wool over the eyes of many in that Greatest Generation who were Roosevelt Democrats. They actually excused his draft dodging; and my dad had always detested draft dodgers - but, the Clintons were his babies - and FDR was his Commander-in-Chief, as was Truman.

My write-in would be Sarah Palin/ Paul Ryan -- but West is definitely an acceptable substitute...

But -- as indicated -- I will do whatever damages Ø'bozo's chances of reelection the most. Anything else would be treason...

Purism = treason.

God bless your Daddy, Twinkie, and the men and women like him who fought and suffered.

This vote in November is the most important vote since the Civil War. We had better win this war in November, and oboma must be removed. People must pull together like they did in WWII...that is what I pray for.

Nice talking to you and hearing about your Daddy.

Yes! November! I’m praying to live until that election; then I’ll crawl over broken glass, push a peanut with my nose, crawling over broken glass all the way to town, get in some Panther’s faces if they try to intimidate me, and whatever it takes, to vote against the Mugabe/Stalin wannabe. May the good Lord help us! - I also assure you that I saw through him the first time around; and didn’t fall for any of his jive. - Am nervous about what his minions might pull in order to keep him in POWER!

The nightly bombardments from Japanese ships were
bad enough, but the loss of supplies gave real
meaning to the name the Marines gave Guadal...
Starvation Island.

Oooorah, Chesty, Machine Gun John Basilone, and
many others got their chops there.

You're some fighter, and more of what we need here in the Chicago area. I remember learning about obozo the first time when I read a feature article in the Chicago Tribune magazine section about this lover of all that is Abraham Lincoln. It featured a photo of the faux president (senator at the time) sitting on the edge of his desk, with assorted pictures of Abraham Lincoln propped up against the wall all around the room..I first thought who is this guy trying to impress! There were maybe 20 frames pictures of Abraham Lincoln. And so began the rise of the socialist/marxist/communist/revolutionary/sharia law loving thug known as barack oboma. It's interesting how some people have a fine intuition, an ability to pick up on BS and con men. You and I are kindred spirits.

I wont vote for a liberal who will replace Scalia and Kennedy with liberal justices. I wont vote for a liberal who IMO will likely come up with some scheme “only a Republican president could achieve” of drastically cutting military spending.

If you consider that treason we don't live in the same universe...

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