Today In History: Guadalcanal

On Aug. 7, 1942, Marines brought in by Navy ships came ashore on the South Pacific island of Guadalcanal to destroy an air base being constructed by the Japanese.

The Allies believed that the airbase would have given Japan a source to provide bombing support for attacks on New Guinea and then on to Australia.

The men of the 1st Division United States Marine Corps were supported by forces from Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and Tonga, and Great Britain.

The Marines had the airfield in two days. They never lost Henderson Field again, but the fight to hold it turned into a saga of jungle and mud and blood. Every night, Japanese warships offshore pounded the Marine positions.

A great naval battle developed, and nearly 30 American ships and 30 Japanese ships, including aircraft carriers and heavy cruisers, went to the bottom off Guadalcanal in waters that came to be called 'Iron Bottom Sound.'

Japanese bombers attacked Henderson Field so regularly that the Marines set their watches by them. Food ran short. Meals were cut to two a day. Disease became the enemy of both sides.

More Japanese soldiers died of malaria and starvation than were killed in battle. By October, the Japanese, desperate to retake the airfield, began nightly suicide attacks against the Marines' barbed-wire gun emplacements.

The resulting 6-month battle was costly for both sides: the United States lost 5,000 men, 24 ships, and 615 aircraft. The Japanese had more than 21,000 fatalities, 26 ships sunk, and 680 planes shot down.

The victory established a jumping-off point for the air and sea campaigns to come in islands to the north: the Russell Islands, New Georgia, New Britain, and farther north to the Philippines and Okinawa.