WW2 STORY OF GUADALCANAL

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ON TO GUADALCANAL

 Looking from the air like a zig-zaging squadron of water bugs, troop-carrying barges carry U.S. Marine reinforcements to the beach of Florida Island during one of the stages of the battle for the Solomons. The Marines seized beachheads on both Florida and Guadalcanal and occupied Tulagi. Heavy Japanese opposition was encountered on Guadalcanal and during August and September the enemy, at night, continued to land small contingents of troops at distant spots at Guadalcanal. During all this period the Japanese were well aware that the American position was little more than a beachhead some six to seven miles long and three miles deep—the western boundary being the Matanikau River and the eastern boundary Henderson Field. However, early in October the marines started another offensive west across the Matanikau River which they succeeded in crossing, and also cleared out a Japanese bridgehead a few days later, but it was not until early in 1943 that the Japanese ended all opposition to the American occupation of the Solomons.
 
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U.S. Marines pauses in a jungle clearing for a brief rest enroute to the front on Guadalcanal Island. The marine in the right foreground has attached to his helmet netting for use in camouflaging himself in the dense undergrowth. Shortly after this photograph was taken these leathernecks drove an enemy band far into the hills. Commenting on the campaign in the Solomons, Admiral Ernest J. King, commander in chief of the United States fleet on October 18, 1943, said: "Because the Japanese through the subsequent weeks and months were determined that Guadalcanal, with its Henderson field, should not be lost to them, the whole story of what the United States Marines did there is one which is too big, too involved, and too valiant to be reported in a summary as brief as this. But as the world knows by now the marines, in their victory at Guadalcanal, completed an ageless epic