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In August 1942, on an obscure island in the Solomon Islands inhabited by 15,000 Melanesians and about fifty Europeans (mostly missionaries), the United States launched its first offensive of the Pacific War. It was probably the only time in the war that Japan and the United States met on more or less equal terms, and the outcome remained in doubt for several months. Both sides eventually recognized that Guadalcanal might well be the decisive campaign of the war and poured reinforcements into the South Pacific theater. Though they fought doggedly, in the end the Japanese could not match superior American airpower, firepower on the ground, and logistical support. In early February 1943, the Imperial Navy evacuated the tattered, malnourished remnants of a once-proud Japanese ground force. Although years of fighting remained in the Pacific, the strategic postures of Japan and the United States had shifted irreversibly. The Japanese, not the Americans, were on the defensive. Guadalcanal was the turning point in the Pacific War.1

Few battles in American history stir the emotions like Guadalcanal. Mention of it conjures up images of beleaguered Marines in hideous jungle conditions desperately defending what for a few months was the most precious real estate in the Pacific, of rotting corpses, of emaciated Japanese soldiers attempting to blunt American firepower with little more than courage and determination, of deadly Japanese Long Lance torpedoes sending many American warships and crews to their graves in the shark-infested waters of Iron Bottom Sound, and of underpowered American P-400s and sturdy F4F Wildcat fighters scrambling from Henderson Field to meet daily attacks from Mitsubishi-built Betty bombers and Zero fighter-escorts. The epic air, sea, and land campaign—"triphibious" in Churchillspeak—still serves as a source of inspiration, horror, instruction, scholarly debate, box-office receipts, and authors' royalties.

Guadalcanal had it all. Horrific combat in the air, on the seas, and especially on the ground. Colorful heroes, ignominious failures, and ordinary men on both sides who died far from home. Guadalcanal was a test of the strategic instincts of the best and the brightest of both Japan and the United States. It was a test of will and, some would argue, of national character. Above all, it was a test of the ability of each combatant to conduct operations hundreds of miles away from main bases in some of the most hostile physical conditions on the planet. It soon became a prolonged campaign of attrition, where the ability to provide food, medical supplies, war materiel, and more troops would be decisive.

To appreciate the drama and significance of Guadalcanal, we must do our best to bracket our knowledge of how the war in the Pacific turned out. To be sure, the battle of Midway in June was a dramatic victory for the United States, and the loss of four Japanese aircraft carriers compared to the single American flattop, Yorktown, was a major reversal for the Imperial Navy. But in and of itself, Midway was not decisive. The Imperial Fleet, though weakened, was still formidable; the Japanese army had not yet tasted defeat; and the Rising Sun still flew over much of the Central and South Pacific.

During the first six months of 1942, the Japanese had pushed deeper into the South Pacific, seizing Rabaul in the Bismarck Archipelago, Lae and Salamua in New Guinea, and Tulagi in the Solomon Islands. This was an effort to consolidate earlier gains as well as to establish a network of bases that could support air and sea operations against Allied counterattack. In what must have seemed like a relatively routine decision at the time, the Japanese naval brass in mid-June 1942 authorized the construction of an airbase on the island of Guadalcanal, about 25 miles across the Sealark Channel from a seaplane base already established at Tulagi. A functioning air base at Guadalcanal not only would enhance the Japanese defensive perimeter in the South Pacific, it would threaten vital sea lanes to Australia. Throughout June and July 1942 advance units and construction forces began to clear land and build an air strip on the site of a coconut plantation.

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