Since landing on August 7, the Marines had spent a considerable amount of time expanding the airstrip. strategy in the early days of World War II. Ninety miles long and 25 miles at its widest point, Guadalcanal was of strategic importance to U.S. Knowing he had unearthed some vital information, Brush sent his runner back to headquarters to give the papers to the G-2 Section (Intelligence) to study. This could mean only one thing: they had just arrived on Guadalcanal as an advance party for a much larger force preparing to attack the Marine perimeter at Henderson Field. ![]() The young captain also noted that this group had possessed “an inordinate amount of rank” and their uniforms were in pristine condition. They showed our weak spots all too clearly.” Brush commented years later: “With a complete lack of knowledge of Japanese on my part, the maps the Japanese had of our positions were so clear as to startle me. Searching the bodies, the Marines discovered quite a few documents that looked official. The bloody campaign for the island in the Solomons chain ended in February 1943, with the defeat of the Japanese. Marines land virtually unopposed on Guadalcanal in August 1942. The Marines had lost three killed and three wounded. In less than an hour, 31 enemy soldiers lay dead. As several Marines neared a clump of fruit trees, they saw a Japanese patrol casually strolling by and “not in military formation.”īrush sent the majority of his men in a frontal assault while one platoon scurried around the enemy’s right to outflank them. ![]() ![]() Several days later, Brush’s 60-man group was dispatched to destroy the communications building and equipment.Īt noon, the leathernecks stopped to eat and take a break from the intense tropical heat. Coast watchers also verified that the Japanese had established a radio station near Taivu and that they had the Marines under constant surveillance. Brush, they had orders to follow the coastal road to the Koli Point-Tetere area.įather Arthur Duhamel, a Catholic priest from Massachusetts who resided on Guadalcanal, had informed an earlier patrol that a large enemy force was nearby. On the humid morning of August 19, 1942, infantrymen from Company A, 1st Battalion, 1st Marines carefully eyed the landscape for any signs of Japanese soldiers as they slowly made their way through the thick jungle on the island of Guadalcanal, located in the Solomon Islands.
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