I guess I’d be called a racist if I mentioned the USMC fought the Japs and beat them, the best they had at the time.
I recall reading a book by a Japanese pilot. He mentioned hearing that U.S. Marines had landed on a certain island and were fighting like demons.
“Maline you die. Maline you die tonight. Fluck Babe Luth” those were some of the verbal taunts used by the Japanese against the Marines.
The Chief of US Naval Operations, Admiral Ernest J. King, gaffed off the handshake agreement between Roosevelt and Churchill, which so much as surrendered Australia and even Hawaii to the Japs, in order to defeat the Axis powers first.
He took the US Navy and Marine Corps to war with what they had against the best navy in the world.
Very, very, very brave men. We owe them eternal gratitude.
would show the world the mettle of the fighting men
...ONCE AGAIN show the world
In 1942 my Dad was 16, waiting until he was 17 so he could (and di) enlist in the USMC to go avenge those who attacked us at Pearl Harbor.
More men were like that, back then. These days finding a male that enlisted after 9/11/2001 is really hard.
The only such person I know, is my niece...who did 12 years in the Air Force.
IMO, the best book ever written on the battle. I first read it fifty years ago, and can still recall some of the passages.
Challenge For The Pacific: the Bloody Six-month Battle Of Guadalcanal
by Robert Leckie
https://www.amazon.com/Challenge-Pacific-Bloody-Six-month-Guadalcanal/dp/0306809117
Then the US Navy cut an ran with his heavy equipment, most of his artillery shells and food.
Guadalcanal was horrendously brutal and bloody. The Japanese were calling it the island of death by the end when their survivors were withdrawn.
The Japanese government brainwashed their people and soldiers to believe that Americans were soft and lazy and only cared about parties and dancing to jazz. The Japanese were often stunned by the ferocity of American attacks because they believed their propaganda wholeheartedly.
They also brainwashed them that they were superior to Americans and that Americans were mostly animals who would rape, torture, and kill them if captured which is why they refused surrender so often.
The Marines fought until they were worn out by constant fighting some time in December of 42. At the end of the Guadalcanal campaign the force was mainly US Army led by Alexander Patch, who would later go on to replace Patton as head of 7th Army. The Army played a larger role in the Pacific than most people realize.