[Waco]

25,000 vs. 1600,,,,ponder that muzzies.

[Vaquero]

Dad was in the second wave of Marines on the 'canal', after that they shipped him off to Bougainville in the first wave. A mosquito then infected him with some bit of nasty and they shipped him state side where, after he healed, was a guard at the naval prison in Portsmouth. He was all set to head back to the pacific war when Truman bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki(thank God).

He would never speak of it even when I asked him questions.

He is in a nursing home and he still ain't talking.

God Bless America.

[Psalm 73]

Thanks for the post - I read "Guadalcanal Diary" as a kid and re-read a few years ago - great book.

[johnny7]

I believe when the Marines landed... some were still wearing the WWI-style helmet and all were carrying the 06 Springfields. I don't even think they had many Higgins Boats at that time.

In his book Goodbye Darkness, William Manchester devotes a chapter to it. It's simply called...'The Canal'.

[greasepaint]

who made the decision to invade Guadacanal?

MacArthur, Halsey, Nimitz, King, Marshall?

[Go Army.com]

Modern Day Headline for Gudalcanal Invasion:

"Japanese Freedom Fighters Resist Murderous Marines"

[sergeantdave]

If anyone has a lead on where I might find and buy a book titled "Marines at War," please contact me.

Published in 1943 by Hyperion Press, this book covers the Guadalcanal campaign.

[GATOR NAVY]

...compared with a loss of 1,600 by the Americans.

That's a very low figure and probably counting only Army and Marines.

Richard Frank's "Guadalcanal" (which I highly recommend) lists U.S. ground force deaths at 1,789 and U.S. naval deaths at 4,911. He has total Allied air, ground and naval deaths at 7,100 and Japanese air, ground and naval deaths at a minimum of 30,300.

[Snickersnee]

My father (1915-2000) landed on the Canal on D-Day with the 10th Marines, and according to him it was pretty uneventful. A couple of mornings later the sun came up on an unpleasant surprise: the Navy had gone; pulled out leaving nothing but a clear horizon. Only about 1/3 of their supplies had been unloaded and for the next 2-3 months my father lived on canned corned beef and hardtack crackers, plus what they could find in the jungle and liberate from the "Japs."

Later in life, he was a printer for the WaPo on the night shift -- I remember watching him fix his lunch in the afternoon, invariably the same menu: canned corned beef w/ a little mustard on Wonder bread. Can't imagine how he did it.