Guadalcanal veterans will always stand as some of our country’s greatest heroes. Thank you so much for your service. My Dad fought in the Philippines.
I agree with you about FDR. But I am not so sure about this part about the Navy...
“Marines would have all starved to death simply because the navy refused to stay there and unload”
It has been awhile since I read about this, but if memory serves me right the Navy, namely Admiral Fletcher, didn’t purposely do this to the Marines.
Due to lack of air cover to protect his supply ships at Guadalcanal, having lost the carrier Lexington in the battle of the Coral Sea, he thought it best to temporarily pull his vulnerable supply ships out of there. “Temporarily,” of course, turned out to be much longer than he anticipated. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think the story went something like this.
I forgot to mention the carrier Yorktown was damaged so badly in the battle of the Coral Sea that Fletcher had little to no air cover for his supply ships at Guadalcanal. Leaving only the carrier Enterprise - we only had three carriers at this stage of the war - and I don’t remember where it was at the time. At any rate, it is easy to understand Fletcher’s decision. Anyway you cut it, it was a tough call.