Episode Details

This week we would like to welcome back Dave Holland.  Dave is a former United States Marine, owns and runs the facebook and youtube channel called Guadalcanal: Walking a battlefield, a Solomon islands battlefield guide, and most importantly, a Guadalcanal expert.  Welcome back, Dave.

It’s been over a month since the Marines landed on Guadalcanal, Tulagi, Gavutu and Tanambogo.  August has passed and with it, the lives of over 1,200 allied sailors and airmen at the battles of Savo island and Eastern Solomons, as well as the lives of over 200 US Marines ashore.  The Japanese have lost over 1700 men ashore on the aforementioned islands, including nearly 800 at the Tenaru river on August 21 as well as nearly 300 lost at sea.  

Operation WATCHTOWER was never assumed to be a quick in and out operation, it was never thought of, at least by the United States, as a quick trip. The Americans knew it would be a slugfest, how much of a slugfest was anyone’s guess however.  As September dawned and the first week passed, the slugfest ashore abruptly turned into a meatgrinder.  A bloody, drawn-out campaign of attrition was something that the Japanese could not withstand.  The Japanese were sick of the Marines on Guadalcanal, and wanted them out and wanted them out now.  

Beginning in the first week of September, over 5,000 Japanese troops under the command of General Kawaguchi landed on Guadalcanal with their sole mission being to “rout and annihilate the enemy in the vicinity of the Guadalcanal Island airfield.”  The focus of their initial assaults on the Marines would center on an area south of Henderson Field, near three small hills and an, as yet, unnamed ridge.  The unnamed ridge would soon receive several names from the Marines who defended it.  History would call it, Edson’s Ridge.

Talking Points

Lead up to the Battle:

• As early as August 18, Imperial Japanese Army orders stated that the main body of the 35th Infantry Brigade under GEN Kawaguchi prepare to move to Guadalcanal.
• By late August, Kawaguchi had formed a plan to move his unit to the Canal from Shortland by barges.  American day time air power shut that idea down, so as to force the Japanese to move Kawaguchi’s people to the island by means of fast DDs.
• This was one of the first operations of the infamous Tokyo Express

• Kawaguchi was completely ignorant as to the number of Marines in and around the defense perimeter.  
• Estimates told him that no more than 2,000 Marines held the lines, albeit with aircraft to help them.
• This estimate allowed Kawaguchi to believe that he could easily break through Marine lines with his force (sound familiar Ichiki?)

• By September 7, Kawaguchi had over 5,000 men encamped around Taivu Point
• This did not include Colonel Oka’s men, some 1,000 strong, that were separate and slated to hit the SW quadrant of the American lines.

• Kawaguchi then split his forces further, breaking his units into groups of about 650 men each and put them on 3 separate avenues of advance, through the jungle, to eventually strike the Marine lines all at once.

• A further avenue of attack was designated to come from the SE, and this would contain the newly christened “Kuma” BTLN, which was consisted of Ichiki’s 2nd echelon.  
• Artillery would theoretically support the assaults, as would naval gunfire in the form of bombardments of Marine positions on September 9 and 10

• Kawaguchi picked the night of September 12 as the night of the assault
• By September 8, Kawaguchi had moved his assault units from Taivu to Koli Point and set off on foot through the jungle on September 9.

The Tasimboko Raid:

• Word reached Vandegrift (via native