The Meat Grinder

After the Marines landed and had taken Henderson Field, the U.S. fleet that transported them suffered a major defeat by the Japanese Navy. In response, Vice Admiral Fletcher pulled his ships from Guadalcanal before all Marine supplies could be unloaded. …

1942-08-21

Guad03

After the Marines landed and had taken Henderson Field, the U.S. fleet that transported them suffered a major defeat by the Japanese Navy. In response, Vice Admiral Fletcher pulled his ships from Guadalcanal before all Marine supplies could be unloaded. Because Japanese aerial reconnaissance shows little Marine activity at Henderson Field, the Japanese command believes that the retreating ships have taken most of the Marines with them, leaving only about 2,000 to hold the airfield. The Japanese have have sent 6,200 reinforcements to recapture the airfield from the 11,000 Marines that are actually still there. 970 men of Colonel Ichiki’s regiment are the first to arrive on the island. After being discovered by a Marine patrol, Ichiki has chosen to immediately advance on Henderson Field without waiting for the rest of the Japanese reinforcements, hoping to maintain the benefit of surprise and overrun the ‘small defending force’. The Marines were alerted that the Japanese are advancing by Jacob Vouza, a local native scout (he crawled back to Marine lines after being tortured). He did not have an accurate enemy count. The Marines have finished fortifying a defensive perimeter along the Ilu River, mistakenly labeled the Tenaru River on Marine maps. (It was named Alligator Creek by the Marines because the Marines thought the crocodiles in it were alligators.) The Japanese have begun their attack at 1:30 a.m., hoping to use overwhelming force and the cover of night to their advantage.

Guadalcanal

The Battle of the Tenaru, sometimes called the Battle of the Ilu River or the Battle of Alligator Creek, was a land battle between the Imperial Japanese Army and Allied ground forces that took place on August 21, 1942 on the island of Guadalcanal during the Pacific campaign of World War II. The battle was the first major Japanese land offensive during the Guadalcanal campaign. In the battle, U.S. Marines, under the overall command of U.S. Major General Alexander Vandegrift, repulsed an assault by the "First Element" of the "Ichiki" Regiment, under the command of Japanese Colonel Kiyonao Ichiki. The Marines were defending the Lunga perimeter, which guarded Henderson Field, which had been captured by the Allies in landings on Guadalcanal on August 7. Ichiki's unit was sent to Guadalcanal in response to the Allied landings with the mission of recapturing the airfield and driving the Allied forces off the island.

Wikipedia: Battle of the Tenaru

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