900 Japanese Soldiers Attacked 11,000 U.S. Marines - The Disaster at Guadalcanal

In August 1942, Colonel Kiyonao Ichiki landed on Guadalcanal convinced that a small and demoralized American force could be swept aside in a single night attack. Instead, roughly 900 Japanese troops advanced toward a heavily fortified U.S. Marine perimeter protecting Henderson Field. Bad intelligence, lost reconnaissance, rigid offensive doctrine, machine guns, artillery, 37mm canister fire, and M3 Stuart tanks turned the Battle of the Tenaru into one of Japan’s first devastating ground defeats of the Guadalcanal Campaign. This is the story of how a catastrophic miscalculation sent the elite Ichiki Detachment directly into overwhelming American firepower. Sources: https://www.history.navy.mil/research... https://www.marforpac.marines.mil/Uni... https://history.army.mil/Publications... https://history.army.mil/Portals/143/... https://www.marines.mil/Portals/1/Pub... #WW2 #WorldWar2 #Guadalcanal #BattleOfTheTenaru #USMarines #PacificWar #MilitaryHistory #WWIIHistory #HendersonField #History