Guadalcanal

After the Pearl Harbor attack, the Japanese quickly captured Hong Kong, Guam, Wake Island, the Gilbert Islands and Rabaul. Japanese conquests of Malaya and Singapore, the Philippines, the Dutch East Indies, and Burma followed into the spring of 1942. The Japanese juggernaut continued southwards with bases established at Salamaua and Lae in Northwest New Guinea followed by landings at Buna, Gona, and Sanananda along Papua's northern coast as a prelude to capturing Port Moresby over the Owen Stanley Range to threaten Australia.

Despite a strategic American naval victory at the Battle of the Coral Sea and the sinking of four Japanese aircraft carriers at the Battle of Midway, the Allied situation remained desperate. Japanese naval troops invaded Tulagi Island and nearby islets off the coast of Florida Island on 3–4 May 1942 to construct a seaplane and naval base. Japan's goal of advancing through the southern Solomon Islands and beyond to New Caledonia, Fiji, and Samoa was to create a defensive buffer against an attack by a slowly-recovering American Navy and further isolate the Antipodes.

In July 1942, Allied coast watchers and reconnaissance aircraft observed the construction of an airfield on Guadalcanal, 20 miles to the south of Tulagi and Florida Islands. On 23 July 1942, American military leaders prioritized securing the South Pacific's lines of communication and halting the Japanese advance. The American invasion of Guadalcanal and Tulagi became operational, entailing hellacious land, air, and sea battles from 7 August 1942 to 3 February 1943. Guadalcanal became the essential struggle between Allied and Japanese forces, with the victor to eventually control the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific. The events of the campaign are expertly described here with contemporary images and detailed text.

Author: Jon Diamond MD is a kidney specialist in the USA with a deep interest in the Second World War. He is a keen collector of photographs. His works, including Stilwell and the Chindits, War in the South Pacific, Invasion of Sicily, Invasion of the Italian Mainland: Salerno to Gustav Line, 1943-1944, Onto Rome 1944; Anzio and Victory at Cassino, Beyond Rome to the Alps; Across the Arno and Gothic Line, 1944-1945, Op Plunder - The Rhine River Crossing, MacArthur's Papua New Guinea Campaign, Hell in the Central Pacific, Liberation of the Philippines, Burma Victory, The Fall of Malaya and Singapore, and The Battle of Okinawa 1945, are all published by Pen and Sword in the Images of War series.

200 b/w illustrations