This Is Guadalcanal: The Original Combat Photography

Rating:
Summary: Great Photos, Good Quotes, Poor History
Review: Given the number of photos in this slim volume - some familiar, many hard-to-find - it is a bargain for the price. As another reviewer notes, some of the photos are graphic: this is not a sanitized view of the campaign. The book also features a number of excerpts and quotes, which make for good reading.

One warning though: in terms of historical fact, "This Is Guadalcanal" should be approached with caution. WASP, for example, was nowhere near Savo Island when she was torpedoed, contrary to this book's account. A photo of US transports under attack on 8 August is placed in the account of mid-September action. The section on the mid-November brawl opens with the well-known "Proceed Without Hornet" shot aboard ENTERPRISE's flight deck: the photo was in fact taken two weeks before, during the 26 October battle of Santa Cruz, where HORNET was lost. Carriers at Guadalcanal were attacked neither by Kamikaze nor by shell fire, despite the authors' claims. Both of those unique events would have to wait until the Battle of Leyte Gulf, nearly two years after the crux of the Guadalcanal campaign.

And so on...

Great photos, good text, but this book could have used more research and care to ensure it impressed factually as much as it does visually.

Rating:
Summary: Guadalcanal: A photographic record of WWII sacrifice
Review: It's a tough job to be a professional photographer, but the combat photographer is a special breed. It's dangerous work, but something important to both record history as it happens and to provide the public at large a chance to see the horrors of war. ...

The photos presented here were taken by military photographers in the heat of the Battle of Guadalcanal, a six month long engagement between invading U. S. forces and defending Japanese troops that began in August 1942, just eight months after much of the U. S. Pacific Fleet had been sunk by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

Guadalcanal was a land, sea and air fight. It was the first Naval invasion by the U. S. in the Pacific as the American forces attempted to island hop their way to the Japanese mainland.

The six-month battle that ended in February 1943 resulted in the deaths of thousands of Americans. The Japanese lost 25,000 in suicidal "banzai charges," believing it was noble to die for their emperor, whom they considered a God. Though 3,000 miles from the Japanese mainland, the battle lasted so long because the "Tokyo Express," as the Americans called it, kept slipping ships full of reinforcements and supplies to their troops.

The war at sea was no easier. The Marines were actually abandoned on the island following a sea battle between the Japanese and an Allied Navy force led by the United States Navy near Savo (sometimes called Salvo) Island, which is near Guadalcanal.

The Japanese surprised the Allied fleet on August 8 on a moonless night, turning their searchlights on unsuspecting Allied ships, then firing torpedoes and five-inch shells into them. Allied warships, mostly smaller cruisers and destroyers, began exploding, burning and sinking. The Allies fought back as well-trained men will, but those Allied ships not sunk withdrew. Behind them, four Allied ships had sunk and 1,000 Allied sailors had been killed.

The terrifying fight at sea was visible to Marines trying to dig in onland since their landings on the 90 mile long and 25 mile wide island on August 7. Flashes of light in the night, fires and then darkness where ships had once been. (A good source on this part of the battle is Robert Ballard's "The Lost Ships Of Guadalcanal.")

The island was a crazy little place, a total, thick-growth jungle full of disease and alligators, in addition to thousands of veteran Japanese troops (Japan had been at war with China since 1931 and this was their military's 11th year of war). Outnumbered more than 3-to-1, the U. S. Marines, earning their "leathernecks" nickname, sought to throw the Japanese off the island.

Within two days of landing the Marines had seized the Japanese airfield on the island, naming it Henderson Field. Six days later Marine Air Group 23 arrived in F4F Wildcat fighter planes and SBD-3 dive bombers. These land-based aircraft were a major asset in fighting Japanese air power and in providing ground support for advancing Marines.

The Marines were absolutely stunned on August 21, 1942, when Colonel Kiyoano Ichiki arrived on the island with the 28th Infantry of the Imperial Japanese Army. Within 24 hours, he led 1,000 soldiers in the darkness of the night through the Tenaru River lagoon. They ran head-long into Marine barbed wire, machine guns, tanks, artillery and small arms fire.

The Japanese charged, wave after repeated wave for two hours, until more than 800 lay dead in front of the Marine lines. Only one Japanese soldier surrendered. The remainder, mostly wounded, scattered.

Amazingly, the sector was defended by 65 Marines, according to the official Marine Corps summary of the battle.

The U. S. Navy again engaged the Japanese at sea on August 24-25. This time much larger surface warships were onhand, including battleships and aircraft carriers, with the support of the land-based air units (including B-17 bombers) on Guadalcanal.

Two American carriers, the USS Enterprise and the USS Saratoga, launched their planes against the Japanese fleet on August 24. The Japanese carrier Ryujo and 75 Japanese planes were destroyed with a loss of 25 U. S. planes.

On August 25, a Japanese convoy with supplies and troop ships was attacked. The Japanese, after inflicting damage of the USS Enterprise, withdrew. The Enterprise was forced to return to Pearl Harbor for repairs (the U. S. had very few carriers at this time. In 1942 alone, the U. S. carriers Lexington, Yorktown, Langley and Wasp were all sunk by the Japanese during Pacific battles.)

The loss of the carrier USS Wasp occurred at Guadalcanal on September 15. Unseen Japanese submarines closed through U. S. defenses to 1,000 yards and fired six torpedoes at her. She was hit in two crucial places, her gasoline storage tanks and her "magazine" (the place where her ammunition was kept) --- a series of explosions erupted on the ship,which began to list immediately and soon sank. There's a stunning series photos of the Wasp burning amid a furious fire, while nearby another ship, the USS O'Brien, also is burning (but she survived the battle).

By September, the Japanese had managed to build their Army on the island to 30,000 men and the U. S. had managed to build its land force to 27,000 men.

In October, Lt. Col. "Chesty" Puller, a Marine legend, found himself commanding his Marines against a surprise attack by the Japanese against Henderson Field. In two days of fighting, 86 Americans died, but 2,200 Japanese had been killed in suicidal bayonet charges, an amazing waste of human life.

On Oct. 26, the U. S. Navy again engaged the Japanese at sea in the Battle of Santa Cruz. The carrier USS Hornet was singled-out by the Japanese. Hit by two torpedoes, five bombs and two kamikazes (the Japanese pilots, called kamikazes, crashed their planes into the ship), the Hornet sank. Again, the series of photos of the ship under attack, including shots of Japanese planes crashing into the ship and a shot of a U. S. Navy plane being shaken off the ship's deck by an explosion, are stunning.

Nov. 12-15, as Marines continued to fight stubborn Japanese troops in the jungle, the U. S. Navy again engaged the Japanese at sea. The battle of Nov. 12 saw a Japanese victory, with five American and three Japanese ships being sunk (costing the lives of some 2,000 sailors total),

Nov. 14, the Japanese tried to land troops from nine troop ships. Six of the ships were sunk and three turned back, so needed Japanese reinforcements were lost to the island's defenders.

American battleships then went into action Nov. 14-15, supported by land-based aircraft and planes from the repaired USS Enterprise. The U. S. won this final round decisively: eight American ships were sunk, but the Japanese lost 23 warships.

Victory is a short-lived thing, though. On Nov. 30 the U. S. Navy was nearly demolished by the Japanese Navy in the Battle of Tassafaronga. This time American cruisers (smaller than battleships but bigger than destroyers) attacked a Japanese convoy bringing supplies to the island.

Somehow several Japanese destroyers went unnoticed by the American fleet. These ships turned and fired 44 Long Lance torpedoes at the American battle group --- one after another, U. S. cruisers erupted from explosions as the USS Minneapolis, USS New Orleans and USS Pensacola were hit, resulting in the deaths of 400 sailors. The Japanese were turned back after four of their destroyers were sunk.

Beginning in January 1943, Japanese troops were gradually evacuated from Guadalcanal by barges, destroyers, submarines and any means the Japanese Navy could find.

Total Japanese losses are estimated at 25,000 (some sources site more, some less). U. S. losses are known, however (these figures are from this book):

On land: 1,598 killed (including 1,152 Marines). 4,709 wounded (including 2,799 Marines).

At sea: 5,041 killed. 2,953 wounded. ...

What is clear in the book is the bravery of the fighting men, the epic nature of the struggle and the horrors of the battle (some photos, mostly of the dead, are quite gruesome, so be forewarned). That Americans could endure such horrors to the final victory over Japan in 1945 speaks very well of their determination to win and protect their beloved freedom.

I believe Admiral "Bull" Halsey summed the battle up best when he said, "Before Guadalcanal, the enemy advanced at his pleasure. After Guadalcanal, he retreated at ours."

The book:

This is a jam-packed, photographic history of the battle told through some brief summaries of the a