The Naval Battle of Guadalcanal took place from 12-15 November 1942. Allied forces seized an airfield, later called Henderson Field, that was under construction by the Japanese military. The only two U.S. Navy admirals to be killed in a surface engagement in the war were lost in this battle.
About Naval Battle of Guadalcanal in brief
The Naval Battle of Guadalcanal took place from 12-15 November 1942. It was the decisive battle of the six-month Guadal canal campaign in the Solomon Islands during World War II. Allied forces seized an airfield, later called Henderson Field, that was under construction by the Japanese military. The only two U.S. Navy admirals to be killed in a surface engagement in the war were lost in this battle. The battle turned back Japan’s last major attempt to dislodge Allied forces from Guadal Canal and nearby Tulagi, resulting in a strategic victory for the U. S. and its allies and deciding the ultimate outcome of the campaign in their favor. The Japanese were unable to use large, slow transport ships to deliver troops and supplies to the island. Instead, warships based at Rabaul and the Shortland Islands were able to make the round trip down to GuadalCanal and back in a single night attack. Delivering the soldiers’ heavy equipment and supplies in this manner prevented most of the soldiers’ heavy equipment, such as heavy vehicles, and much heavy artillery, from being carried to Guadelcanal with them. The first attempt to recapture Henderson Field by Japanese forces failed by the Allied forces and came to be known as the “Rat Transportation Express’” The Japanese warships under the command of Admiral Gunichi Mikawa would later come to be called the ‘Tokyo Express.’ The Japanese had occupied Tulagi in May 1942 and began constructing an air field on GuadalCANal in June 1942.
By nightfall on 8 August, the 11,000 Allied troops secured Tulagi and a Japanese airfield under construction at Lunga Point on Guidalcanal. Allied aircraft operating out of Henderson were called the “Cactus Air Force” after the Allied code name for Guadalcanoal. To protect the airfield,. To protect Luna Point, Marines established a perimeter defense around Lunga point. Additional reinforcements over the next two months increased the number of U. s. troops at Lunga Point to more than 20,000 men. In response, the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters assigned the Imperial Japanese Army’s 17th Army, a corps-sized command based in Rabaul, with the task of retaking Guadalanal. Units of the 17thArmy began to arrive on Guadercanal on 19 August, to drive Allied forces away from Tulagi. In the resulting battle, both sides lost numerous warships in two extremely destructive surface engagements at night. Allied aircraft also sank most of Japanese troop transports and prevented the majority of the Japanese troops and equipment from reaching Guadalainal. The Battle of Friday the 13th, or, in Japanese sources, the Third Battle of the Solomon Sea, took place on November 13-14, 1942, and involved the Battle of Savo Island and the Battle of the Solomons.
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This page is based on the article Naval Battle of Guadalcanal published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 08, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
