The Guadalcanal campaign was a military campaign fought between 7 August 1942 and 9 February 1943 in the Pacific theater of World War II. It was the first major land offensive by Allied forces against the Empire of Japan. Allied forces, predominantly U.S. Marines, landed on Guadal canal, Tulagi, and Florida in the southern Solomon Islands in August 1942.
About Guadalcanal campaign in brief
The Guadalcanal campaign was a military campaign fought between 7 August 1942 and 9 February 1943 in the Pacific theater of World War II. It was the first major land offensive by Allied forces against the Empire of Japan. Allied forces, predominantly U.S. Marines, landed on Guadal canal, Tulagi, and Florida in the southern Solomon Islands in August 1942. The Japanese defenders, who had occupied those islands since May 1942, were outnumbered and overwhelmed by the Allies, who captured Tulagi and Florida, as well as the airfield – later named Henderson Field – that was under construction. Three major land battles, seven large naval battles, and almost daily aerial battles culminated in the decisive Naval Battle of Guadal Canal in early November. The campaign marked the Allies’ transition from defensive operations to offensive ones and effectively seized the strategic initiative in thePacific theater from the Japanese. It followed the successful Allied defensive actions at the Battle of the Coral Sea and theBattle of Midway in May and June, 1942. In December, the Japanese abandoned their efforts to retake GuadalCanal, and evacuated their remaining forces by 7 February 1943, in the face of an offensive by the U. S. Army’s XIV Corps. The battle was followed by other Allied offensives in the. Pacific, most notably: the Solomon Islands campaign, New Guinea campaign, the Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign,. The Philippines campaign, and the Volcano and Ryukyu Islands campaign prior to the surrender of Japan in August, 1945. The Battle of Rennell Island, the last major naval engagement, serving to secure protection for the Japanese troops to evacuate safely, served to secure the protection for them to escape safely.
The Allies chose the first target, with specific objectives, with three objectives: Tulagi Island, Florida Island and Santa Cruz Islands. The first target was not even mentioned in the early directive and only took place on the first day of the operation. The second and third objectives were the occupation of Santa Cruz and the capture of the Santa Cruz islands, which became the focus of the later Operation Watchtower. The final objective was the capture or neutralize the major Japanese base at Rabaul on New Britain, which took place between September and November 1942. It took the Allies until January 1943 to capture Rabaul, which was the only Japanese base in the south and central Pacific. The Allied victory was a strategic Allied victory which became clear only much later, when the Allies took control of New Guinea and the Marshall Islands in February 1943. The last Allied offensive was the invasion of Buna–Gona in March 1943. It ended the Japanese offensive in the South Pacific and the end of the war in the Asia-Pacific theater of the Pacific. On 7 December 1941, Japanese forces attacked the United States Pacific Fleet at Naval Station Pearl Harbor, incorporated territory of Hawaii. The attack killed almost 2,500 people and crippled much of the battleship fleet, precipitating an open and formal state of war between the two nations.
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This page is based on the article Guadalcanal campaign published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 21, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
