7. 8. 1942 Calendary

7.8. 1942 Battle of Guadalcanal

Categories: Second World War , Calendar

The Battle of Guadalcanal was one of the most important battles of World War II in the Pacific. It didn't finally end until February 1943. The result?Theunconditional surrender of Imperial Japan.

The Americans stormed the airfield on Guadalcanal in August to prevent the Japanese forces from concentrating. In the narrow waters of the Solomon Islands, the U.S. fleet supported the invasion with considerable intensity until it lost four cruisers in a midnight battle off Savo Island.

The Navy then withdrew, leaving the Marines to bring the airfield into operation by 20 August. Subsequent attempts by the enemy to bring reinforcements and supplies to Guadalcanal provoked a naval encounters in the strait known as "The Gap," and here the superiority of the Japanese navy in night fighting became apparent. By day, aircraft from both sides usually joined the fighting.

"On 15 September, the USN lost an aircraft carrier and a destroyer. Battle of Cape Esperance 11. October cost the Americans one cruiser and one destroyer and another cruiser and several torpedoesdestroyers were damaged, but the Japanese also lost a cruiser, three destroyers, and an admiral. The action of 26 October cost the Americans an aircraft carrier, but the Japanese paid for it with the loss of more than two hundred aircraft," writes Mark R. Henry in his book The U.S. Navy in World War II.

The painful lessons learned led the U.S. Navy to make better use of radar. In the fighting on November 12-the first Battle of Guadalcanal-the U.S. Navy lost two cruisers and seven destroyers, while the Japanese lost a battleship, a cruiser, and two destroyers. After two more brief engagements that cost them again a battleship, a cruiser, and two destroyers.the Japanese decided to avoid further losses and abandoned any major attempts to bring reinforcements to Guadalcanal.

Both Japanese warships and aircraft from carriers and land bases paid a heavy toll in these battles. However, the Japanese were losing ships and trained pilots that could never be replaced. Thus, they remained on the strategic offensive from this point until the end of the war.

The battle for Guadalcanal and its environs was finally ended on the 7th. "The main result of the Battle of Guadalcanal was a decisive turning point in the war, a major role reversal. At the beginning of this phase of the Pacific War stood Guadalcanal and at its end the unconditional surrender of Imperial Japan. Since that year, when Japan surrendered, Guadalcanal has fallen back into oblivion," writes Miloslav Stingl in Islands of Beauty, Love and Man-Eaters 2: Volume Two.

Sources: Mark R.
Henry, The U.S. Navy in World War II
Miloslav Stingl, Islands of Beauty, Love and Man-Eaters 2: Volume Two
www.businessinsider.com

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