The fierce struggle for the Solomon Islands (and especially for Guadalcanal) that lasted from August 1942 until December 1943 provided a significant victory for the United States over Japan in the World War II Pacific theater.
Collectively, the Solomon Islands consists of a double chain approximately 600 miles long in the South Pacific, northeast of Australia. Green and Bougainville islands became Australian League of Nations mandates following World War I, while the islands to the southeast, including Choiseul, Rendova, Vella Lavella, Santa Isabel, Florida, the Treasury Islands, New Georgia, Tulagi, and Guadalcanal, were British protectorates. Japanese forces occupied the entire chain between January and July 1942. Guadalcanal, the southernmost island, became the construction site for a Japanese airfield that could threaten Allied supply lines to Australia.
Following the American victories at the Battle of the Coral Sea in May 1942 and at the Battle of Midway in June, General Douglas A. MacArthur and Admiral Ernest J. King decided to launch offensives in New Guinea and the Solomons to halt further Japanese expansion. MacArthur’s forces began operations in Papua New Guinea in July 1942. In the neighboring South Pacific theater, Admiral Robert L. Ghormley, commanding U. S. Navy and U. S. Marines units under Rear Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner and Major General Alexander A. Vandergrift, ordered the First U. S. Marine Division to land on Guadalcanal and Tulagi islands on August 7.
While the marines surprised the Japanese on both islands, their actions brought the region to the attention of the Japanese high command, which quickly moved to reinforce Guadalcanal by sea. The marines completed the airstrip begun by the Japanese, renaming it Henderson Field, and fought ever larger Japanese forces on the island. The Japanese, in turn, sought to control “the slot,” the channel between the two Solomon chains, and harassed the marines on the island with air and naval attacks. They continued to stubbornly resist marine advances through insect-infested, thick tropical jungles into early fall. By October, the number of marines on Guadalcanal had increased to 23,000, following reinforcement by the Second Marine Division. By early December the Japanese were clearly on the defensive, the result of increased American air power and troop reinforcements, consisting of the U. S.
Army American and 25th Infantry Divisions. This raised the number of Americans on the island to 58,000, nearly three times the Japanese strength. Between January 10 and February 7, 1943, a final American offensive secured the island following the evacuation by sea of the remaining 17,000 Japanese troops.
During the struggle for Guadalcanal, the U. S. Navy, with increased success, contested the Japanese presence in the waters of the Solomons. Following the Battle of Savo Island in August, the U. S. Navy engaged the Imperial Japanese Navy in a series of sea battles between late August 1942 and January 1943. These included the Battle of Cape Esperance, October 11-13; the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands, October 26-27; the sea battles of Guadalcanal, November 12-15; the Battle of Tassafaronga, November 30, 1942; and the Battle of Rennell’s Island, January 29-30, 1943. American control of the air and sea around the Solomons was a major reason for the Japanese withdrawal from Guadalcanal, for their position on the island became increasingly untenable.
Following the conquest of Guadalcanal, the major Japanese base at Rabaul became the next Allied objective, with forces in the Solomons coming under control of General MacArthur’s Southwest Pacific theater command. MacArthur intended to reduce Rabaul through a twopronged assault, one moving up through New Guinea, and the other advancing northwestward up the Solomons chain. American forces in the Solomons began their preparations in early 1943 under a new South Pacific commander, Admiral William F. “Bull” Halsey, before launching an attack that took the island of Rendova on June 30. Between July 2 and August 25, 1943, U. S. Army troops, with marine support, assaulted and secured New Georgia. The capture of Vella Lavella followed, with action taking place between August 15 and October 7. By October, the Japanese presence in the Solomons was confined to the Treasury Islands, which fell on October 27, and to the islands of Bougainville and Choiseul. These two islands were secured following a hard-fought campaign that started on November 1 and extended through late December 1943.
Although the Solomons were in Allied hands by the end of 1943, the U. S. Joint Chiefs of Staff made the decision to bypass, rather than reduce, the Japanese base at Rabaul, contrary to MacArthur’s original plan. Although Allied naval and air power would continue to harass Japanese forces in the region, the Solomon Islands were no longer a scene of significant combat after 1943.
Further reading: Edwin P Hoyt, The Glory of the Solomons (New York: Stein & Day, 1983); Eugene L. Rasor, The Solomon Island Campaign, Guadalcanal to Rabaul (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1997).
—Clayton D. Laurie
World History
