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The Ship That Disguised Itself as an Island and Other Lesser-Known WWII Facts

Khalid Elhassan July 6, 2020 35 min

Guadalcanal - Guadalcanal campaign — Marines arriving in Guadalcanal. Encyclopedia Britannica

16. With Chesty Puller

Marines arriving in Guadalcanal. Encyclopedia Britannica

The invasion of Guadalcanal started off well, but things soon took turn for the worse. Setbacks at sea made the waters around the island too dangerous for the US Navy, which hurriedly decamped. That left the Marines – who had not yet landed all their munitions and supplies from transport ships – stranded, just as the Japanese were rushing in reinforcements for a counterattack to regain control of the island. What followed next were weeks of sheer hell on earth. Desperate Marines, supported by a collection of plucky airmen flying off of Henderson Field, short of just about everything, fought off attacks by an enemy equally desperate to kick them off Guadalcanal.

In September, 1942, Mitchell Paige arrived with the 7^th Marine Regiment, under the command of legendary leatherneck Chesty Puller, to reinforce their hard-pressed brethren in Guadalcanal. During the night of October 25-26, Paige and his platoon were dug into their foxholes, when he heard and noticed signs of heavy enemy activity and preparations somewhere out in the pitch dark of the jungle.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.