'Chesty' Puller's Epic Stand (Nov. 2002)

This article is about the battles for Henderson Field at Guadalcanal.

It's incredibly important to get control of air fields from the enemy and hang on to them, and that's the way it was with Henderson Field. As of Oct. 24th, 1942, the US had taken the field, but there was still a chance of a Japanese counter-attack. The defending US soldiers had limited food and water.

The Japanese tried to reinforce their troops, but on the night of Oct. 11-12, a US fleet defeated a Japanese naval force trying to do that.

The Japanese developed a plan to counterattack the American forces, making the assumption that the southern part of the area was undefended. So certain were they, they didn't even bother to send anyone out to actually see if it really was undefended.

Lt. Gen Masal Maruyama was the Japanese commander, and he said that “This is the decisive battle between Japan and the United States in which the rise or fall of the Japanese Empire will be decided.” This was a rather common statement, though, and there were numerous “decisive battles” that would “determine the future of the empire.” Each time the Japanese forces were defeated and had to pull back and fight from an area even closer to Japan, there was another “final battle.”

The article, by the way, includes lots of information that I am not including here. Almost all the articles of this type are filled with very detailed information on the battles, troop movements, the soldiers, etc.

There apparently was other information that the Japanese commander did not have, and it cost him heavily. He thought he was closer to the Marines lines than he was. A delay for the attack was granted, but word didn't get through to a diversionary force that went ahead with its attack, resulting in hundreds of Japanese deaths and destruction of armor.

There had also been no effort on the part of the Japanese to mark approach lanes to the American perimeter, thus allowing a part of the attacking Japanese forces to miss their target.

One group of Japanese attacked around 10 at night. They ran directly into a double row of barbed wire, and the Marines used 37mm guns plus their own regular weapons to devastate the attacking Japanese. This was yet another Japanese charge directly into overwhelming force, basically throwing away the lives of their soldiers. There was also another attack after midnight with basically the same type of result, the Japanese soldiers were slaughtered.

An example of a typical banzai charge is given. There were six major assaults on the American lines by 3:30 in them morning. A attack led by Colonel Masajiro Furimaya managed to penetrate the lines of the Americans who were tired and running out of ammunition. Other American forces managed to defeat his group, though.

The article goes on about yet more Japanese attacks, including one across an area that was wide open. Thousands of Japanese died in these futile attacks.

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