Marines in the Solomons

By Eric Hammel

Although U.S. Marines had broken the back of the Japanese on Guadalcanal in furious combat between August 1942 and February 1943, much hard fighting remained to be endured on jungle-choked islands to the north. Between late 1942 and the end of 1943, the Marines on the ground and in the air took part in a series of battles and campaigns in the central and northern Solomon Islands, all part of the effort to reach and neutralize the Japanese regional air, naval and supply base at Rabaul, at the northeastern tip of New Britain. Throughout these campaigns, first over and on New Georgia,and then over and on Bougainville, the Marines fought their way through some of the most difficult terrain and inhospitable weather encountered in World War II.

As a result of the unbroken chain of land and air victories along the Solomons chain, the mighty Japanese fortress at Rabaul was brought within range of American and New Zealand air groups operating from Bougainville and other surrounding island air bases. The aggressive, unremitting offensive efforts supported by these bases secured the flank of the continuing American and Australiam campaign for eastern New Guinea. The high tide of Japanese conquest in the South and Southwest Pacific areas would recede, and the Marines would be free to undertake the long-planned island-hopping campaign in the Central Pacific and the Philippines, all the way to the Japanese home islands.

Military historian Eric Hammel has scoured the archives for photos of Marines in Pacific War combat and has unearthed thousands of rare, many never-before-published images. In this most-comprehensive photographic history of the Marine battles in the central and northern Solomons, Hammel adds to the depth of his previous World War II Marine Corps pictorial histories. Hundreds of photographs coupled with Hammel’s brief, insightful narrative provide a fitting tribute to the Marines who fought their way across the South Pacific.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pacifica Military History
• Release date: Mar 30, 2013
• ISBN: 9781890988609

Eric Hammel

The late Eric Hammel was one of America's leading military historians with more than 40 well-received books published over a 50-year career. His previous books on the Solomons campaign, Carrier Clash, Carrier Strike, Decision at Sea, and Starvation Island, are among the leading authoritative sources on the subject due to their extensive use of first-person testimony.

Book preview

Chapter 1 After Guadalcanal

A New Air Base

Munda Field was a product of defeat.

The defeat had not yet been meted out by late October 1942, but it was clearly in the offing, a defeat as much a result of overconfidence as of losses in battle. Six months earlier, in May 1942, the victorious Imperial Navy had marched with impunity over the mountainous, densely forested Solomon Islands. Each step forward demanded that one more follow. So rapid was the advance, so powerful the lure of yet newer conquests that the decisive blunder of the first year of the war occurred.

Rather than adhere to their road map, which incorporated specific plans for building and manning air bases down the length of the Solomons Munda Field, New Georgia, weeks after all obscuring growth has been removed from the main runway. The scope of this view is about a mile wide along the axis of the main runway. Munda Point is to the far left. To the right of the coral-topped main runway are signs of a planned extension. Note that many bomb craters dot the runway and other facilities. Note, also, the number of bomb craters offshore, the result of attacks on beachside antiaircraft guns. (National Archives & Records Administration) steppingstones, the Japanese commanders ignored the time-consuming and restraining necessity of a careful consolidation of gains. The advance easily outpaced the building capacity of the rear echelons. Indeed, even when faced at Guadalcanal in August by the first confrontations with a hitherto defeated enemy, the overextended yet overconfident Japanese admirals continued to ignore the vital requirement that intermediate Solomons bases be built and manned. By October, their entire effort and capacity were being funneled into the breach at Guadalcanal. The air bases that were to have dotted the Solomons were left for better times.

Munda Field, New Georgia, weeks after all obscuring growth has been removed from the main runway. The scope of this view is about a mile wide along the axis of the main runway. Munda Point is to the far left. To the right of the coral-topped main runway are signs of a planned extension. Note that many bomb craters dot the runway and other facilities. Note, also, the number of bomb craters offshore, the result of attacks on beachside antiaircraft guns. (National Archives & Records Administration)

Those better times never came.

In great measure, the Japanese avoided victory because they set up only a few intermediate auxiliary airstrips along all of the 600 air miles between her main bases at Rabaul and the battlefront at Guadalcanal. Forced to operate at maximum range, even moderately damaged Japanese aircraft stood an excellent chance of going down in that vast expanse of rain forest and sea.

No firm decision regarding the intermediate airstrips was reached until October 1942. Late that month, Imperial Army forces on Guadalcanal suffered what was clearly the decisive land defeat of the campaign. In recognizing the defeat, 8th Area Army, the newly installed headquarters responsible for all Imperial Army forces in New Guinea and the Solomons, ordered that a major air base be built at Munda Point, on New Georgia Island, about 150 miles northwest of Henderson Field, the contested American air base that was the object of the Guadalcanal campaign.

Japanese engineering teams began to survey the site on November 21, 1942, a week after the Imperial Navy suffered its decisive defeat of the Guadalcanal campaign. By that time American fighters based at the Henderson Field complex virtually controlled the air over the eastern and central Solomons. It was necessary that detection of the new airfield be avoided for as long as possible.

The Japanese attempted to camouflage airfield construction by leaving stands of coconut palms and jungle growth on the runway and dispersal areas until no other work could be carried out. Security units were shipped in to hinder British Coastwatchers and Coastwatcher-led native scouts who might otherwise stumble on the secret. But for all the Japanese did to hide the nascent air base, it was the activity of creating and securing it that led to the earliest counterefforts by Allied air units operating under the command of Aircraft, South Pacific Area (AirSoPac). Six U.S. Marine SBD dive-bombers attacked the new construction site—whatever it was—on November 23, and four U.S. Army Air Forces B-17 heavy bombers hit Munda the very next day. Within a week of the groundbreaking at Munda, islanders working for the Coastwatchers had the new airfield spotted. The news was reported to Guadalcanal, but it took photo analysts until December 3 to get a firm fix on the main runway.

The crew of a Marine Grumman TBF Avenger torpedo/level bomber prepares for a mission. Note the Thompson submachine gun being handed off to the crewman on the wing. Bearded airmen were a typical sight throughout the 1942 period on Guadalcanal. Note, also, the bullet holes at extreme left and beneath the rear turret. (Official USMC