BATTLE OF THE TENARU

Battle of the Tenaru on Guadalcanal

That same global war saw another crucial August fight half a world away on the island of Guadalcanal. United States Marines of the 1st Marine Division had seized a vital airstrip earlier in the month and were entrenching around it when a Japanese force under Colonel Kiyonao Ichiki was ordered to sweep them away. In the night of August 21st, 1942, Ichiki’s troops launched a frontal assault across the sandbar and shallow waters near the Tenaru, sometimes called Alligator Creek, driving directly into prepared Marine positions. The attackers showed fierce determination, but machine guns, artillery, and rifles cut them down in large numbers, and counterattacks at dawn broke the surviving pockets. Nearly the entire Japanese detachment was destroyed, marking a sharp shift from earlier enemy successes in the Pacific. For the Marines, Tenaru demonstrated that disciplined firepower and dug-in defenses could blunt the vaunted night attacks they had been warned about. It also showed both sides that the struggle for Guadalcanal would not be decided quickly or cheaply.