Under fire on Guadalcanal

3rd September 1942: US Marines endure endure nightly bombing and shelling as they hold onto their positions around the airfield

The airfield built by the Japanese shortly after it was captured by the US Marines at the beginning of August. It was named Henderson Field, after Major Loftus Henderson who died leading a Marine Corps dive bomber attack at the Battle of Midway.

On Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands the US Marines were leading the land campaign in the Pacific war. They had successfully fought off the first Japanese counter-attack, annihilating the assault force. But the seas around the Solomons remained dominated by the Japanese Navy.

‘MARINE FIGHTER PLANE SAVED---Set afire by a Japanese bomb hit on the hangar in the background, this Marine fighter plane was pulled into the open by Leathernecks who used dirt and chemicals to extinguish the flames.The plane, a Grumman "Wildcat" was NOT damaged seriously and was able to return to the air. The picture was taken shortly after the Marines captured the strategic Guadalcanal airport from the Japanese.’

Richard Tregaskis¹, a journalist attached to the Marines, describes one episode:

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 3

We were awakened at fifteen minutes after midnight this morning by guns booming offshore, from the direction of Kukum. I sat out the dugout and watched the flashes lighting the sky, heard the haughty voices of the cannon. The shells were not coming in our direction at all this time. Others came out of the dugout and watched the firing.

Digging trenches on Guadalcanal.

Robert Leckie during his service with the Marines.

Robert Leckie² was a a scout and a machine gunner in H (How) Company, 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines. He has a more personal description of the effect that the shelling had: