US invasion fleet under attack

8th August 1942: Japanese attack US ships off Guadalcanal as the U.S. Marines get established ashore

Japanese Navy Type 1 land attack planes (Mitsubishi G4M1 "Betty") fly low through anti-aircraft gunfire during a torpedo attack on U.S. Navy ships maneuvering between Guadalcanal and Tulagi in the morning of 8 August 1942. Note that these planes are being flown without bomb-bay doors as they were carrying torpedoes. Of 23 attacking bombers, 17 were shot down, and one later crashed. They hit one destroyer and one aircraft crashed into a transport.

On the 7th August 1942, just eight months since the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, the United States started its island campaign in the Pacific - the U.S Marines landed on the South Solomon islands of Guadalcanal, Tulagi and Florida. The landings themselves were unopposed and the Japanese, who had been holding the airfield on Guadalcanal -later to be known as Henderson Field, retreated into the jungle.