Guadalcanal and Tulagi Landings

Expand navigation for Battles of Java Sea and Sunda Strait Battles of Java Sea and Sunda Strait
- Last Battle of USS Houston
Bataan and Corregidor
Early Naval Raids
Doolittle Raid
Expand navigation for Battle of the Coral Sea Battle of the Coral Sea
- American and Australian Cooperation
- List of Ships at the Battle of Coral Sea
Battle of Midway
Submarine Combat Patrols
Expand navigation for Battle of the Atlantic Battle of the Atlantic
Expand navigation for Solomons Campaign: Guadalcanal Solomons Campaign: Guadalcanal
- Expand navigation for Guadalcanal and Tulagi Landings Guadalcanal and Tulagi Landings
  - Imagery: Initial Operations, August–September 1942
- Expand navigation for Battle of Savo Island Battle of Savo Island
  - Battle of Savo Island Orders of Battle
- Battle of the Eastern Solomons
- Expand navigation for Battle of Cape Esperance Battle of Cape Esperance
  - Imagery: Battle of Cape Esperance
- Battle of Santa Cruz Islands
- Expand navigation for Naval Battle of Guadalcanal Naval Battle of Guadalcanal
- Expand navigation for Battle of Tassafaronga Battle of Tassafaronga
  - Imagery: Battle of Tassafaronga
- Japanese Withdrawal
Expand navigation for Operation Torch: Invasion of North Africa Operation Torch: Invasion of North Africa
- Operation Torch Image Gallery
Expand navigation for Building the Infrastructure for War Building the Infrastructure for War
- The Seabees at 75
Expand navigation for Manning the U.S. Navy Manning the U.S. Navy

Related Content

Topic

Theater of Operations--Pacific
Boats-Ships--Amphibious Warfare Ships
People-Places-Things--Japanese

Document Type

Finding Aids Glossaries Guides
Primary Source Document
Publication

Wars & Conflicts

World War II 1939-1945

Navy Communities

Navy Leadership
Marines

File Formats

PDF (Portable Document Format)
Image (gif, jpg, tiff)

Location of Archival Materials

Author Name

Place of Event

Recipient Name

Guadalcanal and Tulagi Landings, 7–8 August 1942

Photo #: 80-G-20683 Guadalcanal Campaign, August 1942 -- February 1943

Marines rest in the field on Guadalcanal, August 1942. Most of these Marines are armed with M1903 bolt-action rifles and carry long M1905 bayonets and USMC M1941 packs. Two men high on the hill at right wear mortar vests and one in center has a World War I–type grenade vest. The Marine seated at far right carries a Browning Automatic Rifle (80-G-20683).

In order to safeguard their strategic operating base at Rabaul, New Britain, the Japanese captured Tulagi on 3 May 1942 and occupied nearby Guadalcanal on 8 June in order to construct a support base and airfield. These footholds in the British-administered Solomon Islands also supported Japan's southward thrust into New Guinea and toward Australia. Following the victory at Midway, CNO and Commander-in-Chief U.S. Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King was able to assert the Navy's command primacy in the Pacific and overcame resistance by the U.S. Army to immediate offensive operations against Japan, which was still assessing the full scope of its recent defeat. Thus, Operation Watchtower, conceived and planned in under a month, only encompassed the sea services. Eight months after the Pearl Harbor attack, the 1st Marine Division, supported by naval air and gunnery support, landed at Beach Red on Guadalcanal and on Tulagi and its adjacent islets.

The Landing in the Solomons Combat Narrative, 75th Anniversary Edition (click image to download PDF, 2.2 MB)

Operations

Read the combat narrative (PDF, 2.2 MB), republished in 2017 by NHHC with a new introduction in observance of the 75th anniversary of the battle. The formerly classified combat narrative was originally published by the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) in January 1943; an HTML reproduction of the text is available in the Online Reading Room.