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THIS DAY IN HISTORY: 

Cowra Breakout: One of the Biggest Escapes in History (1944)
During World War II, Japanese prisoners of war at a camp near Cowra, Australia, orchestrated one of the largest prison escapes of the war. Armed only with makeshift weapons, hundreds of Japanese prisoners stormed the machine gun posts and overwhelmed the guards. Some prisoners, rather than escaping, attempted or committed suicide, or were killed by fellow soldiers. The breakout resulted in the deaths of four Australian soldiers and 231 Japanese prisoners.

THIS DAY IN HISTORY: 

The First Execution by Electric Chair (1890)
In the 1880s, inventor Thomas Edison sought to promote direct current (DC) power distribution by convincing the public that the alternating current (AC) electricity backed by rival George Westinghouse was dangerous. To that end, his partners developed an AC-powered electric chair, which was adopted by the state of New York as an official execution device. In 1889, murderer William Kemmler was sentenced to be the first person to be executed via electric chair.

THIS DAY IN HISTORY: 

Battle of Guadalcanal Begins (1942)
During World War II, the Japanese occupied the island of Guadalcanal in the South Pacific. Hoping to prevent the Japanese from using this position to threaten supply routes between the US, Australia, and New Zealand, the Allies launched their first large-scale invasion of a Japanese-held island. After six months of bitter fighting on the ground, at sea, and in the air, the Allies captured the island.

A few more quotes from the Charles Campbell journal I'm transcribing:

That is interesting. A much more on-the-ground history than what we usually read. Is he an ancestor of yours?

I've mentioned here before that my family transcribed and sold copies of my great-great-grandfather's Civil War diary. Joshua Dewees fought in the Civil War as a soldier in the 97th Ohio Volunteer Infantry. He was my mother's mother's father's father. The diary is on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/Joshua-DeWees-His-Civil-diary/dp/B0006P51OY

THIS DAY IN HISTORY:
Battle of Guadalcanal Begins (1942)
During World War II, the Japanese occupied the island of Guadalcanal in the South Pacific. Hoping to prevent the Japanese from using this position to threaten supply routes between the US, Australia, and New Zealand, the Allies launched their first large-scale invasion of a Japanese-held island. After six months of bitter fighting on the ground, at sea, and in the air, the Allies captured the island.

The 'canal campaign is quite interesting, to me, a pretty large "meeting engagement" in the Pacific theater which was dominated by naval action.  The US Navy lost more men than the 1st Marine Division.  The Japanese kept feeding in men without enough supply thinking the US force was smallish.  Then they managed a rather miraculous withdrawal at the end.

The Japanese handling of the battle severely hurt their cause.

They had several opportunities to push the USMC into the Solomon Sea and failed to do it.

The most notable was after the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands in October, 1942. The USS Hornet was sunk at that battle which left the USN with zero operational carriers in the Pacific. USN Carriers commissioned prior to November, 1942:

• CV1 Langley was a test carrier, converted to a seaplane tender and sunk in February, 1942.
• CV2 Lexington was sunk at Coral Sea in May, 1942.
• CV3 Saratoga was under repair from a torpedo hit.
• CV4 Ranger was considered unfit for service against the Japanese and kept in the Atlantic until the Japanese fleet was no longer a threat.
• CV5 Yorktown was sunk at Midway in June, 1942.
• CV6 Enterprise was under repair from damage at the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands.
• CV7 Wasp was sunk by a submarine launched Japanese torpedo in September, 1942.
• CV8 Hornet was sunk at the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands.
• CV9 Essex had been launched in July but was not yet completed nor commissioned. CV16 Lexington had been launched in September. None of the rest of the Essex Class ships had been launched.

A couple of MUCH smaller and MUCH slower escort carriers had been commissioned but they were not fit for frontline duties against IJN ships and, in any case, they were desperately needed to chase U-boats in the Atlantic.


Thus, after Santa Cruz, the Japanese had no carrier opposition in the Pacific and they had a MUCH stronger surface fleet than the USN due to losses at Pearl Harbor and the fact that the new USN BB's were either just coming into service (SoDaks) or not yet complete (Iowas).

Instead of putting everything they had into an all-out effort to regain Guadalcanal, they continued the long, attrition campaign that was nearly perfectly suited to America's strengths.

The IJN and their Army did not play well together.

This is an understatement of epic proportions. I know you know that, I'm just stating it for anyone following the thread who is unaware. It is unbelievable how bad the relationship between the Army and Navy was.

It was still going to be tough for them to push 1MarDiv off the island.  They'd need to close Henderson substantially and for days at a time, which they never did.  Then they had to hack through mountainous jungle terrain to get at the Marine's lodgement, and then attack,  which they did a few times but without enough force.

The Marines feared an amphibious assault directly on their position which might have worked?

Taking out Henderson Field was obviously the key and my argument is not only that the Japanese could have done it, but that they almost did:

On the night of October 13/14 the IJN sent a major bombardment force that (per wiki but I've gotten the same info from various books):

• Damaged both runways, and
• Burned nearly all the aviation fuel, and
• Destroyed more than half of the aircraft.

The Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands (which eliminated serviceable USN carriers, see above) was less than two weeks later.

If they had sent the bombardment force back right after Santa Cruz, they'd have been able to stay into daylight and they'd have finished off the Cactus Air Force.

With no air cover and heavy Japanese surface units in the waters around Guadalcanal, it would have been impossible for the USN to resupply the troops on Guadalcanal. Meanwhile the Japanese could have delivered the heavy equipment that they desperately needed, or just shortcut the entire process and land new troops directly at Lungga Point.


US troops with no air cover and no resupply wouldn't have been able to do more than inflict a few casualties in defense.