Episode 278
Guadalcanal Campaign
Wed, 2018-Feb-07 00:13 UTC
Length - 3:25
Direct Link
Welcome to featured Wiki of the Day where we read the summary of the featured Wikipedia article every day.
The featured article for Wednesday, 7 February 2018 is Guadalcanal Campaign.
The Guadalcanal Campaign, also known as the Battle of Guadalcanal and codenamed Operation Watchtower, was a military campaign fought between 7 August 1942 and 9 February 1943 on and around the island of Guadalcanal in the Pacific theater of World War II. It was the first major offensive by Allied forces against the Empire of Japan.
On 7 August 1942, Allied forces, predominantly United States Marines, landed on Guadalcanal, Tulagi, and Florida in the southern Solomon Islands, with the objective of denying their use by the Japanese to threaten Allied supply and communication routes between the United States, Australia, and New Zealand. The Allies also intended to use Guadalcanal and Tulagi as bases to support a campaign to eventually capture or neutralize the major Japanese base at Rabaul on New Britain. The Allies overwhelmed the outnumbered Japanese defenders, who had occupied the islands since May 1942, and captured Tulagi and Florida, as well as an airfield (later named Henderson Field) that was under construction on Guadalcanal. Powerful American and Australian naval forces supported the landings.
Surprised by the Allied offensive, the Japanese made several attempts between August and November to retake Henderson Field. Three major land battles, seven large naval battles (five nighttime surface actions and two carrier battles), and continual (almost daily) aerial battles, culminated in the decisive Naval Battle of Guadalcanal in early November, in which the last Japanese attempt to bombard Henderson Field from the sea, and land with enough troops to retake it, was defeated. In December, the Japanese abandoned their efforts to retake Guadalcanal and evacuated their remaining forces by 7 February 1943, in the face of an offensive by the U.S. Army's XIV Corps.
The Guadalcanal campaign was a significant strategic combined arms Allied victory in the Pacific theater. While the Battle of Midway was a crushing defeat of the Imperial Japanese Navy, that battle did not stop Japanese offensives, which continued both at sea and on the ground. The victories at Milne Bay, Buna–Gona, and Guadalcanal marked the Allied transition from defensive operations to the strategic initiative in the theater, leading to offensive campaigns in the Solomon Islands, New Guinea, and the Central Pacific, that eventually resulted in the Surrender of Japan and the end of World War II.
This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 00:13 UTC on Wednesday, 7 February 2018.
For the full current version of the article, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guadalcanal_Campaign.
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