Everything that came after, the island hopping campaign across the Pacific, the fall of Saipan that brought American bombers within range of the Japanese homeland, the terrible battles of Ewima and Okinawa, the atomic bombs that finally ended the war.

All of it grew from seeds planted on a jungle-covered island in the Solomons, where American Marines proved that Japanese commanders had been wrong about everything.

The Japanese military had spent decades preparing for war with the United States.

They had studied American culture.

They had assessed American military capability.

They had concluded that Americans lacked the will to fight.

It took 6 months on Guadal Canal to destroy that assumption forever.

Today, the battlefields of Guadal Canal are quiet.

The jungle has reclaimed most of the fighting positions.

Rusted equipment and scattered bones occasionally surface when farmers plow their fields.

The ridge where Edson’s men held against Kawaguchi’s brigade is peaceful now, covered in grass and tropical flowers, but the memory remains.

In the Marine Corps, Guadal Canal is sacred ground.

The men who fought there are honored as the foundation of everything that came after.

The battles they won, often against impossible odds, established a reputation that would carry the core through the rest of the war and into the conflicts that followed.

And in Japan, though the battle is less well remembered than in America, its significance is understood by those who study the war.

Guadal Canal was where the tide turned.

Guadal Canal was where the myth of Japanese invincibility died.

Guadal Canal was where everything changed.

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