This campaign was fought between August 7, 1942 and February 8, 1943, against the Japanese Empire. It was centered around a small mountainous, jungle covered, island in the Southern Solomon Islands. The entire island was not even involved. The extensive Naval and Air actions were fought in support of the struggle on land. Both the Imperial Japanese Navy and United States Navy were extensively involved. It held strategic importance for both the Americans and the Japanese. Mistakes were made and lessons were learned, by both sides. The actions taken by both sides effected the remaining battles of the war in the Pacific.

For the invasion of the Soloman Islands, American Intelligence had to improvise and gather many loose ends of factual knowledge. Except for the head hunting proclivities of some of the 100,000 fuzzy -haired inhabitants (known as Melanesians), few Americans, and not many more Australians or New Zealanders, knew much about this string of jungle islands stretched from Buka and Bouganville on the northwest to Guadalcanal and San Cristobal on the southeast - a distance of 650 mile.

On Guadalcanal where malaria was prevalent throughout the entire action, conditions almost turned victory into defeat. The Marine mission on Gudalcanal was not entirely one of destruction. Within the perimeter, bridges had to be built, roads cut through or improved, and as the situation stabilized - adequate campsites had to be established.

For an entire month, from November 23, to December 23, l942, the Battle of Guadalcanal became a duel of patrols - an "Indian War" fought mostly in the dark, damp jungles or in the black deadly nights. A war of sudden ambush and sudden death, in which the flash of a knife might be followed only by the gurgle of blood, or a shot only by the whisper of skulking feet. The Marines fought like raiders, on the ground and in the bush. The Japs, in their split-toe sneakers, ranged through the branches or crept, silent as tennis shod phantoms, to the black holes of the Marine perimeter. The patrols fought to death, taking few prisoners and leaving few traces, except rotting enemy bodies.

When, on February 9, l943, Guadalcanal was declared secure, the Second Battalion, 10th Marine Artillery Regiment, Second Marine Division, was the only Marine unit still in action. In the six months of the campaign, the Second Marine Division had lost 263 killed, fifteen missing and 932 wounded.