| As I mentioned earlier, I am the son of a Marine who fought at both Guadalcanal and at Iwo Jima (and other campaigns in between). He seldom spoke of his experiences and then only to myself and my youngest brother as the only other combat troops in the family (my middle brother joined the Air Force - go figure he he). As the oldest, and his namesake, I heard the most of all. He _always_ spoke of Guadalcanal as the toughest he saw for many reasons, but I think the hardest to deal with was the lack of support in the early months of the campaign with the Navy having left them all without even finishing unloading the original amounts of supplies and equipment and not a single ship to keep the Japanese Navy at bay. They had to scavenge food from the Japanese just to keep from starving and use captured Japanese weapons and ammo to supliment their own. It was far from even to start with and it was more than a few months before it was.
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"Do not forget your dogs of war, your big guns, which are the most-to-be respected arguments of the rights of kings."
- Frederick the Great, King of Prussia  |