(The Battles for Guadalcanal will be historically recorded as one-of-a kind that pitted American military genius against Imperial Japanese brute force. Land and naval battles brought out the best in strategy despite an unforgiving jungle.)
GUADALCANAL REMEMBERED -NOVEMBER, 1942
And then it rained. For
many days and
as many nights; stop and go like a subway train...
And the sog was all around us and the smell of jungle rot prevailed...
Our tents were lined near Henderson airfield. Our gaping fox holes bid us welcome beside our cots. They seemed to know. Through the rain came the sound of Japanese bedlam. Greetings from washing machine Charlie's bombs at night and by day, thunder from war ships at Sealark channel, a slot that separates Guadalcanal from the island of Tulagi, the scene of Marine action on August 7 when The Canal was invaded.
Often we entered our murky shelters to escape the shrapne,l which one night cut the supporting pole of my tent.. .
The worse was yet to come.
The navy audience was hearing a World War II lament by former Marine corporal David Alter. It was at the bi-monthly dinner meeting of the Navy League's Denver Council in Golden's Marriott West. South pacific Marines from Loveland, Ft. Collins and Broomfield were present to rehash World War II on Guadalcanal. Alter, the speaker, is a Longmont resident.)
Three marines who had served on "The Canal" 65 years ago, but had never crossed paths, reminisced. The language was Semper Fi. Alter, 83, of Longmont, Warren Penner, 86 and Phil Metz, 83, of Loveland, World War II survivors of Guadalcanal, met for the first time in 65 years.
Penner was an aircraft mechanic whose Grumman F4F aircraft fighter squadron was first to arrive at Guadalcanal's Henderson Field.
Phil Metz trained as an artillery man then bazooka and machine gunner. He saw combat on The Canal, Bougainville, Guam, Okinawa and Eniwetok.
Alter served as ground defense and ordnance man with a specially-assigned platoon to protect aircraft at Henderson and neutralize enemy penetration. He saw action against the enemy for six months and was evacuated after suffering a head injury, malaria, yellow jaundice and jungle fatigue. Around him some languished with Dengue fever, dysentery, sores, bleeding, fungus and infection. Lice, vermin, flies, rats, snakes and mysterious vermin thrived. A time of near starvation taught us we could survive on vines and the unthinkable.
Taking Guadalcanal was a major turning point in the war and stopped Japanese expansion. They gave up the prize airfield after seven bloody months of battles. Three times they tried to retake the field and threw in the towel Feb. 7, 1943. But harassment continued.
U.S. Casualties totaled 1,768 dead, 29 ships sunk and 615 aircraft destroyed.
The battles for Guadalcanal dwarfed the world's epic Battles of Agincourt, Trafalgar, the Zulu War of 1879, and the American Civil War - greatest civil war in American history.