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syscom3
Pacific Historian
The Battle of the Tenaru, also known as the Battle of the Ilu River, took place August 21, 1942, on the island of Guadalcanal, and was a land battle of the Pacific campaign of World War II, between Imperial Japanese Army and Allied (mainly United States (U.S.) Marine) ground forces. The battle was the first major Japanese land offensive during the Guadalcanal campaign.
In the battle, U.S. Marines, under the overall command of U.S. Major General Alexander Vandegrift, successfully repulsed an assault by the "First Element" of the "Ichiki" Regiment, under the command of Japanese Colonel Kiyonao Ichiki. The Marines were defending the Lunga perimeter, which guarded Henderson Field, which was captured by the Allies in landings on Guadalcanal on August 7. Ichiki's unit was sent to Guadalcanal in response to the Allied landings with the mission of recapturing the airfield and driving the Allied forces off of the island. Underestimating the strength of Allied forces on Guadalcanal, which at that time numbered about 11,000 personnel, Ichiki's unit conducted a nighttime frontal assault on Marine positions at Alligator Creek on the east side of the Lunga perimeter. Ichiki's assault was defeated with heavy losses for the Japanese attackers. After daybreak, the Marine units counterattacked Ichiki's surviving troops, killing many more of them. In total, all but 128 of the original 917 of the Ichiki Regiment's First Element were killed in the battle.
Prelude
Reports to Allied forces from patrols of Solomon Islanders, including retired Sergeant Major Jacob C. Vouza of the Native Constabulary, under the direction of Martin Clemens, a coastwatcher and officer in the British Solomon Islands Protectorate Defence Force (BSIPDF), along with Allied intelligence from other sources, indicated that Japanese troops were present east of Lunga Point. To investigate further, on August 19, a Marine patrol of 60 men, commanded by U.S. Marine Captain Charles H. Brush, marched east from the Lunga Perimeter. At the same time, Ichiki sent forward his own patrol of 38 men to reconnoiter Allied troop dispositions and establish a forward communications base. Around 12:00 on August 19, Brush's patrol sighted and ambushed the Japanese patrol, killing all but five of its members. The Marines suffered three dead and three wounded. Papers discovered on the bodies of some of the Japanese officers in the patrol revealed that they belonged to a much larger unit and showed detailed intelligence of U.S. Marine positions around Lunga Point. The papers did not, however, detail exactly how large the Japanese force was or whether an attack was imminent.
Now anticipating an attack from the east, the U.S. Marine forces, under the direction of General Vandegrift, prepared their defenses on the east side of the Lunga perimeter. Several official U.S. military histories identify the location of the eastern defenses of the Lunga perimeter as emplaced on the Tenaru River. The Tenaru River, however, was actually located further to the east. The river forming the eastern boundary of the Lunga perimeter was actually the Ilu River, called Alligator Creek by the local inhabitants. Alligator Creek was not really a river but a tidal lagoon separated from the ocean by a sandbar about 7 to 15 meters (25-50 ft) in width and about 30 meters (100 ft) long. Along the west side of Alligator Creek, Colonel Clifton B. Cates, commander of the 1st Marine Regiment, deployed his 1st and 2nd battalions. To help further defend the Alligator Creek sandbar, Cates deployed 100 men from the 1st Special Weapons Battalion with 37mm anti-tank guns equipped with canister shot. Marine divisional artillery, consisting of both 75mm and 105mm guns, pre-targeted locations on the east side and sandbar areas of Alligator Creek, and forward artillery observers emplaced themselves in the forward Marine positions. The Marines worked all day on August 20 to prepare their defenses as much as possible before nightfall.
Learning of the annihilation of his patrol, Ichiki quickly sent forward a company to bury the bodies and followed with the rest of his troops, marching throughout the night of August 19 and finally halting at 04:30 on August 20 within a few miles of the U.S. Marine positions on the east side of Lunga Point. At this location, he prepared his troops to attack the Allied positions that night.
Action
Just after midnight on August 21, Ichiki's main body of troops arrived at the east bank of Alligator Creek and were surprised to encounter the Marine positions, not having expected to find U.S. forces located "so far from the airfield." Nearby U.S. Marine listening posts heard "clanking" sounds, human voices, and other noises before withdrawing to the west bank of the creek. At 01:30 Ichiki's force opened fire with machine guns and mortars on the Marine positions on the west bank of the creek, and a first wave of about 100 Japanese soldiers charged across the sandbar towards the Marines. Marine machine gun fire and canister rounds from the 37 mm cannons killed most of the Japanese soldiers as they crossed the sandbar. A few of the Japanese soldiers reached the Marine positions, engaged in hand to hand combat with the defenders, and captured a few of the Marine front-line emplacements. Also, Japanese machine gun and rifle fire from the east side of the creek killed several of the Marine machine-gunners. A company of Marines, held in reserve just behind the front line, attacked and killed most, if not all, of the remaining Japanese soldiers that had breached the front line defenses, ending Ichiki's first assault about an hour after it had begun. At 02:30 a second wave of about 150 to 200 Japanese troops again attacked across the sandbar and was again almost completely wiped out. At least one of the surviving Japanese officers from this attack advised Ichiki to withdraw his remaining forces, but Ichiki declined to do so.
As Ichiki's troops regrouped east of the creek, Japanese mortars bombarded the Marine lines. The Marines answered with 75 mm and mortar artillery barrages into the areas east of the creek. About 05:00, another wave of Japanese troops attacked, this time attempting to flank the Marine positions by wading through the ocean surf and attacking up the beach into the west bank area of the creek bed. The Marines responded with heavy machine gun and artillery fire along the beachfront area, again causing heavy casualties among Ichiki's attacking troops and causing them to abandon their attack and withdraw back to the east bank of the creek. For the next couple of hours, the two sides exchanged rifle, machine gun, and artillery fire at close range across the sandbar and creek.
In spite of the heavy losses his force had suffered in both night assaults, Ichiki's troops remained in place on the east bank of the creek, either unable or unwilling to withdraw. At daybreak on August 21, the commanders of the U.S. Marine units facing Ichiki's troops conferred on how best to proceed, and they decided to counterattack. The 1st Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, under Lieutenant Colonel Lenard B. Cresswell, crossed Alligator Creek upstream from the battle area, enveloped Ichiki's troops from the south and east, cutting off any avenue for retreat, and began to "compress" Ichiki's troops into a small area in a coconut grove on the east bank of the creek.[44] Aircraft from Henderson Field strafed Japanese soldiers that attempted to escape down the beach and, later in the afternoon, four Marine light tanks attacked across the sandbar into the coconut grove. The tanks swept the coconut grove with machine gun and cannon fire, as well as rolling over the bodies, both alive and dead, of any Japanese soldiers unable or unwilling to get out of the way. When the tank attack was over, Vandegrift wrote that, "the rear of the tanks looked like meat grinders."
By 17:00 on August 21, Japanese resistance had ended. Colonel Ichiki was either killed during the battle, or committed ritual suicide (seppuku) shortly thereafter, depending on the account. As curious Marines began to walk around looking at the battlefield, some injured Japanese troops shot at them, killing or wounding several Marines. Thereafter, Marines shot or bayonetted all of the Japanese bodies that they encountered, although about 15 injured and unconscious Japanese soldiers were taken prisoner. About 30 of the Japanese troops escaped to rejoin their regiment's rear echelon at Taivu Point.
Aftermath
For the U.S. and its allies, the victory in the Tenaru battle was psychologically significant in that Allied soldiers, after a series of defeats to Japanese army units throughout the Pacific and east Asia, now knew that they could defeat Japanese troops in a land battle.[49] The battle also set another precedent that would continue throughout the war in the Pacific, which was the reluctance of defeated Japanese soldiers to surrender and their efforts to continue killing Allied soldiers, even as the Japanese soldiers lay dying on the battlefield. On this subject Vandegrift remarked, "I have never heard or read of this kind of fighting. These people refuse to surrender. The wounded wait until men come up to examine them...and blow themselves and the other fellow to pieces with a hand grenade."
By August 25, most of Ichiki's survivors reached Taivu Point and radioed Rabaul to tell 17th Army headquarters that Ichiki's detachment had been "almost annihilated at a point short of the airfield." Reacting with disbelief to the news, Japanese army headquarter's officers proceeded with plans to deliver additional troops to Guadalcanal to reattempt to capture Henderson Field. The next major Japanese attack on the Lunga perimeter occurred at the Battle of Edson's Ridge about three weeks later, this time employing a much larger force than had been employed in the Tenaru battle.
In the battle, U.S. Marines, under the overall command of U.S. Major General Alexander Vandegrift, successfully repulsed an assault by the "First Element" of the "Ichiki" Regiment, under the command of Japanese Colonel Kiyonao Ichiki. The Marines were defending the Lunga perimeter, which guarded Henderson Field, which was captured by the Allies in landings on Guadalcanal on August 7. Ichiki's unit was sent to Guadalcanal in response to the Allied landings with the mission of recapturing the airfield and driving the Allied forces off of the island. Underestimating the strength of Allied forces on Guadalcanal, which at that time numbered about 11,000 personnel, Ichiki's unit conducted a nighttime frontal assault on Marine positions at Alligator Creek on the east side of the Lunga perimeter. Ichiki's assault was defeated with heavy losses for the Japanese attackers. After daybreak, the Marine units counterattacked Ichiki's surviving troops, killing many more of them. In total, all but 128 of the original 917 of the Ichiki Regiment's First Element were killed in the battle.
Prelude
Reports to Allied forces from patrols of Solomon Islanders, including retired Sergeant Major Jacob C. Vouza of the Native Constabulary, under the direction of Martin Clemens, a coastwatcher and officer in the British Solomon Islands Protectorate Defence Force (BSIPDF), along with Allied intelligence from other sources, indicated that Japanese troops were present east of Lunga Point. To investigate further, on August 19, a Marine patrol of 60 men, commanded by U.S. Marine Captain Charles H. Brush, marched east from the Lunga Perimeter. At the same time, Ichiki sent forward his own patrol of 38 men to reconnoiter Allied troop dispositions and establish a forward communications base. Around 12:00 on August 19, Brush's patrol sighted and ambushed the Japanese patrol, killing all but five of its members. The Marines suffered three dead and three wounded. Papers discovered on the bodies of some of the Japanese officers in the patrol revealed that they belonged to a much larger unit and showed detailed intelligence of U.S. Marine positions around Lunga Point. The papers did not, however, detail exactly how large the Japanese force was or whether an attack was imminent.
Now anticipating an attack from the east, the U.S. Marine forces, under the direction of General Vandegrift, prepared their defenses on the east side of the Lunga perimeter. Several official U.S. military histories identify the location of the eastern defenses of the Lunga perimeter as emplaced on the Tenaru River. The Tenaru River, however, was actually located further to the east. The river forming the eastern boundary of the Lunga perimeter was actually the Ilu River, called Alligator Creek by the local inhabitants. Alligator Creek was not really a river but a tidal lagoon separated from the ocean by a sandbar about 7 to 15 meters (25-50 ft) in width and about 30 meters (100 ft) long. Along the west side of Alligator Creek, Colonel Clifton B. Cates, commander of the 1st Marine Regiment, deployed his 1st and 2nd battalions. To help further defend the Alligator Creek sandbar, Cates deployed 100 men from the 1st Special Weapons Battalion with 37mm anti-tank guns equipped with canister shot. Marine divisional artillery, consisting of both 75mm and 105mm guns, pre-targeted locations on the east side and sandbar areas of Alligator Creek, and forward artillery observers emplaced themselves in the forward Marine positions. The Marines worked all day on August 20 to prepare their defenses as much as possible before nightfall.
Learning of the annihilation of his patrol, Ichiki quickly sent forward a company to bury the bodies and followed with the rest of his troops, marching throughout the night of August 19 and finally halting at 04:30 on August 20 within a few miles of the U.S. Marine positions on the east side of Lunga Point. At this location, he prepared his troops to attack the Allied positions that night.
Action
Just after midnight on August 21, Ichiki's main body of troops arrived at the east bank of Alligator Creek and were surprised to encounter the Marine positions, not having expected to find U.S. forces located "so far from the airfield." Nearby U.S. Marine listening posts heard "clanking" sounds, human voices, and other noises before withdrawing to the west bank of the creek. At 01:30 Ichiki's force opened fire with machine guns and mortars on the Marine positions on the west bank of the creek, and a first wave of about 100 Japanese soldiers charged across the sandbar towards the Marines. Marine machine gun fire and canister rounds from the 37 mm cannons killed most of the Japanese soldiers as they crossed the sandbar. A few of the Japanese soldiers reached the Marine positions, engaged in hand to hand combat with the defenders, and captured a few of the Marine front-line emplacements. Also, Japanese machine gun and rifle fire from the east side of the creek killed several of the Marine machine-gunners. A company of Marines, held in reserve just behind the front line, attacked and killed most, if not all, of the remaining Japanese soldiers that had breached the front line defenses, ending Ichiki's first assault about an hour after it had begun. At 02:30 a second wave of about 150 to 200 Japanese troops again attacked across the sandbar and was again almost completely wiped out. At least one of the surviving Japanese officers from this attack advised Ichiki to withdraw his remaining forces, but Ichiki declined to do so.
As Ichiki's troops regrouped east of the creek, Japanese mortars bombarded the Marine lines. The Marines answered with 75 mm and mortar artillery barrages into the areas east of the creek. About 05:00, another wave of Japanese troops attacked, this time attempting to flank the Marine positions by wading through the ocean surf and attacking up the beach into the west bank area of the creek bed. The Marines responded with heavy machine gun and artillery fire along the beachfront area, again causing heavy casualties among Ichiki's attacking troops and causing them to abandon their attack and withdraw back to the east bank of the creek. For the next couple of hours, the two sides exchanged rifle, machine gun, and artillery fire at close range across the sandbar and creek.
In spite of the heavy losses his force had suffered in both night assaults, Ichiki's troops remained in place on the east bank of the creek, either unable or unwilling to withdraw. At daybreak on August 21, the commanders of the U.S. Marine units facing Ichiki's troops conferred on how best to proceed, and they decided to counterattack. The 1st Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, under Lieutenant Colonel Lenard B. Cresswell, crossed Alligator Creek upstream from the battle area, enveloped Ichiki's troops from the south and east, cutting off any avenue for retreat, and began to "compress" Ichiki's troops into a small area in a coconut grove on the east bank of the creek.[44] Aircraft from Henderson Field strafed Japanese soldiers that attempted to escape down the beach and, later in the afternoon, four Marine light tanks attacked across the sandbar into the coconut grove. The tanks swept the coconut grove with machine gun and cannon fire, as well as rolling over the bodies, both alive and dead, of any Japanese soldiers unable or unwilling to get out of the way. When the tank attack was over, Vandegrift wrote that, "the rear of the tanks looked like meat grinders."
By 17:00 on August 21, Japanese resistance had ended. Colonel Ichiki was either killed during the battle, or committed ritual suicide (seppuku) shortly thereafter, depending on the account. As curious Marines began to walk around looking at the battlefield, some injured Japanese troops shot at them, killing or wounding several Marines. Thereafter, Marines shot or bayonetted all of the Japanese bodies that they encountered, although about 15 injured and unconscious Japanese soldiers were taken prisoner. About 30 of the Japanese troops escaped to rejoin their regiment's rear echelon at Taivu Point.
Aftermath
For the U.S. and its allies, the victory in the Tenaru battle was psychologically significant in that Allied soldiers, after a series of defeats to Japanese army units throughout the Pacific and east Asia, now knew that they could defeat Japanese troops in a land battle.[49] The battle also set another precedent that would continue throughout the war in the Pacific, which was the reluctance of defeated Japanese soldiers to surrender and their efforts to continue killing Allied soldiers, even as the Japanese soldiers lay dying on the battlefield. On this subject Vandegrift remarked, "I have never heard or read of this kind of fighting. These people refuse to surrender. The wounded wait until men come up to examine them...and blow themselves and the other fellow to pieces with a hand grenade."
By August 25, most of Ichiki's survivors reached Taivu Point and radioed Rabaul to tell 17th Army headquarters that Ichiki's detachment had been "almost annihilated at a point short of the airfield." Reacting with disbelief to the news, Japanese army headquarter's officers proceeded with plans to deliver additional troops to Guadalcanal to reattempt to capture Henderson Field. The next major Japanese attack on the Lunga perimeter occurred at the Battle of Edson's Ridge about three weeks later, this time employing a much larger force than had been employed in the Tenaru battle.
