Transcriber’s note: Table of Contents added by Transcriber and placed into the public domain. Boldface text is indicated by =equals signs=. Contents First Offensive: The Marine Campaign for Guadalcanal SIDEBAR: General Alexander A. Vandegrift The Landing and August Battles SIDEBAR: First Marine Utility Uniform Issued in World War II SIDEBAR: LVT (1)--The ‘Amtrac’ SIDEBAR: General Vandegrift and His 1st Marine Division Staff SIDEBAR: The Coastwatchers SIDEBAR: The 1st Marine Division Patch September and the Ridge SIDEBAR: Sergeant Major Sir Jacob Charles Vouza SIDEBAR: M3A1 37mm Antitank Gun SIDEBAR: Douglas Albert Munro October and the Japanese Offensive SIDEBAR: Reising Gun November and the Continuing Buildup SIDEBAR: 75mm Pack Howitzer--Workhorse of the Artillery SIDEBAR: The Japanese Model 89 (1929) 50mm Heavy Grenade Discharger December and the Final Stages SIDEBAR: The ‘George’ Medal Sources About the Author About this series of pamphlets Transcriber’s Notes FIRST OFFENSIVE: THE MARINE CAMPAIGN FOR GUADALCANAL MARINES IN WORLD WAR II COMMEMORATIVE SERIES BY HENRY I. SHAW, JR. [Illustration: _A Marine machine gunner and his Browning .30-caliber M1917 heavy machine gun stand guard while 1st Marine Division engineers clean up in the Lunga River._ (Department of Defense [USMC] Photo 588741)] [Illustration: _It was from a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress such as this that LtCol Merrill B. Twining and Maj William B. McKean reconnoitered the Watchtower target area and discovered the Japanese building an airfield on Guadalcanal._ (National Archives Photo 80-G-34887)] First Offensive: The Marine Campaign for Guadalcanal _by Henry I. Shaw, Jr._ In the early summer of 1942, intelligence reports of the construction of a Japanese airfield near Lunga Point on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands triggered a demand for offensive action in the South Pacific. The leading offensive advocate in Washington was Admiral Ernest J. King, Chief of Naval Operations (CNO). In the Pacific, his view was shared by Admiral Chester A. Nimitz, Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet (CinCPac), who had already proposed sending the 1st Marine Raider Battalion to Tulagi, an island 20 miles north of Guadalcanal across Sealark Channel, to destroy a Japanese seaplane base there. Although the Battle of the Coral Sea had forestalled a Japanese amphibious assault on Port Moresby, the Allied base of supply in eastern New Guinea, completion of the Guadalcanal airfield might signal the beginning of a renewed enemy advance to the south and an increased threat to the lifeline of American aid to New Zealand and Australia. On 23 July 1942, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) in Washington agreed that the line of communications in the South Pacific had to be secured. The Japanese advance had to be stopped. Thus, Operation Watchtower, the seizure of Guadalcanal and Tulagi, came into being.