http://worldcat.org/entity/work/id/862115304

Hell's islands : the untold story of Guadalcanal

From August 1942 until February 1943, two armies faced each other amid the malarial jungles and blistering heat of Guadalcanal Island. The Imperial Japanese forces needed to protect and maintain the air base that gave them the ability to interdict enemy supply routes. The Allies were desperate to halt the advance of a foe that so far had inflicted crippling losses on the U.S. fleet. After months of relentless battle, the U.S. troops forced back the determined Japanese, providing what many historians believe was the decisive turning point in the Pacific theater of operations. Detailed are the events that preceded the battle for Guadalcanal during the Australian defense of the southern Solomon Islands in late 1941, the military preparations made in response to intelligence describing the creation of an enemy air base within striking distance of American supply lines, and the subsequent civilian evacuation that followed the Japanese arrival in New Guinea. Chock-full of gripping battlefield accounts and harrowing first-person narratives, the Allied and Japanese perspectives on the bloody contest are drawn together for first time.

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