Portal:Oceania/Selected article/January, 2008

Dead Japanese soldiers lie on the sandbar at the mouth of Alligator Creek on Guadalcanal on August 21, 1942 after being killed by U.S. Marines during the Battle of the Tenaru.

The Battle of the Tenaru 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 successfully repulsed an assault by the "First Element" of the "Ichiki" Regiment. 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.

The battle was the first of three separate major land offensives by the Japanese in the Guadalcanal campaign. After Tenaru, the Japanese realized that Allied forces on Guadalcanal were much greater in number than originally estimated and thereafter sent larger forces to the island for their subsequent attempts to retake Henderson Field.

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