Guadalcanal – The Marines at Edson’s Ridge

| October 23, 2020

 

It’s Friday and it’s raining polar bears outside my window, and we’re all a little bit bored.

I found this while looking through old revived WWII film: another film from the archives.

This is about Guadalcanal, and the battle for Edson’s Ridge.

800 Marines beat 2,500 Japanese soldiers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74rqIWy6kkA

Category: Holidays, Marines

10 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Combat Historian

The Kawaguchi detachment of five Japanese Army infantry battalions with ample fire support was destroyed by the heavily-outnumbered U.S. Marines because the Japanese seriously underestimated the strength and fighting ability of the Americans. The Japanese continued to underestimate the strength and ability of the American forces until almost the end of the Guadalcanal campaign…

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kawaguchi_Detachment

KoB

You just had to get and hold my attention with the opening salvos of Floating Artillery Platforms…didn’t ya? Thanks!!!

BZ to these Warrior Devil Dogs. You can bet that the Souls of these Men are shaking their collective heads over the snowflaked Marines on the PT Field from the other day. Sad, ain’t it.

Not to be a little stinker, but it’s a balmy 70 some odd degrees F, semi partly cloudy. I am fighting the tree rats for the pecan crop. They seem to be winning the battle AND the War. I’m slightly ahead on the Black Walnuts Front, only because their food of choice is the pecans. Little bastards snack on the pecans heavily even before they get ripe. Hoping the wind will be up a bit bit and knock a few more out of the trees. Pecan pie anyone? With vanilla bean ice cream?

KoB

Bushel baskets full. Even use a new Estwing 28oz hammer for the cracking thereof. Not sure of age of the Black Walnut tree, or the pecan trees, but there is an 1880 some odd picture and a 1940 picture that shows the trees inside the perimeter. We’ve used different ages of the walnut shells to make shades of “Butternut Brown”/”Green” dyes for home spun cotton cloth and carded wool. The nuts get used in sorgum/molasses/cane syrup chewy cookies and the fruit cakes.

Did I make mention there is a porked loin beast a percurlating lowly in the crockett pot as we speak? Some will be set aside for pulled porked beast sammiches, more for porked beast over rice au’ jus, and another portion for BBQ dipping sauce blend. One of My Lady Friend Compatriots had surgery yesterday (tumor removed completely) and will be laid up for awhile. Making up an assortment of that and other goodies to tide them over. I really need to replace that vacuum seal machine I lost custody of years ago.

David

One of the pieces of family lore is that shortly after moving to Missouri, they cut up a giant walnut tree a storm brought down. Supposedly they got an entire BIG barn built off that one tree… sure would have loved to have seen that monster before it came down! Can’t imagine a barn entirely built from walnut, either.

Dennis - not chevy

It’s a good hardwood. Once upon a time, a neighbor had a black walnut tree that needed felling. My boss, a good man overall but not that day, decided this would be a good time to try out the two manned buck saw he just bought. I swear if that tree was an inch larger, we’d still be sawing.

Sparks

One of the first of many, many WWII books I read as a kid was Guadalcanal Diary. Amazing story and great men. The first book that got me started was 30 Seconds Over Tokyo.

Ken

Didn’t mean to report this, hit the wrong button.

Landmark Books? Possibly the greatest series of American history books for kids ever published. My friends and I would compete to buy them as the new ones were announced ( back in the mid 1950’s). Set me on a life-long love of history even public schooling couldn’t kill.

Jeff LPH 3, 63-66

When I started working on the trucks back in 1970, most of the guys were WW2 and Korean War Vets. I was driving a Former WW2 Marine one day and he was telling me that he was on Guadalcanal and some of the new replacements coming in were rush jobs to get them through Boot Camp. Telling me that a couple of guys were so nervous that when they threw a grenade, they didn’t pull the pin out and the japs threw them back. These Vets were in their 40’s at the time and a little younger for the Korean War guys. Also had a number of Viet Vets.