page_title: Guadalcanal Campaign
section_title: Battle of the Tenaru
hierarchical_section_title: Guadalcanal Campaign / Battle of the Tenaru
caption_attribution_description: Dead Japanese soldiers lie on the sandbar at the mouth of Alligator Creek on Guadalcanal on 21 August 1942 after being killed by U.S. Marines during the Battle of the Tenaru.
context_page_description: The Guadalcanal Campaign was fought between August 7, 1942, and February 9, 1943, in the Pacific theatre of World War II. This campaign, which was a decisive and strategically important campaign of World War II, was fought on the ground, at sea, and in the air between Allied forces against Imperial Japanese forces. The fighting took place on and around the island of Guadalcanal in the southern Solomon Islands, and was the first major offensive launched by Allied forces against the Empire of Japan.
  On August 7, 1942, Allied forces, mainly from the United States, started landings on the islands of Guadalcanal, Tulagi, and Florida in the southern Solomons with the aim to make supply routes between the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand safer.
  The Battle of Guadalcanal was one of the first long campaigns in the Pacific.
context_section_description: In response to the Allied landings on Guadalcanal, the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters assigned the Imperial Japanese Army's (IJA) 17th Army at Rabaul and under the command of Lieutenant General Harukichi Hyakutake, was ordered to retake Guadalcanal. The army was to be supported by Japanese naval units, including the Combined Fleet under the command of Isoroku Yamamoto, which was headquartered at Truk. The 17th Army, at that time involved in the Japanese campaign in New Guinea, had only a few units available. The 35th Infantry Brigade under Major General Kiyotake Kawaguchi was at Palau. The 4th (Aoba) Infantry Regiment was in the Philippines and the 28th (Ichiki) Infantry Regiment, under the command of Colonel Kiyonao Ichiki, was on transport ships near Guam.
  The different units began to move towards Guadalcanal. Ichiki's unit, consisting of about 917 soldiers, landed from destroyers at Taivu Pointbafter midnight on 19 August, then made a 9-mile (14 km) night march west toward the Marines. The Ichiki regiment was named after its commanding officer.
  Ichiki thought that there were not that many Allied soldiers on Guadalcanal. Ichiki's soldiers attacked Marine positions at Alligator Creek in the early morning hours of 21 August. Ichiki's attack was defeated with heavy Japanese losses in what became known as the Battle of the Tenaru. In the day, the Marines attacked Ichiki's surviving troops, killing many more of them.
  The dead included Ichiki, though it has been claimed that he committed suicide after realizing his defeat, rather than dying in combat. In total, all but 128 of the original 917 members of the Ichiki Regiment's force were killed in the battle. The survivors returned to Taivu Point, notified 17th Army headquarters of their defeat and waited for new soldiers and orders from Rabaul.
caption: Dead Japanese soldiers at the mouth of Alligator Creek, Guadalcanal after the Battle of the Tenaru.
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