On August 21, 1942, the still night along a small stream on Guadalcanal exploded into chaos. The Marines called it Alligator Creek, though the name was wrong, and history remembers it as the Battle of Tenaru. Colonel Kiyonao Ichiki marched nearly a thousand men straight into the Marine perimeter, convinced that victory was already his. What followed was hours of screaming charges, machine gun fire, and canister rounds that cut the Japanese down in waves. By sunrise, Ichiki’s men were trapped in a coconut grove, and American tanks rolled through the wreckage, crushing what remained. Of the 916 Japanese soldiers who attacked, almost all were killed. Only fifteen were taken prisoner. For the Marines, it was their first great land victory of the Pacific war. At Tenaru, the illusion of Japanese invincibility shattered, and the long fight for Guadalcanal had truly begun.

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