First Offensive: The Marine Campaign for Guadalcanal

The battle for Guadalcanal was the turning point in the Pacific War, and this book tells the story from the perspective of the Marines who made it happen. In August 1942, a handful of untested Marine regiments landed on a jungle-covered island in the Solomon Islands, tasked with seizing an airfield the Japanese had built and holding it against everything the Empire could throw at them. What followed was six months of brutal combat across land, sea, and air that would claim thousands of lives and fundamentally reshape the strategic landscape of World War II. Shaw, a Marine Corps historian with access to primary sources and participant interviews, reconstructs the amphibious landings, the desperate defense of Henderson Field, and the command decisions that determined the outcome. This is operational history at its finest: detailed, authoritative, and unflinching about the chaos and courage that defined America's first major offensive in the Pacific.