Naval Battle of Guadalcanal 1942
Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
Key facts
| Date | 13 November 1942 – 15 November 1942 | Wikidata |
|---|---|---|
| Year | 1942 | Wikidata P580 (start time) |
| Era | World War II era (1939–1945) | derived from year |
| Nearest landmass | At sea (nearest continent: Oceania) | Natural Earth (modern borders) |
| Continent | Oceania | Natural Earth |
| War / conflict | Pacific War | Wikidata P361 |
| Participants | Empire of Japan, United States | Wikidata P710 |
| Coordinates | -9.1861, 159.8950 | Wikidata P625 |
About the battle
The Naval Battle of Guadalcanal took place from 12 to 15 November 1942 and was the decisive engagement in a series of naval battles between Allied (primarily American) and Imperial Japanese forces during the months-long Guadalcanal campaign in the Solomon Islands during World War II. The action consisted of combined air and sea engagements over four days, most near Guadalcanal and all related to a Japanese effort to reinforce land forces on the island. The only two U.S. Navy admirals to be killed in a surface engagement in the war were lost in this battle.
Allied forces landed on Guadalcanal on 7 August 1942 and seized an airfield, later called Henderson Field, that was under construction by the Japanese military. There were several subsequent attempts to recapture the airfield by the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy using reinforcements delivered to Guadalcanal by ship, efforts which ultimately failed. In early November 1942, the Japanese organized a transport convoy to take 7,000 infantry troops and their equipment to Guadalcanal to attempt once again to retake the airfield. Several Japanese warship forces were assigned to bombard Henderson Field with the goal of destroying Allied aircraft that posed a threat to the convoy. Learning of the Japanese reinforcement effort, U.S.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Naval Battle of Guadalcanal (revision 1381128065), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; shortened by selecting paragraphs and trimming at a sentence boundary; formatting and citations removed. No text added.
Nearby battles
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- Battle of Savo Island 1942 · 10 km
- Battle of Cape Esperance 1942 · 29 km
- Battle of Mount Austen, the Galloping Horse, and the Sea Horse 1942 · 29 km
- Battle of Tulagi and Gavutu–Tanambogo 1942 · 29 km
- Battle for Henderson Field 1942 · 32 km
Other battles of the Pacific War
- Battle of Hong Kong 1941
- Battle of Wake Island 1941
- Battle for Henderson Field 1942
- Battle of Badung Strait 1942
- Battle of Balikpapan (1942) 1942
- Battle of Christmas Island 1942
- Battle of Corregidor 1942
- Battle of Manado 1942
- Battle of Midway 1942
- Battle of Mount Austen, the Galloping Horse, and the Sea Horse 1942
All 56 battles of the Pacific War →
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