7 August

Guadalcanal lay near the foot of a chain of islands called the Solomons. It had been a peaceful place, in the backwash of Pacific trade, where Australian coconut planters had quietly gone about their business in the cooler hours of the boiling days. In the spring of 1942, the Japanese landed on Guadalcanal. Australian planters hid in the jungle and observed the enemy through a secret system of coast-watchers. In this way, they were able to report that the Japanese were hard at work building an airfield on the island. This was threatening news, and it convinced the US military command that Guadalcanal had to be seized immediately. With the dawn of 7 August 1942, a column of cruisers, destroyers and troop transports slipped around the western tip of the island. Along the coast, behind the whitening beach line, stood row after row of palm trees. Behind them, lay the wet, gray jungle, with ridges rising above it like giant fish-backs that gradually bulged away into mountains. These cuts the 80-mile length of the island in two.
As the sun threw its bands across the dull sky, orange flame lashed out from the guns of the warships. Carrier planes dove toward the beach-their machine guns crackling as they sprayed the coconut groves with bullets. The beaches erupted in clouds of sand, and the sounds boomed across the still channel. Aboard the transports, the Marines of the 1st Marine Division-commanded by Major General Alexander Archer Vandergrift-waited below the hot decks. Loudspeakers scattered throughout the ships blared out a command: “Now all Marines, go to your debarkation stations.” The Marines filed up narrow ladders to positions on deck above the cargo nets that were draped over the sides. More orders crackled in the speakers. Davits were swung down the nets into the boats, which scooted off, one by one, to the rendezvous areas where they circled and waited in the water. Wave following wave, the boats sped for the beach. The first major United States offensive of World War II had begun.
The Marines did not throw all of their force on Guadalcanal. They also sent units to seize Tulagi and Florida Islands on the other side of Sealark Channel. At Tulagi, they met brief resistance. However, on Guadalcanal, the Japanese (mostly laborers) fled into the hills. The Marines of the assault waves secured the beachhead without firing a single shot. Those landing behind them rushed across the beach with a sense of history-in-the-making only to find their unconcerned comrades sitting in the grass while hacking open coconuts with their bayonets. The advance to the airfield was also unopposed; though, after pushing inland, some of the battalions found themselves in land uncharted on their maps. Platoons and companies became lost in the dense island vegetation. They sweated, cursed, and trudged over jagged ridges, through wet meshes of jungle and knifelike Kunai grass as tall as a man. The Marines were bogged down in the swamps, bitten by scorpions, and exhausted by the suffocating heat while in constant search for the hidden Japanese troops.
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[@Deanothefordtech]

Helmet on to of the helmet? Of is the insert that thick???

[@OpCrossRoads]

He is using an early m1 Hawley type liner.

[@michaeldamisch1367]

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