A vivid narrative history of the Solomons campaign of World War II,
one of the key turning points in the U.S. Navy's campaign against the
Japanese in the Pacific.
If the Battle of Midway, fought in June 1942, stopped further Japanese
expansion in the Pacific, it was the Battle of Guadalcanal and the
following Solomons Campaign that broke the back of the Imperial Japanese
Navy. Between August 7, 1942 and February 24, 1944 when the Imperial
Japanese Navy withdrew its surviving surface and air units from Rabaul,
the main Japanese base in the South Pacific, the US Navy fought the most
difficult campaign in its history, suffering such high personnel losses
during the campaign that for years it refused to publicly release total
casualty figures.
Unlike the Central Pacific Campaign, which was fought by 'the new Navy,
' the Solomons campaign saw the US Navy at its lowest point, using those
ships that had survived the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and other
units of the pre-war navy hastily transferred to the Pacific. After the
Battle of Santa Cruz in late October, USS Enterprise was the only
pre-war carrier left in the South Pacific and the Navy would not have
been able to resist the Imperial Japanese Navy had they sought a third
major fleet action in the region. For most of the campaign, the issue of
which side would ultimately prevail was in doubt until toward the end
when the surge of American industrial production began to make itself
felt.
Under the Southern Cross examines the Solomons campaign from land, sea
and air, offering a new account of the military offensive that laid the
groundwork for Allied success throughout the rest of the Pacific War.
