Guadalcanal American Memorial

The Guadalcanal American Memorial commemorates the Americans and Allies who lost their lives during the Guadalcanal Campaign in the Second World War, from 7 August 1942 to 9 February 1943.

Text on the memorial:
THIS MEMORIAL HAS BEEN ERECTED BY THE
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
IN HUMBLE TRIBUTE TO ITS SONS AND ITS ALLIES
WHO PAID THE ULTIMATE SACRIFICE
FOR THE LIBERATION OF THE SOLOMON ISLANDS
1942 - 1943

At the Guadalcanal American Memorial there is a plaque dedicated to the presence during the battle of many excellent newspaper and magazine correspondents.

Early in the fighting, which took place between August 1942 and February 1943, the best known was Richard Tregaskis, who left Guadalcanal in September 1942 and soon thereafter published his best-selling book, Guadalcanal Diary.

Another early book about the campaign was Herbert C. Merillat’s The Island. Merillat was a Marine Corps officer assigned to write about the battle and to supervise other military press journalists. Later in his life Merillat published his diary of the campaign, Guadalcanal Remembered.

John Hersey was assigned to write about Guadalcanal for Time and Life Magazines. His best-selling book, Into the Valley, about the Matanikau River on Guadalcanal, came out in 1943. Hersey is best remembered for his New Yorker article on the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima in 1945.

For a general account of correspondents in war, see Philip Knightley’s The First Casualty: The War Correspondent as Hero and Myth-Maker from the Crimea to Iraq

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Source

• Text: Fedor de Vries & Matthew Stevenson
• Photos: American Battle Monuments Commission (1), Matthew Stevenson (2, 3, 4, 5)
• Pacific Wrecks