Exciting and interesting. This one is no exception. I have seen so many friends who have come from far and wide, including my good friend all the way from texas. Thank you for coming. We are now in the portion of our program, we have had a wonderful introduction to the road to guadalcanal from richard frank. Someday we are going to do a rich frank symposium, eight straight hours. No one would object. I know that. Now, we are in the portion of our program, for the next three sessions, we will be looking at land, sea, and air fighting around and over guadalcanal. We will start with the land portion. Dr. Andy west is universal dr. Andrew wiest is a distinguished professor. He is the codirector of the dale center for society. That rivals the length of my own title, and i think andy needs his own placard. He is the author of numerous books, including war in the pacific, vietnams forgotten army, and the boys of 67. He is also a great undiscovered rock drummer. He is here to speak about the fighting on land at guadalcanal. [laughter] [applause] hopefully, one thing you already figured out is that i am much more of a vietnam era historian. When all the tough questions come up, when my freshman ask me questions about things like food is him, which i know this much about, i put them down to this table here. I would like to thank rob, jeremy, and the entire team at this Wonderful Museum for putting this together and inviting me to be part of this. I love coming to new orleans, it is one of the few places where i do not have to apologize for my accent or get an interpreter. It is always great to speak, and my mandate is to talk about the land battles at guadalcanal. I am a university teacher, so im used to talking in our and 30 minute sound bites, but we will try and keep it to 30, which is a hard job. When i was trying to keep it down together, it dawned on me how complicated this series of battles is, not only complicated in a ground sense, but in an air sense, and naval sense, all of them are tied together, and im going to try and focus on the ground fighting. Every now and again, the air and naval stuff will have to pop up. When i began to think about this battle in a 30 minute soundbites term, i thought about characterizing it, and i think it is safe to characterize it as a world war i battle. It looks more like a battle from world war i than the typical battles we expect with tanks all over the place. This battle states in one place and gets attritional, and some horrible physical conditions. It is much like a world war i battle. Imagine lifting up the battle of the muse are gone or the sum, or the somme. So instead of having them in france, stick them in vietnam. It also remember resembles the vietnam world war. This is not a world war ii battle. It is our other two big wars stuck together. To do all of this in a short period of time, let us give on it and see if i can give it a try. Your usually, if you are thinking about a gallant stand by american soldiers in world war ii, you go to where american soldiers were surrounded and facing heavy odds against hitlers best, 11,000 american soldiers you are standing 50,000 of hitlers soldiers who are rescued. 3000 become casualties and they blunt the last gamble attempt at victory by hitlers. It is different they are conditions that are horrific, but as far away from guadalcanal as you can get. If there is a vision of the american stand, it is this one. I would like to say guadalcanal ought to take that place. They conditions are a good bit different. Conditions are much more tropical and much more island in nature. The marines here stand for months. Not a week or two, they stand for months under supplied and hope running out. You name it. Again, i would say that this battle ought to be thought of with bastogne or superseding that. You can get a glimpse of what it was like, world war i meets vietnam. It is also important to put the land battle, and we heard some of this this morning, and i will try to amplify it. You would put this battle into its time period to see how important it is. We had just undergone a series of massive and heartrending reverses. Like getting pushed all over the pacific, we have had one or two kind of tie i think coral sea, and a big three at midway. But things are not looking good. Certainly, one of the things that we have to cast our mind back to is yamamotos thought about the United States. He did not think the United States would have enough guts or the intestinal fortitude to fight a difficult war against the japanese. As was brought up this morning, i think that was a fair question in 1942. Do we have the guts to face this and what the japanese will throw up against us . A wall thrown in the pacific that we will have to bash our way through for months on end. To talk about the distance, if anyone has ever traveled to this part of the world, i was blessed with the experience one time of going to speak at a conference in australia. And, i was pretty sure that flight was never going to end. The flight from l. A. To sydney was 14 hours. I saw every movie on the airplane, and i am sure that i had every alcoholic beverage. There were still hours left to go. Then, when we got to sydney, they gave us the announcement that sydney had been socked in by fog, so we turned around and landed on another island, which made it look like we were landing in the ocean. It is tiny and then you had a landing strip. The place is unimaginably far away. It is easily to talk miles and another thing to put them into a human perspective. Just, a daunting aspect of getting there, much less getting there with japanese standing in our way as they can. The other kind of image that we have about world war ii, is that it fits well into the american war thesis. What we always have going for us, unless you are the confederacy, but we always have going is more stuff than the enemy. We are the arsenal of democracy. We may not outmaneuver you, and it may not be the equal to the panthers or Something Like that, but we have more of them. We will drown you in the fruits of the American Industrial system. Guadalcanal is not that way. It does not fit this paradigm of american war. At guadalcanal, we are usually the ones being outnumbered or out supplied by the enemy, which is going to be the last time it happens in world war ii. It is a nonworld war ii battle. This has brought up this morning was brought up this morning. I dont think there is anyway you can talk about this roo too little. If you go through this Wonderful Museum, you will see that the japanese are pretrade in a couple of different ways. One is a tiny, almost the big round glasses on this guy, and a tiny figure in a very nonpositive light, and that is one way we viewed the japanese, especially later in the war. At this point, the japanese were viewed as undefeatable. Look at what they have done to us in the pacific, they kicked our butts all over the place, and the british and smaller allies, they kicked us up and down the pacific. They seem to be an unbeatable force. This is the first time wanting to stand against that unbeatable force. I was looking at a picture along these lines, and there are few extent pictures of how the japanese pictured us in their propaganda. We and their propaganda, the way they believe things looked at the beginning of the war were not to be worried about. The americans are followers of democracy. The marines, even if we managed to throw a few showed a somewhere will play philippines. Things will not vary will not be very difficult. They view us lightly. They are pretty sure that we will not be audacious enough to attack guadalcanal as was brought up, if we will strike back, it will be later. They do not expect us to put men ashore, and if we do, they will succumb to the superior japanese soldiers rather easily. We have to overcome our view of them, as almost warrior supermen, especially jungle warfare, nobody could beat the japanese and jungle warfare, so we have to overcome our view of them, and they have to come to grips. This is one of their greatest failings, their understanding of us is less of what it should be. The japanese have a good dose of hubris if you want to throw in a good old greek term. The japanese hubris is one of our chief allies. Another thing to remember about this battle, as we get into it, is simply the conditions. Guadalcanal is about 10 degrees off of the equator, and it does not take a geographical genius to realize that it means hot and wet. I am lucky enough to take students to vietnam in some summers, and the first summer that we went, because im from south mississippi, i figured i am prepared for the heat by playing golf on a hot afternoon without a golf cart. I figured that will get you ready. The heat in the true tropics is a different critter. You cannot prepare for it. This location makes this battle have some of its particular difficulties. The island itself is the size of the state of delaware, but not sure. They have beautiful beaches on it, and those will not be the things that bother us the most. What bothers us the most is they have a spine running down the middle. If you throw all of those things together, the topography is going to give us rain forests. Almost unimaginably nearly impassable rainforest. The type where it takes hacking through them to move a through yards. This stuff is almost impenetrable. Again, this is a vision of what it looked like to be a marine camped on a nice rainy day. It rains a lot. This is a victim to monsoonal rather patterns like american soldiers will face in vietnam. There is about 25,000 People Living on the island, crossed with rivers and forests. They can move around on those things with ease, as can their coast watchers. Both of whom we owe eight great debt of gratitude a great debt of gratitude for intelligence. There were open areas, to where the rain forest gave way to grass openings, and i was looking for americans going through this, our marines did not take too many pictures. Those open areas are full of grass about as tall as a human. This is australian dealing with the same time kind of grass. As tall as you are and razorsharp. It cut your uniform and slices your skin. The vegetation, and rain seems to be out to get us. Of course, with those comes all the critters that live in it. Im glad were not gonna look at the very much. Yeah, leeches. Leeches will be a common scourge during the battle. They best all the wet place they infest all the wet places. If you read accounts of american soldiers as they are walking through the soldiers, you can see the leeches swimming. There is no way to put your pants and the boots to keep them out. They will find a way in. A leech check every day was an important part of marine life. The way you get them off his stick and lit cigarette on them and they roll into a ball. Let us get that slide off of there. That is a bit disconcerting. We are not to the map, but we will get to it. The other thing we cannot find pictures of, and you do not take pictures of these, clouds of mosquitoes have been the wet nature of the terrain. With those mosquitoes comes malaria. Hopefully that is something you have never had to deal with, but it can be debilitating. Dengue fever was common it was common, as was dysentery. Almost every u. S. Combatant on the island had one, two, or all of these things and still had to fight. As you japanese. It is a horrible place in which to fight. These the landscape itself seems to be out to get you. Within this situation, we do land our troops ashore on august 7, 1942, the first dday of the war, long proceeding the european dday, and there is the site of the u. S. Landing, and boy, we are lucky. The japanese had not been expecting it. Their intelligence consistently let them down during this campaign. They have nobody there. There are a few troops on the nearby island, which you can see to the north, but the only japanese troops on guadalcanal themselves are some construction troops working on the airfield. They very wisely, against japanese tradition, run away as fast as they can as soon as the marines, sure. This landing of 11,000 marines goes out without a hitch. There is not a shot fired. A wonderful case of success. There are some problems with it. This is the first marines under Alexander Vandergrift who will become the main american figure in the ground war over there. Quickly move out to take the airfield, and they are very happy to find that the japanese have almost completed it. The japanese Construction Team had left so quickly that their breakfasts were still warm. The marines didnt stop to eat them. They find a lot of construction equipment, which was great for them. A lot of their equipment does not make it ashore. They find a bulldozer, a working generator, a control tower, and an almost completed runway. Their job is almost done for them. Tons of rice and soybeans, which they turn their noises their noses up at, but they will eat ravenously later. Number one thing they found they liked was hundreds of cases of japanese beer, and the japanese have good beer and an operational refrigeration plants to keep it cold. Things are looking ok. Of course, things go horribly wrong. One of the things we wanted to take quickly after fanning out from the airfield, and you cannot see it on this map, mount austin is down here, and the high point of the island. As you know, you want to grab the high ground. We were supposed to grab that early in the campaign on day one, but it turns out it is a lot farther away than we thought, and all we can do is grab the permit under around the desk the perimeter around the landfield that we renamed henderson. The second critical factor, and this will come up a lot during the naval portion of the campaign, is that the navy leaves. Fletcher makes the decision to take away the air cover, and the japanese take advantage of that. It could have gone a lot worse. That could ended the battle. Even the transports have to leave. The marines are left without most of their heavy weaponry, construction equipment, and this is going to sound small, but if it is huge. They do not have any landmines and very little barbed wire. If you are going to sit and dig defensive positions, you really need those. Even with the japanese food stores, they have enough food to last them for a month. So, very few guys get a draw, and they are stuck there. The boat size, as we heard, most much of these metal hinges around who can supply the most the quickest, which is often the japanese. The japanese, very quickly decide that they want to retake this, but there intelligence leaves that their intelligence leaves them in the lurch. They are not sure how Many Americans have landed, they are sure it is a small number, and they will be a pushover. You can tell me how wrong i get this later. The japanese headquarters assigns it to general atat to a general. Not even want to see it is printed in my notes, and it is printed where i can read it correctly. It will be his job to retake guadalcanal, there he is. They were not many pictures of him, and they all look bad. Here he is. He will retake it in conjunction with this guy, admiral yamamoto and the combined feet. Fleet. There weaknesses turned out to be bad working with the army. Their cooperation is not nearly what it should be. Of course, they are sidetracked by operations in new guinea. What the japanese and with the japanese can bring to bear quickly is a regiment under a kernel. On the 19th of august, he lands 1000 men near this point. They are going to land over here, and try to make their way to the protomarine dug in positions outside henderson field. He is confident of victory. He is sure he is facing a few hundred marines, not 11, 000, and is sure once his soldiers charged forward, like american, british, and australian soldiers before, they will collapse. He does not think about it. He hits the ground, and starts moving to his attack. That attack is going to actually take him a long time to get through those rainforests. That will take a lot of the steam of his men, because hacking your way through a rain forest is not an easy undertaking. Vandergrift knew they were coming. He had sent out patrols to the west and east, and he had a pretty good indication that the japanese had landed. He also got reports from australian coast watchers and natives that they are coming. What he presumes is that they will hit, and i have a better map of this. They will hits along the river, the alligator creek, and, and come in this direction. He prepares some defenses over there, and brings up a 37 millimeter gun to place over the sandbar. If you look at the creek itself, it was given the name river, it is more like a small creek. The japanese have to cross a wide open sandbar to get to us. We are ready for this attack when it comes in. It is august, the 21st when the japanese launched their attack, it is 1 30 a. M. The japanese attack at night during most attack during most occasions in guadalcanal. They attack in the open, and the 37 millimeters gun loads itself with canister, just not anything you want to face when you are packed into an attacking formation. The attacking japanese, crossley open river are blown away. They are mown down. The marines, come daylight, send a flanking force to catch the japanese from behind. The next morning, this is this red area is the Coconut Grove along the coast. They are sandwiched along the coast, along the marine positions here. They have a river to their rear, and they are done for. That is the exact tactical position you do not want to be in. The japanese launched suicidal attacks against the marines, even strapping themselves onto coconut trees where they could snipe down. The marines bring in tanks to knock trees down, including the snipers in them. Essentially, the Japanese Force is wiped out with the current with the colonel and the others committing ritual suicide. 35 dead, the japanese of give or take 1000 guys who attack, 10 or 20 getaway. 15 or taken prisoner, and they are too wounded to getaway themselves. There is 900 bodies on that beach. That gives us some of the famous pictures of refuse of this failed attack. The japanese first effort fails spectacularly. , spectacularly, and quickly. The japanese learned there is a heil a lot a hell of a lot more marines on this island, and they are better fighters. We realize the nature of the almost fanatical level of resistance the japanese will give us, even when their backs are pushed to the wall. They are not going to surrender, they will fight to the end and press you for every inch. The japanese decide to go for their second major attack, they will send in general, gucci kawaguchi. When im going through great generals and their slides, i always say that there is a mustache competition going on between them. This guy is the japanese general mustache winner of world war ii. No one else comes close. He will come in with the 35th infantry b grade brigade and hear the story gets complex, because bringing that over after the naval battles on both sides, and keeping us alive long enough for a battle to happen involves the Cactus Air Force and keeping henderson field open. To put things quickly, by september, he has 8000 troops on hand. Pretty much in the same general area as the other generals troops have come from. We have reinforced with desperate naval efforts to do this. We have 1500 initial troops. Very famously including the raters. The raiders. We brought them over from where they had been occupying before. They are sent out on a mission to find the Japanese Forces on east and west of the henderson field. What he discovers is really bad news. He discovered a disused japanese camp about where the other general had started. He finds evidence of a huge Japanese Force and evidence that it is on the move towards u. S. Positions. When he comes back, he and vandergrift have a discussion, and he says, if i was going to attack us, i would not attack along that river, i would attack us along what is known as bloody ted i would not come from the east, i would circle up and come and get us on this open ridge. Vandergrift agrees with him, and what the raiders do is dig in. In this battle, the marines will outnumber the japanese overall, but the japanese idea is to have a threepronged offensive coming in from there is a better one. The japanese will hit us from all three sides, but the big one will be here in the middle, in what is known as bloody ridge, where they correctly guessed the japanese were going to attack. It is the night of september 12 that karaguchi is ready. He has 3000 soldiers fresh. They have had to cut their way through the rain forest, but they are largely fresh. They are ready to face the raiders and parachutists. These have been hastily dug positions. The japanese attack en masse, breaking to the ridgetop and into american positions, but not through them. They almost wipe out two platoons. By daybreak, the positions had held. Both edson and vandergrift were aware that this was not the real thing. The real thing is coming the next night, and is after dark on the next night, on the 13th at the japanese comeback with everything that they have god. They come so close to victory, on the map they successively push the raiders further and further back. They are on the edge of that ridge. This thing breaks into handtohand combat. It become so closely ron that a japanese sap or unit makes it through the lines in attacks headquarters unsuccessfully. We barely hold out and win the daytime comes, everything changes. It is certainly a huge part of this battle that the japanese rule the night and we rule the day, kind of a vietnam overtone there. When the daylight comes, our artillery power can be brought to bear and the air force can get off the ground and pound the japanese into submission. After the second night, cap oguchi kawaguchi realizes his advance has failed, will come to grips at bloody ridge. Maybe the seminal marine victory of the entire war, because if they had taken henderson field, who knows . At that point, water canal would have at that point, guadalcanal would have failed. We might have been able to get our marines away, but perhaps not. What happens to were american what happened to american morale at that point is hard to say. That was a Pivotal Point in the war that the marines stood. They lost 40, there are about 100 japanese bodies laying around bloody ridge. To make things worse for the japanese, they had been so sure of their victory they did not bring supplies with them, so they are going to starve on the way back. They would be expecting to drink that leftover beer, but the marines had already polished that off. The japanese will finally double down, this time they are not going to take any doubt in the matter. The general will take over command personally and this time, they will take over his forces and reinforced to the point where there would be no question of the matter. The japanese will bring over their second and 38th divisions and will try to outnumber us finally. Hopefully getting anywhere from 20 to 35,000 troops to attack us. We, for our part, bring in 4000 more troops, but those numbers arent sounding good. One of the guys who we bring in is, of course, another wellknown marine. This will be Chesty Puller with all of his battle honors on the left side we had lots of pictures of him, but he looks really chestylike in this picture. He runs patrols famously out from, because we have to find the bad guys and know where they are coming from, we runs he runs patrols out from henderson field and runs into the japanese twice with the river in almost an unprintable name i have to look that up to get this of course, there are no notes. Right, the mantanicou river. You do not want to see how that is spelled on my notes. So one day you get pasted pretty well. The second time he tries that, he backs the japanese into a ravine and kills all of them, all 700 of them. He discovers the japanese are there in greater numbers than ever before and this time they are coming from the other side. These things are reasonably bad news for the brains, as you might suspect. Also, the naval battles are still going on, but midoctober, vandergriff begins to wonder can he hold . He has always had this question in the back of his head, but by the middle of october he really begins to wonder, because this will be a threepronged offensive by the japanese. It will involve naval attacks, shelling from the ships, twice the henderson field is hit by 1500 rounds from battleships at night. This essentially is disabling the field. It is also going to be struck by landbased aircraft that flyover in an attempt to destroy it. We get to the point where we are almost outnumbered and we are beginning to question whether or not we even rule the day. We could always depend on that before, that we rule the day, we rule the night, but by the middle of october it is beginning to come beginning to become a bit of a problem. The attack this time, this time what the japanese decide to do is hit us from three sides and attack from the west and attack pretty much on the same lines of bloody ridge. There will even be an attack where they circle all the way around to the east. A threepronged attack to coincide with an air attack, to coincide with a bombardment from the sea. Things are stacking up against us like nobodys business. But the japanese have a much harder time hacking their way through the jungles then they thought, and a couple of times the navy attacks in the troops are ready, which makes the general very unhappy, which i can only imagine what an unhappy yamamoto would look like. You think your wife gives you the bad eyes, he would be even worse. The japanese troops are finally ready on october 23. Incorrect, some of the japanese troops are ready on october 23, not all of them. The attack is called off until the 24th, but the attack that comes along oh, that is way in the future the attack that comes from the west, you can he, is labeled october 23, which means they did not get the notification this is the diversionary attack. What is supposed to happen here is the Japanese Force of about 3000 men would attack the field from this side, the marines will go oh crap, they are coming in from this side, and a few minutes later the japanese will take a left defense at bloody ridge. That attack does not come on that day, it comes on the next. The marines can focused all can focus all of their attention on the diversionary attack. The marines are ready for them. They figured out through the raids that they were coming, and this attack is destroyed. All it does is give us the understanding that the real attack is probably coming tomorrow. Not only does it not work as a diversion, it works as an alarm bell for us to be ready. The real attack does take place the night of october 24. The marines had this time they had altered their defenses, pushed their defenses in front of bloody ridge. They cut open a field of fire and put out barb wire, listening posts beyond it, and i cannot imagine being in one of those listening posts at night. They put 37 millimeter guns out there. The marines were ready for this one. When the japanese came forward at night, they knew they were coming because the listening post have reported it, even before the japanese yelp; l banzai, we start firing canisters at them. The japanese begin to get destroyed even before they move forward. The attack falls on pullers unit, which is in the bloody ridge defenses at this time for some reason during the night, a Japanese Company makes it through the defenses and radios to yamamoto that they captured henderson field, which is him happy for a few minutes. What happens this night is the japanese attack moves forward, which is only part of the japanese attack because some of them have not made it yet. Once again, they attack without their full force. 1000 of them get killed in the american defenses. They attack again on the 25th with similar dismal results. This was japans all in moment, when they stuck all their chips on the table and pushed them in the middle and turned their cards over, and it had totally failed. The marines suffer 500 killed and wounded, japanese suffer 3000 casualties and will never get the initiative back. They talk about it, they want to send more troops in, but yamamoto has reached the position where this is not going to work. The casualties are just too high for this no return on the ground. The japanese begin to decide in november that they cant continue this battle. That is not a decision they tell their emperor until the end of the month, but the decision is made and now things begin to turn in our favor. What we begin to do is send marines out across the island to destroy these Japanese Forces, not thinking that they might not try again, but we are now seizing the offensive, and it is a health gave a hellscape for the japanese. Their supplies have run out, they are no longer running the Tokyo Express. They are dumping supplies over the side of ships and hoping they wash up on shore, and no telling where those supplies will end up. Not a very efficient way to keep 30,000 soldiers alive. So shoulders are dying soldiers are dying from starvation and disease. We rotate the marines out, the first marines, and they are replaced by alexander patch, the second marines, along with most of the 23rd and 25th divisions. What he is going to do is press his advantage further and further. In december, we attack mount austen, which is interesting because mount austen was supposed to fall without a fight on day one. That sounds like a world war i battle, your goal with day one is seized four months later. In bitter fighting, we lose 250 men, the japanese lose 3000. Again, this is a pretty important part of the battle japanese at this point have no hope, they are starving, but they are still fighting to the last man. This is the kind of resistance we are going to face in even more famous battles from here on out. On january 14, the japanese land 4000 fresh troops, giving this guy a headache. Those fresh troops are nearly recovered in withdrawal. And this is where our intelligence fails, because we think they are getting ready for another attack. The most effective Japanese Campaign of the whole thing is there withdrawal, they withdraw under our noses without us really being able to do anything about it. February 9, today, its like the World War Ii Museum planned this or something. [laughter] you never know. Patch expects a big battle, but he wanders into it and his troops wander into it and nobody is there, and he worked back. He says, i am happy to report the total and complete defeat of Japanese Forces on guadalcanal was effective at 16 25 hours today because the Tokyo Express no longer has the terminus on guadalcanal. So guadalcanal, the battle that nobody wanted macarthur was against it, lots of folks were against it, had turned into a resounding success, arguably one that changes the course of this war. The japanese had eventually gotten 40,000 troops to the island, 23,000 of whom never leave. 23,000 of whom die on that island. Most of them actually to disease and starvation. We lose about 2000 two that island. 2000 to two that 200 to that island. It is a sobering defeat for the japanese and it will show us what the rest of this war is going to be like. That is maybe the chief thing america ought to take out of this battle, that even pushed against the wall, the japanese are going to resist with everything theyve got. Any questions . Thank you, dr. Weist. [applause] another map. Asking the researcher to discuss the ninemonth battle a sixmonth battle in 30 minutes is no easy thing, but keep in mind, we finished the day with our roundtable discussion with all speakers. If i do not get the microphone to you, please save your question for this afternoon. Questions please. Raise your hand. Dont raise any hands, that would be a mistake. Mike, on the far right of the speaker. Thank you so much for your presentation, sir. A real quick question more curiosity general edison, i understand it, committed suicide after the war . I was just curious if you had any insight into why or that kind of thing . Good question. That is exactly what i swore i was going to do, was going to ask i dont have anything. Let me bring the phone to the microphone. No i wont. The definitive biography of general edison was written by john hoffman, a student at ohio state who is now a retired marine colonel heading the army center of military history. We may get them squared away eventually. There is still some doubt, because edison died of Carbon Monoxide poisoning in a car, which was his own, parked in the garage of his home in maryland. What is puzzling still is the fact that the engine had been turned off and there was still gasoline in the tank. People who knew edison said he was perfectly capable of killing himself and saving gas at the same time. [laughter] he was that tough. There was a Conspiracy Theory that for some reason he was murdered. After he retired from the marine corps under something of a cloud, because he had been a very ardent advocate of empowering the marine corps, very happy about the marine corpss public law act, which dictates there will always be three marine divisions and three aircraft wings. Edison had been very outspoken in supporting that policy. There was theory that somebody who is a gangster or some inclination, with part of a vendetta, part of the marine core service. He was esteemed not only as a field commander, but also as an expert marksman, captain of the marine corps rifle team. The only real failure in his life, a picture shows he is wearing aviators wings, which is true. He did have them, but he was taken off status because he had inner ear problems and regarded that is a failure on his part. He was a very driven person, and it may very well have been he decided to commit suicide because he could not do it as well as he used to. He was about 80 years old when this occurred. That is a very good book by john hoffman. I recommend it. We have a question upstairs somewhere . I have two quick questions. One is in addition to food being short, what about munitions and potable water, thats one question. The other question, what did both sides do for prophylaxis for mosquitoes and malaria and other diseases, and how welded it work for both sides . Both sides were short on munitions and water as well. In a defensive battle like that, usually munitions are your friend. We always have a shortage of them, we always of course, those are the two things you have to get ashore more than anything else, so there are lots of things they pay the most attention to. One number i did not give you was that bloody ridge, one machine gunner i have never been a machine gunner so if any machine gunner out there can tell me how hard this would be to do reported firing 26,000 rounds in one night. Maybe he was bragging, but no, a little bit of bragging here. When we needed it for a defensive stand, we had enough munitions to get by. We always seems to be short with munitions and airpower, and the aircraft themselves. Usually having enough pilots was a bigger problem for the japanese and us. Water, also an issue. There were methods of making water safe to drink that was there, but the marines did not like to do that. The prophylaxis question, i am not sure. By vietnam, they developed belair prophylaxis. Im not sure if they had it in world war ii does anyone have any wisdom on that . We need to get the doctor appeared we need to stick him in a car and drag him up to hattiesburg with us. Andy, we will get to the break here. Thank you very much. The u. S. Position in berlin had by the hairiest Truman Foundation this is 45. Minutes mike miller is the married as head. Working on a four volume definitive hi