Portal:World War II/Selected battle/18
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The Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, sometimes referred to as the Third and Fourth Battles of Savo Island, the Battle of the Solomons or, in Japanese sources, as the Third Battle of the Solomon Sea (第三次ソロモン海戦?), took place November 12 – November 15, 1942, and was the decisive engagement in a series of naval battles between Allied (primarily United States) and Imperial Japanese forces during the months-long Guadalcanal campaign in the Solomon Islands. 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.Allied forces, primarily from the U.S., had landed on Guadalcanal on August 7, 1942 and seized an airfield, later called Henderson Field, that was under construction by the Japanese military. Several subsequent attempts by the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy, using reinforcements delivered to Guadalcanal by ship, to recapture the airfield 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.
