Located at the southeastern tip of the Solomon Islands in the Pacific, Guadalcanal, Guadalcanal, the largest island in the Solomon Islands, was one of the most memorable nightmares the Japanese had in the Pacific theater from August 1942 to February 1943. The Battle of Guadalcanal at that time resulted in the death of nearly 10,000 Japanese soldiers, and the commander of the Japanese 17th Army, Hyakutake Haruyoshi, was overly frightened and insane after seeing the tragic situation on Guadalcanal.
What happened to the Battle of Guadalcanal that year, so that the commander of the First Army became a mental patient, and finally died of madness?
The Japanese gained the initiative in the Pacific War after the Battle of Pearl Harbor, which also demoralized American soldiers, and later U.S. President Roosevelt attacked Tokyo, Japan at all costs, and these two engagements eventually contributed to the Battle of Midway, but the war ended in Japan's defeat.
How could the Arrogant Japanese in their bones be willing to do this, they did not even realize that they could not compete with the momentum of the US army, in order to regain the initiative, the Japanese army put the target on Guadalcanal, thinking that as long as the full control of Guadalcanal can be used as a springboard to hold the United States to death, so the Japanese army decided to establish an airfield on Guadalcanal and immediately implement it.
In 1942, the United States had learned of the news while the Japanese army was rushing to build the airport, and quietly landed on Guadalcanal in August without the knowledge of the Japanese Intelligence Department.
The Japanese had no idea that the United States would learn of this news, so when the Americans arrived on Guadalcanal, there was only a group of infrastructure engineers and completely ineffective laborers on the island, and the sudden American troops frightened the group, dropped their tools and fled into the jungle.
The U.S. army of only more than 10,000 troops occupied Guadalcanal in less than a day without spending a single soldier and one artillery, and the Japanese airfield was almost completed, and the amount of materials in situ was also very impressive, which was undoubtedly a big bargain.
Soon Japan knew that Guadalcanal was easily controlled by the US army, the Japanese base camp was furious, and the Japanese soldiers who did not accept defeat were fiercely attacked by the United States, which made the Japanese army lose face and have no place to look at themselves.
In order to regain control of Guadalcanal, the Japanese decided to destroy the American transport ships, in order to trap the American soldiers on Guadalcanal, and then they rushed to Guadalcanal to annihilate these Americans who had nowhere to escape, so they sent the Eighth Fleet commanded by mikawa Army to attack Guadalcanal to carry out the bombing mission.
After the Eighth Fleet infiltrated Guadalcanal, it quickly caught the U.S. troops stationed in the southern area of Guadalcanal off guard, and the careless U.S. troops did not have time to send war reports and support requests to their comrades in the northern area of Guadalcanal, and the weather lightning and thunder at that time were conducive to the Japanese army's combat, and the American troops located in the northern area did not know that the southern side had been engaged in fire.
In this battle, the Mikawa Army can be described as calm and calm, the plan is carried out smoothly, and the soldiers are also very tacitly cooperative. After defeating the U.S. troops in the southern district, he went directly to the U.S. military garrison in the northern region to beat them to death, and when the U.S. army was still doubting, Mikawa Junichi had already led the troops back home.
It seems that things are going very smoothly, but the tragedy is that Mikawa Junichi simply fought a battle with the American troops in the southern and northern districts of Guadalcanal, he forgot what the purpose of the sneak attack was, the US transport ship was still safely parked on the shore of Guadalcanal, and finally he was scolded by Yamamoto Isoroku.
Mikawa Junichi was overwhelmed by his momentary ambition, and although he did win the battle against the U.S. army, he also missed the best opportunity to blow up the U.S. transport ship, and he was also responsible for the result.
Because of the last sneak attack, the Japanese army thought that the strength of the Us army was no more than that, and it was completely vulnerable. After a few more days, the Japanese army decided to send another thousand troops, which was inevitable for the occupation of Guadalcanal, but when the war began, it was found that there were more than 10,000 American troops fighting, ten times more than them. It was impossible for these more than a thousand people to compete with so many American troops, and as a result, few Japanese soldiers survived.
After learning that they underestimated the US army, the Japanese army decided to give up supplies and heavy weapons, and used high-speed destroyers to send six thousand soldiers to Guadalcanal to fight Guadalcanal again, but after half of the war, it was still a stalemate, and the Japanese army gave up supplies, resulting in a shortage of materials, so they once again fled in a hurry.
The repeated defeats of the Japanese army felt greatly insulted, and the commander of the 17th Army, Hyakutake Haruyoshi, finally could not bear it any longer and personally led 20,000 troops to engage the Americans again on Guadalcanal.
The self-righteous Japanese did not expect that the total strength of the U.S. army on Guadalcanal had reached 23,000.
The enraged Hyakutake Haruyoshi led a force of 10,000 people to guadalcanal, fiercely wanting revenge. But after a while of fighting, the Japanese felt that something was not quite right, and the number of American troops was on par with their own, and it seemed that there were more than their own. However, Hyakutake Haruyoshi did not organize a retreat, thinking of the humiliation of being defeated many times before, if he retreated again, wouldn't he lose the face of one of his troops?
The war was still raging, the Japanese supplies were still in a difficult situation, and most of the materials sent to Guadalcanal three times were destroyed by the US troops, and the final materials that reached them were less than one-thirtieth of the US troops.
The Japanese soldiers suffered malaria when food and ammunition were tight, and the entire unit was dying. However, Hyakutake Haruyoshi still did not accept defeat, and knowing that continuing to continue would only wipe out the entire army, he organized death squads to attack the US army again and again.
Without food and water, the Japanese used bark and grass as dry food to replenish their strength, but how could it be compared to the American army, which was full of ammunition and food?
At this time, Hyakutake Haruyoshi has been occupied by anger and reason, and he is constantly depleting his troops, soldiers are constantly dying, watching the battlefield full of corpses and the defeat of the battle situation, the sad and indignant Hyakutake Haruyoshi gradually collapses.
His superior, Imabari, saw him pitifully, so he withdrew Hyakutake Haruyoshi's headquarters to Rabaul first, but Hyakutake Haruyoshi could not accept such a blow and wanted to commit suicide by caesarean section to maintain the last dignity of the samurai. However, Imabari stopped him, because he was suffering from malaria, he could no longer go to war, and he was dismissed from his position.
Due to the temporary inability of the U.S. military to return to Japan for treatment, Hakutake Haruyoshi, who was suffering from illness, almost had a nervous breakdown and delayed until 1946, when he died of insanity in 1947.
After the war, U.S. statistics showed that a large number of mutilated corpses were found in the Japanese military camp, and incomplete human flesh residue was extracted from the stomachs of some dead soldiers. Perhaps in that desperate situation, the Japanese army, forced to a desperate situation, really ate the corpses of their comrades.
We do not know whether this statement is true or not, but it is true that many soldiers who remained on Guadalcanal to fend for themselves died of starvation on the island, even if they were not dead, in the spirit of Japan advocating non-surrender, in order to protect the final glory, they chose to commit suicide by caesarean section.
Of course, in addition to bad luck, they always underestimated their enemies and never found the root cause from themselves when they were defeated.
Coupled with the fact that Hyakutake Haruyoshi was born in a samurai family, his career in the first half of his life was smooth, which also gave him great confidence and self-confidence, thinking that as long as he persisted, he would not lose, and would not calm down and think about the countermeasures to meet the battle, always holding a fluke mentality, anxiety and impulsiveness and eventually leading to defeat.
Sometimes people who are too confident cannot accept their failure, from landing on Guadalcanal with troops to running out of food, the formalistic style leads to the total annihilation of the army, and once the psychological defense line of this person collapses, the only thing waiting for him is mental illness.
If Hyakutake Haruyoshi could retreat in time to stop losses when he found that his army's strength could not defeat the American army, and go back to reorganize his troops and contact the headquarters to add supplies, and calm down and customize a new battle plan, the next tragedy would not have occurred.
The Japanese thought they could win the war, but underestimated their cunning opponents, never put themselves in their place, and went on a rampage. It was precisely because of their arrogance and arrogance that they brought this nightmare to themselves, and everything was the fault of the Japanese army.