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In August 1942, the Battle of Guadalcanal broke out. After half a year of fighting, the US military finally occupied Guadalcanal and used it as a take-off and landing base.
But what no one expected was that the reason for the victory of the American army was to master the amount of defecation of the Japanese army.
So, why did the US and Japanese militaries fight for Guadalcanal? How did the U.S. military achieve victory by investigating the amount of defecation of the Japanese army?
Due to the investigation of the amount of bowel movements, the US military turned the situation around and successfully won
The Battle of Guadalcanal, referred to as the Battle of Guadalcanal.
The battle was fought as part of an Allied strategic plan to protect shipping routes from the United States, Australia, and New Zealand.
The battle was also the second Allied offensive against Japan, which began with an American landing operation, and the attacked Japanese forces were not to be outdone, and then engaged the Americans on this inaccessible island.
However, due to environmental and intelligence factors, Japan suffered heavy losses throughout the battle and finally had to abandon Guadalcanal.
In fact, the Japanese army still had great advantages at the beginning, first of all, the experienced Hyakutake Haruyoshi served as the supreme commander, and secondly, sent a large number of troops, coupled with the participation of the fleet and aviation, which further enhanced the confidence of the Japanese army, but the Japanese army still could not escape the fate of defeat in the end.
Looking at the U.S. military, their preparation is less adequate in comparison, they even only know the location of Guadalcanal, but they do not know the specific situation on the island.
So the Japanese are very puzzled, they do not understand why their army fell into the hands of the US military.
After the war, the Japanese collected a lot of information and finally came to the conclusion that the reason for the defeat was that they underestimated the number of American troops.
It turned out that, according to intelligence, Japan concluded that the number of American troops would be less than two thousand, but the actual number of American troops was eight times that number.
In other words, the Japanese army did not grasp the actual situation at all in this battle, and was basically in a passive state of beating.
However, the US military knows the situation of the Japanese army very well, and in the face of repeated reinforcements from the Japanese army, the American army also showed ease and could always fight the Japanese to flee everywhere.
Not only that, the control of the airfield by the US military also made it difficult for Japanese supplies to reach the battlefield, and the soldiers on the island had to go hungry to fight while suffering from infectious diseases, and many later starved to death on Guadalcanal.
The performance of the American army in the Battle of Guadalcanal puzzled the Japanese for many years.
They desperately wanted to know how the U.S. military obtained the intelligence, but in the end, they couldn't do it.
Later, someone found some details about the battle of Guadalcanal from the diary of the US military doctor, and then people learned that the US army actually estimated the strength of the troops by estimating the amount of defecation of the Japanese army!
Not only that, from the feces of the Japanese army, the American army can also observe the situation of the Japanese army on that day, and use it as a basis to formulate strategies.
Yes, the military tends to ignore the impact of feces when fighting in the field, and it is with this in mind that the US military can have more intelligence in the rainforest.
However, the method of estimating the number of people by feces is also not very effective, because diet has a large influence on feces.
For example, Japanese and American eat differently, which means that the amount of feces may differ even if both parties are the same.
Due to the lack of local resources in Japan, Japanese people can only eat vegetarian food on weekdays.
The Japanese diet habits cause their cecum to be more developed than the average person, and they excrete 1.5 times more feces than the average person.
At that time, the U.S. military obviously did not know this difference in the Japanese.
In the Battle of Guadalcanal, it repeatedly sent 1.5 times more Japanese troops to fight against the Japanese army.
The American army was menacing, and the Japanese army was prepared, but no matter how powerful they were, they could not take advantage of an army several times larger than themselves, and they did not even expect that the American army sent a division of troops to deal with the 2940 people on the island.
Although contrary to the original intention of minimizing the casualty rate, this misunderstanding also accelerated the defeat of the Japanese army, in which the Japanese suffered heavy losses, including the 1,200 pilots killed and the armament were difficult for the Japanese to make up.
Since then, the Japanese army has been unable to stop the American offensive.
So, what exactly was the specifics of the Battle of Guadalcanal?
How miserable was the Japanese army in this battle?
Intelligence Mistakes The Japanese army had many difficulties in retaking Guadalcanal
In the early morning of December 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor, the base of the U.S. Pacific Naval Fleet, was attacked by Japanese forces.
The defenseless U.S. military suffered huge losses.
From then on, Americans woke up like a dream, called the day of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor "National Shame Day", and began to actively participate in the war.
After taking office, the new commander-in-chief of the Pacific Fleet, Chester Nimitz, he led the American army to launch a series of attacks against the Japanese in battles such as the Coral Sea.
At this time, the Japanese army began to suffer repeated setbacks, but the conceited Japanese army did not care about this.
In order to increase their strength, they also prepared to attack the island of New Guinea and other areas.
Before that, the Japanese army needed to build airfields to ensure the supply of the Japanese army.
After discussion, the Japanese army set the location of the airport on Guadalcanal.
Guadalcanal is the second largest island in the Solomon Islands, the transportation hub of the Pacific Ocean, and Australia's gateway to the Pacific Ocean, and its strategic location is very important.
On June 16, 1942, Japanese troops occupied Guadalcanal.
After that, the Japanese army built around the clock to repair the airfield as soon as possible.
By the beginning of August, the airport was already taking shape.
But how can the US military not know the importance of Guadalcanal?
After the Japanese army occupied Guadalcanal, the US military also implemented corresponding countermeasures.
On July 31, 1942, U.S. Major General Turner headed for Guadalcanal with his troops.
They didn't know anything about Guadalcanal, and the map in their hands was even older than the soldiers, so before coming to Guadalcanal, everyone's hearts were very nervous.
On August 7, 19,000 U.S. troops arrived on Guadalcanal, and while the fog on the island was thick, the U.S. troops launched an attack on the Japanese troops on the island.
Most of the Japanese troops on Guadalcanal were engineers who had been ordered to build the airfield, and a small number of the rest were guards.
These people have no combat effectiveness, and they did not expect that the American army would suddenly arrive, and in the face of the heavily armed American army, the Japanese army was even more powerless to fight back, seeing that they could not be defeated, the Japanese army all fled to the depths of the jungle.
In this way, the American army leveled the Japanese army in the vicinity, and by the way, also pocketed the materials left by the Japanese army.
Soon, the Japanese military headquarters learned of the US military login.
But they did not realize the seriousness of the problem, and thought that the US raid was just a whim.
According to intelligence, the Japanese commander also analyzed that the US military only wanted to destroy the airfield, and had no intention of further attacks.
In this case, the number of American troops must not be too large, so the Japanese commander sent a thousand reinforcements, believing that the recapture of Guadalcanal was a sure thing.
On August 18, Japanese reinforcements arrived on Guadalcanal, and intelligence errors led the army to make the wrong choice.
Daisaku Ikki headed to the airport with most of his troops, leaving only a hundred men guarding the beachhead.
On the way to the airport, Daisaku Ichiki did not find any enemies and thought that taking the airport was easy.
But they did not expect that their trajectory of action had long been mastered by the US military, and the US army first eliminated the Japanese troops on the beachhead, and then guarded the necessary place for Ichiki Daisaku and others, who did not know it, and soon fell into the trap set by the US military first.
Near the end of the war, the US military, out of humanitarian spirit, sent medical personnel to treat the Japanese soldiers injured in the battle, but this group of Japanese soldiers preferred suicide to receive treatment, and even sounded a grenade to die with the medical staff.
The Japanese revenge made the Americans very angry, and immediately launched a counterattack against the Japanese, directly strafing with heavy machine guns, and then crushing the wounded on the battlefield with tanks.
A few hours later, all of the support were killed under heavy American machine guns.
On August 31, the main force of the Japanese army and navy went to Guadalcanal, and this 4,200-strong army forcibly landed on Guadalcanal and began a six-month struggle with the American army.
At present, the Japanese army still does not know the actual strength of the American army, and still believes that there should be only one or two thousand American troops on the island.
The intelligence mistakes of the Japanese army caused these Japanese soldiers to live a life worse than death on the island, hunger and wounds hung over the heads of every Japanese soldier, and devoured their lives, so to speak, how miserable and miserable, and the supreme commander in charge of the battle almost committed suicide.
So, how did the US military beat the Japanese army so badly?
How did this war affect both the United States and Japan?
Life is better than death It is difficult for the trapped Japanese army to get out of the siege
After the landing of Japanese reinforcements, there was no more peace on Guadalcanal.
U.S. bombers often hovered over Guadalcanal, and by the end of August, the number of U.S. bombings had skyrocketed, and Guadalcanal was bombed more than a dozen times in one day.
The indiscriminate bombing of the US military destroyed the Japanese armament, and even the life safety of ordinary soldiers could not be guaranteed.
In order to survive, the Japanese did not dare to rest in the barracks, so they had to look for hiding places.
Guadalcanal is rich in rain, inaccessible and full of tropical plants, and mosquitoes come to you as soon as you enter the jungle.
Not only that, there are many swamps hidden in the jungle, and the slightest mistake may become food for crocodiles in the swamp.
In the jungle, the most feared is injury, even a small wound can cause various infectious diseases, and the ravages of infectious diseases are fatal to the army.
However, where can the Japanese army take care of this when fleeing everywhere?
The area where they were located was extremely dirty, and many Japanese soldiers died slowly after being bitten by mosquitoes with high fevers.
The Japanese army suffered repeated setbacks on Guadalcanal, which made the Japanese military headquarters realize that the American army was by no means easy to deal with.
In order to recapture Guadalcanal, the Japanese army began to send a large number of troops to Guadalcanal.
By mid-October, the cumulative number of reinforcements sent by the Japanese headquarters had reached more than 20,000, and even then no substantial progress had been made.
Not only that, because the US military has always controlled the airfield, this also makes it impossible for the Japanese army to receive supplies in time.
In order to end the battle as soon as possible, the Japanese army launched another attack, which still had little effect.
The defeat on Guadalcanal prompted the Japanese headquarters to send reinforcements again and again, and on the evening of November 12, 11 transport ships carrying 11,000 Japanese troops went to Guadalcanal.
The Americans did not panic when they found out, they sent 13 warships to rush towards the Japanese, and after a fight, they successfully fought back the Japanese reinforcements.
After this, the Japanese army no longer dared to send reinforcements.
However, the Japanese troops on the island did not know this, they did not wait for reinforcements or food, and they were very desperate.
These soldiers ate everything they could around them, but there was not enough, and many soldiers eventually starved to death.
But the U.S. military did not know this, before fighting the Japanese army, the U.S. military asked the military doctor to analyze the feces left by the Japanese army, estimate the number of Japanese troops, and use this as a basis to formulate tactics, but they did not know that their estimated number was 1.5 times more than the actual number of Japanese troops.
This mistake by the American military made the Japanese troops on the island miserable, and their situation on the island became more and more difficult.
Not only that, with the support of fighters located on other islands, the US military launched a continuous bombing of Shortland Island, where the Japanese army transported supplies, which further increased the losses of the Japanese army.
However, the Japanese headquarters still did not give up material assistance to the island.
In order to send supplies to the Japanese army on the island, the Japanese military headquarters also thought of various methods.
On December 3, 10 destroyers, carrying 1,500 iron drums, arrived for Guadalcanal, a new way for the Japanese to deliver supplies.
Because the iron drum contained only half of the food and medicine, when it was sealed, it could float on the surface for the Japanese army on the island to salvage, a method called "iron barrel transportation" by the Japanese army.
Although the destroyer with the drums encountered little obstruction on the way, the 1,500 drums were successfully dropped into the designated area that night.
However, due to the influence of American bombers, the Japanese only got more than 300 iron barrels in the end.
Later, the Japanese headquarters sent destroyers to transport them many times, but they were blocked by the American army, and the Japanese troops on the island only received a small part of the iron barrel.
At this time, the Japanese headquarters could no longer continue to provide a large amount of supplies to the Japanese army on the island, and the Japanese army finally recognized the situation.
Some Japanese navies offered to abandon Guadalcanal.
At the same time, the idea of the Japanese Navy was supported by the Army, which believed that it was no longer possible to retake Guadalcanal from the American army.
After repeated discussions, the Japanese headquarters began to formulate a withdrawal plan.
After this, the remnants of the troops on Guadalcanal retreated from the island in three groups.
On the afternoon of February 9, the US military collected the entire Guadalcanal and successfully had the last laugh.
In the entire battle, a total of 36,000 Japanese troops have landed on Guadalcanal, of which more than 19,000 have been killed, while the American army has only killed more than 7,000.
The defeat in the Battle of Guadalcanal was difficult for the Japanese army to accept, and the supreme commander in charge of the battle, Hyakutake Haruyoshi, tried to commit suicide after losing more than 20,000 soldiers, but he was unsuccessful, and he lived in the shadow of defeat and eventually went crazy.
Not only that, but this battle also greatly weakened the strength of the Japanese army, after which the Japanese army completely lost the initiative and had to turn to the defensive stage.
For the U.S. military, the battle was of great significance.
This battle gave them sea control in the South Pacific and turned the tide of World War II, and it can be said that after this, everyone has seen the dawn of the end of World War II.
epilogue
In the Battle of Guadalcanal, it is admirable that the American army could think of estimating the number of Japanese troops by the amount of bowel movements.
However, because they do not understand that the cecum of the Japanese army is more developed than ordinary people, and the amount of bowel movements is also 1.5 times that of ordinary people, this also leads to the fact that the US army does not underestimate the enemy and has always sent more troops than the actual number of Japanese troops for battle, it can be said that the victory of the US army is not accidental.
Yes, the war situation is turbulent, and when we understand the situation of the enemy, we can develop the most effective tactics, and even the smallest detail can have a great impact on the entire war.