The battle for Guadalcanal that lasted from August 1942 to February 1943 was the first major American counteroffensive against the Japanese in the Pacific, it also marks the high point of Japanese expansion and can justly be claimed as one of the major turning points of the Pacific War. While the troops of the US Marine Corps and later the US Army battled the Japanese occupiers on the densely jungled island of Guadalcanal, the US and Japanese naval forces fought a series of tightly contested battles in the waters nearby. The first of these, the battle of Savo Island on the night of 9 August 1942, saw the Japanese inflict a sever defeat on the Allied force, driving them away from Guadalcanal and leaving the just-landed marines in a perilously exposed position.
