War has played a key role in the history of the United States, from the nation's founding

right down to the present. War made the U.S. independent, kept it together, increased its

size, and established it as a global superpower. Understanding America's wars is essential for understanding American history.

Welcome to Key Battles of American History,

a podcast in which we discuss American history through the lens of the most important battles of America's wars.

Here is your host, James Early.

Music your host, James Early. Hello and welcome back to Guadalcanal Air, Land, and Sea, our 2,000-foot survey of the epic

Guadalcanal campaign of the Pacific Theater of World War II.

I'm your host, James Early, and I am joined by my host,

Dave Hollett. Well, in our last episode, the entire episode was devoted to the largest naval

battle of the Guadalcanal campaign, a massive battle, simply called the Naval Battle of Guadal

Canal. And if you listen to it, I'm sure you remember that it was very costly for both sides.

The Americans lost about 1,700 total servicemen, meaning sailors and air crews and others.

And the Japanese lost even more in 1900.

And both sides lost several ships.

Many were sunk and many others were damaged. We're going to

go back on to land today, at least mostly. We're going to do a little bit of C too, but we're going to

mainly be on the land. We're going to be looking at an offensive on the Matanacow, another one,

and we're going to be looking at the Battle of Tasafaranga, which is a naval battle,

and then we're going to be talking about at the end, another battle, a land battle called the Battle of the Gifu.

So we're doing quite a bit of ground combat this time.

I know you're excited about that, right, Dave, more ground combat.

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