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.

Thank you. 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, as always, and I am joined, as always, by my co-host, Dave Holland.

In our last episode, we saw the Japanese execute Operation K-E or K, however you want to say it.

The plan was to deceive the Americans into thinking that the Japanese were planning a new offensive, while at the same time evacuating as many of their people as they could.

And we also saw, before that, we saw some other American offenses.

The Americans finally began really moving and taking ground after many, many attempts in the past.

They took the fortified position of the Gifu, and they took the sea horse, the galloping horse,

and they even landed some troops on the west coast of Guadalcanal, even as another group

was moving west along the northern coast.

And the two American forces met up. It was supposed to be a pincher movement

that was going to trap the Japanese, but when they met up, the Japanese were gone, and that

ended the Guadalcanal campaign. There was also more naval fighting. The Americans lost

to cruiser, but no need to go on any more detail about that. If you haven't

listened to the last episode, be sure and give it a listen. Well, that was our last regular

episode since after all the battle is over, but we are going to now, as I usually do in my series,

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