Hello and welcome to episode 119 of the unauthorized history of the Pacific War podcast. My name is Seth Peridon, historian and deputy director of the Mississippi Armed Forces Museum here at Camp Shelby. And with me, as always, is my esteemed co-host, retired Navy Captain Bill Toaddy, former skipper of the Fast Tech Submarine U.S.S. Indianapolis, Commodore of Submarine Squadron 3 in Pearl Harbor and many other postings.

How are you this fine morning bill?

Doing great, Seth.

And as we record this, I know this episode's probably airing in January, but as we record

this, tomorrow is Pearl Harbor Day.

And December 6th, at this time in 1945, the court martial of Captain Charles Butler McVay was going on

at the Washington Navy Yard in Washington, D.C. So this time period in December, when we're recording,

this is very historic near and dear to my heart for a whole bunch of reasons.

And tomorrow, tomorrow is the day that propelled this country into a war that still shapes its future to this very day.

Yes.

This week, we would like to welcome back, Dave Holland, just to give everybody a reminder who, if you've never listened to an episode with Dave, Dave, as a former United States Marine, he owns and runs the Facebook and YouTube channel called Guadalcanal Walking a Battlefield. He's a Solomon Islands battlefield guide and most importantly, Guadalcanal expert. Dave, welcome back, brother. How you been?

Yeah, I've been doing well and thanks again for having me and looking forward to our talk oh yeah

this is going to be a good one uh we've been building up to this specific event or actually

sequence of events now for some time and so have the japanese as you will recall the last several

months on guadal canal have seen steadily larger Japanese assaults that hit Marines with intense on grabbing

Henderson Field. The Japanese have tried and failed at Tenorue in August, tried and came very

close at Edson's Ridge in September, tried a few smaller attacks here and there the next several

weeks and into the next several weeks weeks and they were all essentially failures.

Now we sit in late October and the Japanese have finally built enough forces on Guadalcanal

for their almighty decisive battle. All the Japanese thrusts both the shore and at sea have led to

this very operation to this point. This is the all or nothing, if you will, the decisive

battle that the Japanese have clambered for and that the Americans have been also preparing for.

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