IV enroute to the front September, 1942

enroute to the front
September, 1942

MOVING UP IN THE JUNGLE

A detachment of U.S. Marines pauses in a jungle clearing for a brief rest enroute to the front on Guadalcanal Island. The marine in the right foreground has attached to his helmet netting for use in camouflaging himself in the dense undergrowth. Shortly after this photograph was taken these leathernecks drove an enemy band far into the hills. Commenting on the campaign in the Solomons, Admiral Ernest J. King, commander in chief of the United States fleet on October 18, 1943, said: "Because the Japanese through the subsequent weeks and months were determined that Guadalcanal, with its Henderson field, should not be lost to them, the whole story of what the United States Marines did there is one which is too big, too involved, and too valiant to be reported in a summary as brief as this. But as the world knows by now the marines, in their victory at Guadalcanal, completed an ageless epic for American history."

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