19421776 Club
Ichiki's midnight charge across the sandbar meets Marine machine guns; his regiment is wiped out
A coastwatcher's warning confirmed the attack was coming before 900 Japanese troops charged at Alligator Creek.
Less than two weeks after seizing Henderson Field, the Marines holding Guadalcanal's Lunga perimeter got warning from coastwatcher Jacob Vouza that Japanese troops were coming. Just after midnight on August 21, 1942, Colonel Kiyonao Ichiki sent 900 men in a frontal charge across the sandbar at Alligator Creek, confident his regiment would win as easily as it had against Chinese forces years before. Marine machine guns and canister fire from 37mm guns tore the attack apart on the sand; by nightfall, Marine tanks had swept the coconut grove where survivors made their last stand. About 800 of Ichiki's 917 men were dead…
