In May 1942, the Japanese landed on a number of southern islands in the British Solomons and began constructing an airfield on Guadalcanal. Their action threatened Australia and vital American supply lines, and the incursion could not be allowed. Neither scheduled nor prepared for offensive action until later that autumn - and outnumbered 3-to-1 by the Japanese - the 1st Marine Division and its 1st Marine Paratroopers Battalion were directed to spearhead the assault and take the airfield. Though ultimately successful, it was a bloodbath; by the time it was over, more than half the men in the Parachute Battalion had been wounded or killed in action. "Battalion of the Damned" is the gripping account of the 1st Marine Parachute Battalion on Guadalcanal. Critical to defending Bloody Ridge, the Parachute Battalion is rarely mentioned in histories, most of which focus on the 1st Marine Raiders. Drawing on government documents and hundreds of hours of interviews with the men who were there, James Christ tells this remarkable untold story.
The author shows how, in the face of overwhelming odds, the Parachute Battalion not only knew how to accept orders without question, but they learned how to adapt to nearly unimaginable circumstances, and how to survive amidst resource shortages, sickness, and seemingly irrational decisions from above in the first amphibious assault by U.S. forces in the Second World War.