tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">SIDEBAR: 75mm Pack Howitzer—Workhorse of the Artillery

First Offensive:
The Marine Campaign
For Guadalcanal

Marines in
World War II
Commemorative Series

By Henry I. Shaw, Jr.

A Marine machine gunner and his Browning .30-caliber M1917 heavy machine gun stand guard while 1st Marine Division engineers clean up in the Lunga River. (Department of Defense [USMC] Photo 588741)

It was from a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress such as this that LtCol Merrill B. Twining and Maj William B. McKean reconnoitered the Watchtower target area and discovered the Japanese building an airfield on Guadalcanal. (National Archives Photo 80-G-34887)