History - D-Day In The Pacific Death At The Tideline

D-Day--military-speak for start of an amphibious attack operation--has become exclusive property of the Normandy invasion on June 6, 1944. But there were more than a dozen D-Days in the Pacific, half of them every bit the scale of Normandy, and one of them considerably greater (Okinawa makes Normandy look like a family outing at the beach). In a 3-part overview of WWII Pacific storm landings, we examine the sometimes disastrous, often brilliant learning curve of the Japanese/American opponents. The seriesshows how we developed from the shockingly inept and under-equipped landing on Guadalcanal to the massive, specialized steamroller assaults of 1944-45. On a vast battlefield, 98% ocean, over 1,600,000 men, Allied and Japanese, died over four years fighting for pieces of land sometimes not bigger than Central Park. In Part 1, we begin at the beginning--Guadalcanal in '42--and follow the Marine assault on Tarawa in '43.

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