Reddit reviews Neptune's Inferno: The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal
We found 2 Reddit comments about Neptune's Inferno: The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Bantam
nuh-uh you brought this upon yourself. Buy it buy it buy it buuuyyyy it
Its a complex question, there were a lot of things involved. The original landings were US marines against engineers. the Japanese sent the parts of the 17th army to go retake the island. the First unit gravely underestimated the marines and lost pretty much his entire unit (917 guys) in a frontal night assault on the airfield. the japanese made a couple more attacks like throughout the campaign to little effect.
i don't know if Dmanww's numbers include the naval loses during the timeframe.
Like Shipyaad said, conditions were terrible, and due to the US control of Henderson field the japanese were unable to reliably supply their troops (see Tokyo Express) many starved and died of disease. the US troops more or less (with the exception of the rocky bits where the navy withdrew) was well supplied and was (most importantly) defending an airfield. The Airfield being operational kept the japanese from reliably supplying their troops with food, ammo, medical supplies and more men.
the wiki article on the Guadalcanal Campaign is pretty good for a grand overview.
http://www.amazon.com/Neptunes-Inferno-U-S-Navy-Guadalcanal/dp/055380670X
above also worth reading if you are interested in the Navy side of things as well.