for some, who had to be hoisted up by the strong arms of healthy sailors.Many of the Marines made their last act on Guadalcanal a visit to the cemetery that contained most of the division’s 650 dead. Thirty-one Marines would be permanently listed as missing. Another 1,278 marines won Purple Heart Medals for wounds, but around 8,580 wore no decorations for their diseases, principally malaria. About forty-eight hours before their departure, medical officers scrutinized one unidentified regiment and found fully one-third of its members unfit for further combat.On December 23, two dozen Zeros of the 252nd Air Group fluttered down to Munda with nine other Zeros in escort. The 252nd Air Group lost two planes in a clash over its new base that also cost two wildcats and a P-39. The following morning, nine SBDs, nine P-39s, four P-38s, and four F4Fs from the Cactus Air Force found four zeros airborne and the others being readied. The American fighters claimed fourteen Zeros in the air and, the dive-bombers reported mangling the remainder on the ground.Dor Brown 20This incident was basically the way the entire Japanese supply effort at this time was going. The impact of the inability of the Imperial Navy to deliver provisions to the 17th Army was calamitous. Rations in the 38th Division fell to one-sixth for the men in the front line and one-tenth for the others, but even by this regimen the unit consumed all the food landed in December by the 17th.The Japanese were maintaining their garrison on Guadalcanal merely to occupy the Americans while they constructed a pair of airfields in the Central Solomons. Keeping the garrison alive, however, became increasingly difficult as the destroyers came under increasing attacks by planes during the day and PT boats during the night. Tokyo at last concluded that Guadalcanal would have to be abandoned. Getting the Japanese soldiers of the island posed a serious problem. Solving it took weeks...
