The Weakness Japanese Night Assaults Never Expected to Face

Описание: Under a full moon at Guadalcanal, two machine guns held an entire front.
If they went silent—even for minutes—Henderson Field would fall.

On the night of October 24, 1942, Japanese forces launched repeated mass assaults toward Henderson Field on Guadalcanal. Under a bright full moon, visibility stretched far beyond normal jungle fighting ranges. What followed was not a heroic charge or a clever ambush—but a brutal test of endurance, machinery, and continuity of fire.
This video tells the true story of John Basilone, a former golf caddy turned Marine machine gunner, who manned water-cooled Browning machine guns through hours of nonstop attacks. Wave after wave of Japanese infantry advanced in formation, believing speed and courage could overwhelm the line. Against sustained, overlapping machine-gun fire, the result was catastrophic.
As the night wore on, Basilone’s section was shattered. A direct mortar hit destroyed one gun pit and killed or wounded most of his crew. Ammunition ran dangerously low. With no relief coming, Basilone ran ammunition alone across open ground under machine-gun fire—again and again—carrying more than sixty pounds per trip.
When his asbestos gloves were lost, the guns overheated. Jams followed. Stopping to cool the weapons meant collapse. Basilone cleared malfunctions with burned, blistered hands, forcing metal back into action while Japanese soldiers gathered less than fifty meters away.
This was not a trick. It was the arithmetic of modern war. If the guns fired, the line lived. If they went silent, everything ended.
By dawn, only three Marines from the section were still standing. Hundreds of attackers lay in front of the wire. Henderson Field held. Aircraft would fly. The campaign would continue.
This story reveals how battles are often decided—not by strategy or speeches, but by whether a system continues functioning one minute longer than the enemy expects. It shows why silence on a battlefield is often more dangerous than death itself.

00:00 Full Moon Over Henderson Field
02:46 The First Japanese Assault Waves
06:12 Why Machine Guns, Not Rifles, Decided the Night
09:55 The Gun Pit Is Destroyed
13:28 Ammunition Runs Out
16:42 Basilone’s Run Under Fire
20:05 Clearing Jams With Burned Hands
23:58 Fighting the Last Assaults Before Dawn
27:44 After Sunrise: Counting the Cost
31:10 Why This Night Changed the Campaign

#WW2 #Guadalcanal #JohnBasilone #PacificWar #WW2Stories #MilitaryHistory #USMarines