On August 7, 1942, US Marines landed at Lunga Point on the island of Guadalcanal in the Solomons group. Their immediate objective was the seizure of a partially completed airfield, later finished by the US military and renamed Henderson Field in honor of USMC Major Lofton Henderson who was killed during the Battle of Midway. Along with landings on Tulagi and Florida Islands, the campaign was designed to take Japanese pressure off New Guinea and secure communications lines between Australia, New Zealand, and the United States.
