Solomons

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Map of the Solomon Islands

The “Slot” and the “Tokyo Express”

Guadalcanal is one of the Solomons Islands and lies to the southeast of the island group’s largest island, Bougainville. The Americans, Australians, and Japanese fought the battles to take and hold Guadalcanal on, over and around the Solomons from August 7, 1942 to February 7, 1943. These islands lie about 1,100 miles northeast of Australia and more than 3,400 miles southwest of the Hawaiian Islands. They stretch about 900 miles from the Bismarck Archipelago to the northwest to the Santa Cruz Islands to the southeast. They are about 650 miles south of the equator in a region called by geographers as Melanesia, which is the Greek word for “dark islands.”

These islands’ geography played an important role during the battles for Guadalcanal. One particular narrow body of water runs between several Solomon Islands from Shortland Island in the northwest to the waters off Guadalcanal’s northern cost. Called the “Slot” by the Americans, it became the main Japanese supply route in their attempts to reinforce and resupply their troops on the island. As soon as the Americans went ashore on Guadalcanal and Tulagi on August 7, 1942, the Japanese sent aircraft from Rabaul to bomb the invasion fleet. On August 8, Vice Admiral Mikawa brought his cruisers and destroyers down the “Slot” and inflicted on the American Navy one of the worst defeats had ever suffered at the Battle of Savo Island.

The Japanese ships and planes so frequently and often that it seemed it ran with the regularity of a railroad. Observing this phenomenon, the Americans gave the nickname the “Tokyo Express” to these Japanese sojourns to Guadalcanal.