Japanese Souvenir on Guadalcanal

American soldiers hold a captured Japanese flag on Guadalcanal, in the Solomon Islands in 1943. The Guadalcanal Campaign, also known as the Battle of Guadalcanal, was fought between August 7, 1942, and February 9, 1943, in the Pacific theater. Fought on the ground, at sea, and in the air, this was a strategically significant, and decisive, campaign which pitted Allied forces against Imperial Japanese forces. The fighting took place on and around the island of Guadalcanal, and was the first major offensive launched by Allied forces against the Empire of Japan.