| Imperial Japanese Army Colonel Kiyonao Ichiki (October 16, 1892 – August 21, 1942) was the Commanding Officer killed in action on Guadalcanal during the Battle of the Tenaru River (actually the Ilu River). Ichiki commanded the 2nd Battalion, 28th Infantry Regiment, with artillery and engineers; nicknamed the “Ichiki Detachment” in the Battle of the Tenaru. The Ichiki Detachment was defeated by the United States 1st Marines, and of the 917 soldiers of Ichiki’s 1st echelon, only 128 survived. Recent Japanese scholarship disputed the claim that Ichiki was personally at fault, and argues that the Imperial General Staff placed Ichiki in a suicidal position by ordering him to attack prepared positions, outnumbered 15 to 1, without air, naval or heavy artillery support, and with poor intelligence that vastly underestimated American strength. The additional troops from his 2nd echelon would not have changed this equation. However, the General Staff needed a scapegoat, and decided to pin the failure on Ichiki. There was also speculation that the General Staff preferred to send Ichiki to battle directly from the aborted Midway operation, calculating that if the detachment returned to Japan the secret of the failure at Midway would leak. Accounts differ as to how Ichiki died. At least 1 account claims that Ichiki was killed in action during the heat of battle; others state that he committed ritual suicide due to the humiliation of his defeat in the battle. Despite the failure of his attack, Ichiki was promoted posthumously to major general. | |
| Image Filename | wwii1692.jpg |
| Image Size | 162.02 KB |
| Image Dimensions | 800 x 1114 |
| Photographer | |
| Photographer Title | Imperial Japanese Army |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | January 1, 1940 |
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| Country | Japan |
| Archive | Naval History and Heritage Command |
| Record Number | The Guadalcanal Campaign by Major John L. Zimmerman, United States Marine Corps Reserve, ©1947, page 67 |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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