| United States Marine Corps Major General Alexander A. Vandegrift (March 13, 1887 – May 8, 1973), Commander of the 1st Marine Division at his field desk in the Division command tent on Guadalcanal. Note Sheaffer’s Skrip pen ink, both in the box and bottle; a flashlight; Vandegrift’s pinky ring; a photograph of Alexander A. Vandegrift Junior (May 27, 1911 – November 20, 1969); small calendar; clock under stacked papers; a book on Melanesian peoples; and the Western Electric F1W desktop hand crank telephone. Vandergrift’s 1st Command Post was established around 1400 Hours on August 7, 1942, under shattered coconut palms on Red Beach. This was an open tent, with a chair, a field cot, a folding desk and stool. It was surrounded by tall trees for camouflage. On D-Day Plus 2, he moved his Command Post by the airfield, later named Henderson Field. Vandergrift wrote in his memoirs, “For some time I had been getting tired of jumping from bed several times a night and having shrapnel from Japanese bomb and surface shells whistling through my Command Post. O found a spot beneath a hind spur on [a] ridge where engineers where now building a new Command Post two thousand yards (eighteen hundred meters) south of the airfield. Here the terrain, after sloping down from Mount Austen, began to level off either into jungle or to foothills and chopped-up ridges covered with high, tough kunai grass. The ridge indicated…dominated this immediate terrain complex. Its spine, running northwest to southeast for about a thousand yards (nine hundred meters), sprouted four vertebrae-like spurs, two on each side.” “The Engineers said that I had been living in the mud long enough, and they have built a pavilion about three feet off the ground, thirty-five feet long by eighteen feet wide. Capers [William Capers James (June 22, 1896 – September 30, 1974)], my chief of staff, and I sleep in one end and the other end is the office and sitting room. It is in the jungle and this morning at sunrise the white and red parrots and the large macaws were all around.” “I have some Jap[anese] wicker furniture and will in a few days have a Jap[anese] icebox run by kerosene if we can make it work. The pavilion is built of Japanese wood and the mats by our bed are Japanese too, and some of the mess gear is also Japanese. So you see, they did well by us.” Vandergrift occupied his new Command Post on September 10, 1942, just a few days before the Battle of Edson’s Ridge, just over the ridge from the new Command Post. The morning of September 13, 1942, having won a major victory, Vandergrift was reading messages outside the new Command Post. “Hearing some shouting including several cries of ‘Banzai!’ I looked up to see two Japanese soldiers and an officer swinging a samurai sword. The officer threw his sword at a Marine, then fell from a shot fired by Sergeant Major [Sheffield M.] Banta [(July 13, 1900 – October 10, 1978)]. A Marine corporal tried to fire at one of the soldiers. His pistol jammed and he dived at his enemy. Just as he hit him with a flying tackle shots rang out and both Japanese fell dead. To this day I don’t know who fired.” Vanderbilt occupied this Command Post until he left Guadalcanal on December 9, 1942, in command of United States Army General Alexander M. Patch (November 23, 1889 – November 21, 1945) who commanded XIV Corps. | |
| Image Filename | wwii1691.jpg |
| Image Size | 1.43 MB |
| Image Dimensions | 5670 x 4462 |
| Photographer | |
| Photographer Title | United States Marine Corps |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | October 1, 1942 |
| Location | |
| City | |
| State or Province | Guadalcanal |
| Country | Solomons |
| Archive | Naval History and Heritage Command |
| Record Number | USMC 51822 |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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