Major General Alexander Archer Vandegrift of the Marines last week rendered an accounting of his four months on Guadalcanal. The Army was moving in, and General Vandegrift's report sounded a good deal like a valedictory. Killed: Japs, 6,640; U.S. Marines and soldiers, about 700. Planes shot down: Jap, at least 450; U.S., about 70. (Neither Jap nor U.S. sea losses around Guadalcanal were included in the Vandegrift report.)
This did not mean that Vandegrift's men had crippled the Japanese Army or air power. It did mean that U.S. forces had withstood their first big test, even though the Japs had tried desperately...
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