I have. The Japanese didn't engage the Marines on Guadalcanal until August 8, 1942. They let the Marines land unopposed before they opened fire. On Tarawa, the response was chaotic, because the Japanese commander had been killed in the pre-invasion bombardment. Saipan, and
Tinian, were lightly defended compared to Guam.
Ay Caramba.
1. Guadalcanal, from Ze Genocide:
In contrast to Tulagi, Gavutu, and Tanambogo, the landings on Guadalcanal encountered much less resistance. At 09:10 on August 7, Vandegrift and 11,000 U.S. Marines came ashore on Guadalcanal between Koli Point and
Lunga Point. Advancing towards Lunga Point, they encountered no resistance except for "tangled" rain forest, and they halted for the night about 1,000 yards (910 m) from the Lunga Point airfield. The next day, again against little resistance, the Marines advanced all the way to the Lunga River and secured the airfield by 16:00 on August 8. The Japanese naval construction units and combat troops, under the command of Captain Kanae Monzen, panicked by the warship bombardment and aerial bombing, had abandoned the airfield area and fled about 3 miles (4.8 km) west to the
Matanikau River and Point Cruz area, leaving behind food, supplies, intact construction equipment and vehicles, and 13 dead.
[28]
U.S. Marines come ashore on Guadalcanal on August 7, 1942.
During the landing operations on August 7 and August 8, Japanese naval aircraft based at Rabaul, under the command of
Sadayoshi Yamada, attacked the Allied amphibious forces several times, setting afire the U.S. transport
George F. Elliot (which sank two days later) and heavily damaging the
destroyer USS Jarvis.
[29] In the air attacks over the two days, the Japanese lost 36 aircraft, while the U.S. lost 19, both in combat and to accident, including 14 carrier fighters.
[30]
....
On the evening of August 12, a 25-man U.S. Marine patrol, led by Lieutenant Colonel
Frank Goettge and primarily consisting of
intelligence personnel, landed by boat west of the Lunga perimeter, between Point Cruz and the Matanikau River, on a reconnaissance mission with a secondary objective of contacting a group of Japanese troops that U.S. forces believed might be willing to surrender. Soon after the patrol landed, a nearby
platoon of Japanese naval troops attacked and almost completely wiped out the Marine patrol.
[39]
In response, on August 19, Vandegrift sent three companies of the U.S.
5th Marine Regiment to attack the Japanese troop concentration west of the Matanikau. One company attacked across the sandbar at the mouth of the Matanikau river while another crossed the river 1,000 metres (1,100 yd) inland and attacked the Japanese forces located in Matanikau village. The third landed by boat further west and attacked Kokumbuna village. After briefly occupying the two villages, the three Marine companies returned to the Lunga perimeter, having killed about 65 Japanese soldiers while losing four. This action, sometimes referred to as the "First Battle of the Matanikau", was the first of several major
actions around the Matanikau River during the campaign.
[40]
So,
August 19th was the first significant land battle on Guadalcanal.
The battle of the Tenaru, the first to involve significant numbers of troops sent in to reinforce the island, was on the 21st.
Two weeks after the USMC landing.
2. On Tarawa, the commander was NOT killed in the pre-landing bombardment, he was killed on day two. The real problem was, the immediate Japanese counter-attacks were poorly coordinated, because the pre-invasion bombardment totally destroyed his comm net by cutting most of the landlines.
3. Saipan... lightly defended?
31,000 IJA troops, versus 22,000 on Guam IIRC.
From Ze Genocide:
The landings began at 07:00 on 15 June 1944. More than 300
LVTs landed 8,000 Marines on the west coast of Saipan by about 09:00. Eleven fire support ships covered the Marine landings. The naval force consisted of the
battleships USS Tennessee and
California. The
cruisers were
Birmingham and
Indianapolis. The
destroyers were
Norman Scott,
Monssen,
Colahan,
Halsey Powell,
Bailey,
Robinson and the
Albert W. Grant. Careful Japanese artillery preparation — placing flags in the bay to indicate the range —
allowed them to destroy about 20 amphibious tanks, and the Japanese strategically placed barbed wire, artillery, machine gun emplacements, and trenches to maximize the American casualties. However, by nightfall the 2nd and 4th Marine Divisions had a
beachhead about 6 miles (10 km) wide and 1/2 mile (1 km) deep.
[3] The Japanese counter-attacked at night but were repulsed with heavy losses. On 16 June, units of the U.S. Army's
27th Infantry Division landed and advanced on the Aslito airfield. Again the Japanese counter-attacked at night. On 18 June Saito abandoned the airfield.