
On Aug. 7, 1942, U.S. Marine Corps Capt. Robert H. Dillard (pictured, above right) splashed ashore at Guadalcanal with Weapons Company, Fifth Marines, part of the initial Allied assault force . He made his way inland and, on the second day of the campaign, reached the Japanese airfield where an enemy flag flapped in the breeze. “It was hauled down and the stars and stripes were run up,” Dillard wrote years later. “The flag we put up was only about a foot long, but it sure looked good.”