ABSTRACT
On 30 July, seven B-17s bombed the growing Japanese presence on Guadalcanal. On 1 August came ten more, the next day eleven, and on 6 August, B-17s dropped a total of twenty-eight 300-pound bombs.1 Some of the local men formerly enlisted by the Japanese to help build the airfield now wandered off. Even before the B-17s arrived, the Japanese knew something was afoot, an intelligence report having stated that the Americans were going to invade, brashly adding that the local Japanese force would prevail.2 Lt. T. Okamura, in command of the construction, must have sensed that time was short, since he repeatedly requested aircraft to fly in as soon as the airstrip could receive them, several light planes having already made successful test landings.3 What the Japanese were thinking, however, was unknown to the Allies, since the Imperial Navy had instituted a new JN-25D code.4
