The Japanese Navy High Command now realized that it would take more than a simple operation to retake Guadalcanal, and that controlling the air around the island was a prerequisite for success. This view began to change after the Battle of the Tenaru River on 21 August, when the Japanese Army's Ichiki Detachment, numbering some 900 men, made the first attempt to retake Henderson Field and was almost completely wiped out. On 12 August the Army and Navy High Commands agreed that the American landing on Guadalcanal was only a local tactical move, and the island could be easily recaptured. In their estimate of the world strategic situation in March 1942, the Japanese High Command had concluded that the Americans would not mount a major counter-attack before 1943. The American counter-attack at Guadalcanal came as a complete surprise to the Japanese.
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