Puller marches on the Matanikau, hunting stragglers while outnumbered by a tenth

Nine days after the fight at Edson's Ridge, Japanese troops under General Kiyotake Kawaguchi had pulled back west to regroup along the Matanikau River. On the morning of September 23, 1942, Lieutenant Colonel Lewis "Chesty" Puller led his 1st Battalion, 7th Marines out of the Lunga perimeter toward the river, aiming to clear stragglers and stop the Japanese from massing for another strike. Marine intelligence figured maybe 400 enemy troops held the valley. Colonel Akinosuke Oka commanded roughly ten times that many…