Red Beach, a flat strip of sand about ten kilometres east of Henderson Field, is where the first US Marine Division stepped ashore on 7 August 1942 to begin the Guadalcanal campaign. There is little to see in the conventional sense — the beach is unmarked and looks like any other stretch of north-coast Guadalcanal. But this is the spot where the Pacific War turned from defence to offence; for the next three years the Allies would be moving forward, island by island, all the way to Japan.
A small commemorative plaque sits near the road. The river mouth a short distance east is the Tenaru — known to history as the site of the Battle of the Tenaru, the first Japanese counterattack a few weeks after the landings. It is best seen as part of a half-day eastern circuit from Honiara that takes in Red Beach, the Tenaru, the Tetere war cemetery, and the rusting amphibious tractors abandoned in the coconut groves nearby.