1st Marine Division was activated aboard the on 1 February 1941. In May 1941, the 1st MARDIV relocated to Quantico, Virginia and Parris Island, South Carolina and in April 1942, the division began deploying to Samoa and Wellington, New Zealand. The division's units were scattered over the Pacific with the support elements and the 1st Marine Regiment transported en route to New Zealand on three ships, the USATs Ericsson, Barnett and Elliott from Naval Reserve Air Base Oakland to New Zealand, and later were landed on the island of Guadalcanal, part of the Solomon Islands, on 7 August 1942. Initially, only the 7th Marine Regiment was in garrison on British Samoa, with the 5th Marine Regiment having just encamped at Wellington, New Zealand after disembarking from USAT Wakefield, and the 1st Marine Regiment not scheduled to arrive in New Zealand until 11 July. The 1st Raider Battalion was on New Caledonia, and the 3rd Defense Battalion was in Pearl Harbor. All of the division's units, with the 11th Marines (artillery) and 75mm howitzer armed 10th Marines battalion would rendezvous at Fiji. Due to the change in orders and shortage of attack and combat cargo vessels, all of the division's 2.5-ton trucks, M1918 155-mm howitzers and the sound and flash-ranging equipment needed for counter-battery fire had to be left in Wellington. Also, because the Wellington dock workers were on strike at the time, the Marines had to do all the load reconfiguration from administrative to combat configuration. After 11 days of logistical challenges, the division, with 16,000 Marines, departed Wellington in eighty-nine ships embarked for the Solomon Islands with a 60-day combat load which did not include tents, spare clothing or bedrolls, office equipment, unit muster rolls, or pay clerks. Other things not yet available to this first wave of Marine deployments were insect repellent and mosquito netting. Attached to the division was the 1st Parachute Battalion, which along with the rest of the division, conducted landing rehearsals from 28 to 30 July on Koro Island, which Major General Alexander Vandegrift described as a "disaster". On 31 July the entire Marine task force was placed under the command of Vice Admiral Frank J. Fletcher's Task Force 61. The division as a whole would fight in the Guadalcanal Campaign until relieved at 1400 on 9 December 1942 by Alexander Patch's Americal Division. This operation won the division its first of three World