Sobering sites

Last weekend the long serving storeman here was good enough to take a group of us to see some sights around Honiara. Not only do you need someone who knows their way around because the hills behind the town are like a very steep maze, some locals are still occasionally in the habit of forming road blocks for a little extra cash. Les the storeman assured us it wasn’t really a problem unless you stopped. The trick is to be in a 4WD and just drive over/through the road block. Luckily this wasn’t necessary.
The view over Honiara's suburbs looking NE from the American War Memorial


Our first stop was the American war memorial on top of a hill overlooking town. The hills are amazingly steep so the view was really spectacular. The memorial is a series of huge granite slabs etched onto which is a very detailed account of the battle for Guadalcanal. The bravery involved and the number of lives and ships lost on both sides is hard to comprehend. The result, in 1943 after a succession of battles, was America’s first successful naval campaign of the war.


From there we drove to Bloody Ridge for a much grittier example of the war. As well as the naval battles the Americans and Japanese fought many pitched land battles. The Japanese had first occupied the Islands as a point from which they could attack shipping lanes and eventually the Australian mainland.

Gifu hill looking South down its precipitous slopes

As a result they were very well fortified and ready for the American attack. The part of Bloody Ridge we visited was called Gifu Hill by the Japanese, now the site of a beautiful little village. This was the site of one of the most intense battles. Some of the Japanese had retreated to the top of this hill after the American invasion as it gave them a perfect view of the airfield below which was at the heart of the conflict. The battle for this hill was the subject of the film Thin Red Line which I encourage you to see. That anyone could climb this hill is almost inconceivable, let alone assault it under heavy fire. In the end there were 8000 Japanese lying dead in an area not much bigger than a tennis court.
At the village just down the ridge we inspected all sorts of war relics that emerge from the ground from time to time. The village museum has an amazing array of items from weapons to everyday objects which make the whole experience very real. One expects to see ammunition and weapons, but the teeth and glasses and pannikins remind you these were all otherwise normal people. There is so much war litter only the week before some men walked a different route to a neighbouring village and found a crashed Japanese fighter. The pilot was still buckled into his seat.