Western Province | Solomons

Location
Located on Ballale Island. Also known as Ballalae, Ballalai or Ballale (American spelling).

Construction
Code named RDX by the Japanese. The Japanese Navy 18th Construction Battalion arrived on the island on November 3, 1942 to begin building an airstrip with a contingent of 370 people, assisted by locals and later British POWs.

They built a single runway running the length of the island, surfaced with crushed coral running roughly north-east to south-west, completed in January 1943. Landing matt (steel planks) were used on taxiways, and entaigo (revetments) for fighters and bombers.

The first aircraft landing at the strip, was a G3M2 Nell on January 9, 1943 piloted by Iwasaki. The airfield was developed into a forward airbase for both fighters and bombers, used by the Japanese Navy, Army and Army Air Force.

(IJN) Japanese Naval Units Based at Ballale
2nd Carrier Division (Vice-Admiral Kakuji Kakuda) HQ in Rabaul, staging base for Guadalcanal attacks on Ballale
Zuiho Sentouki-tai (18 A6M) thru April 6, 1943 after to Rabaul
251st Kokutai Detachment (Irving) June 30 to Oct 12, 1943
702nd Kokutai Detachment (G4M1 Betty)
705nd Kokutai Detachment (G4M1 Betty)
204th Kokutai Detachment (A6M Zero)
(JAAF) Japanese Naval Units Based at Ballale
11th Sentai (Ki-43-I) January 27, 1943 raid to Guadalcanal
Base Defense Units (January 1943)
18th Construction Group
6th Kure Chinjufu (Talahashi Group - 3 x 12cm Guns, Kanehara Group)
7th Yokosuka Chinjufu Miyake (4 x 7cm Guns)
13th Anti-Aircraft Group (Imoo Group)

POW Labor
A contingent of 517 British Royal Artillery Regiment POWs that surrendered in Singapore in February 1942. The contingent was selected from prisoners at Chengi POW Camp and shipped to Rabaul where some remained on Watom Island. The remaining 517 were shipped to Ballale where they labored for the Japanese, without medicine or air raid shelters. Many died from harsh treatment and Allied bombing raids. The remainder were all killed around March 1943 when the Japanese feared an Allied landing in the area. In addition, Chinese and Solomon Island laborers were employed to work on the island.

Height of Ballale
The airfield's height of operations was early 1943, when it was used for bombers and fighter detachments (Southern Area Fleet Nanha Momen Kantai).  During Operation I-Go, Allied intelligence reported 95 aircraft on the island on April 6, 1943. Also on May 13, intelligence observed 96 fighters and one bomber, according to USMC records.

Allied Aerial Assault
Discovered by the Allies in the middle of January 1943, hundreds of bombing missions and fighter sweeps targeted the airfield. After the Allied landing at Torokina, the island was bypassed and left to 'wither on a vine'.

Allied Missions Against Ballale
January 16, 1943 - May 28, 1944

Destination Yamamoto Never Arrived
After departing Rabaul, Admiral Yamamoto was scheduled to arrival at Ballale Airfield on April 18, 1943 at 11:35am. His visit was an inspection of forward airfields and to boost morale boost, after the loss of the Guadalcanal campaign. Instead, his G4M1 Betty 2656 was shot down over Bougainville.

Tom Blackburn in VF-17 The Jolly Rogers recalls the accuracy of AA:
"Dubbed 'Ballale Postgraduate School for Frustrated Anti-Aircraft gunners'. On the way home from missions we would strafe Ballale. I was never convinced that we did enough damage to warrant the risks, but I am certain our on going efforts inflicted psychological damage. Still I am not sure that it was worth the deaths sustained at the hands of their anti-aircraft gunners."

Fear of Invasion
In middle 1943, the Japanese feared an American invasion of the island, due to increased bombing raids and sea bombardments. Around the middle of 1943, the remaining Solomon Islander laborers were sent away, and the Japanese executed the remaining British POWs. They buried their bodies in a mass grave, so as not to attract attention from cremation smoke. Later garrisons were made to believe or lied, saying they believed the graves were Japanese.

Neutralization
The island was neutralized by the middle of October 1943. Accurate anti-aircraft batteries were still a threat, any flyable aircraft were withdrawn. Some of the Japanese fled, by attempting to swimming on empty fuel drums to Bougainville to join Japanese forces. At the end of the war, 480 Japanese remained on the island, survivors from the 6th Kure (321) and 7th Yokosuka (159) defenders.

October 25, 1943

View in Google Earth

Post War Occupation
After the war, the Australian Army 7th Infantry Battalion, including Lt. General V. A. H. Sturdee (1st Army) and Brigadier A.W. Potts (23 Infantry Brigade) toured the island on November 10, 1945.

Australians immediately located the grave of 57 POWs buried in shallow trenches. An atrocities commission was carried out on the island, that led to the discovery of a mass grave of 436 bodies were exhumed with artifacts identifying them as British artillerymen. The remains were re-interred in individual graves at Bomama War Cemetery near Port Moresby. The remainder of the 517 British POWs have never been found.

Ray Fairfield recalls his visit in 1968:
"The undergrowth was very thick, I'm sure I missed things close by. As for the runway, it was essentially undistinguishable on the ground, you might have made it out from the air."

Reopening By British Government
The strip was abandoned until 1971 when it was reopened by a grant from the British Colonial government. A RAOC bomb disposer dumped 60 bombs off the end of the reef before the reconstruction began. Reportedly, school children from nearby Nila Catholic Mission helped with the cleanup of the runway and moving ordinance.

Starting in February 1971, the airfield was rebuilt by a detachment of Royal Engineers with the help of the Solomon protectorate's Public Works Department over three months. They cleared, re-aligned and marked out a 680 meter runway, sufficient for Solomon Airlines Baron and Islander aircraft, and built a small terminal and dock.

The new airport was officially opened on June 6, by BSIP Chairman for Communications and Works, Gordon Siama, at a ceremony attended by several hundred Shortland islanders and other guests, and commemorated with a plaque.

Ray Fairfield recalls his visit in 1968:
"There was a lot of timber pushed off the sides of the new strip in 1972, I think some a/c were pushed with it."

Today
The airport is still in used by Solomon Airlines for weekly or bi-weekly flights. Aside for passengers waiting for the bi-weekly flights, and locals hunting coconut crabs, no one lives on the rest of the island which has reverted to dense jungle. The island is notorious for scrub typhus, insects, and diseases. Two anthologist that stayed overnight on the island, and died soon afterwards from the tropical aliments. Others report strange rashes, bites and infections from the lethal insects of the island.

Michael Claringbould visited Ballale in 1977:
"The Japanese workshops still had tools hanging on the walls. bulldozers, steamrollers, aircraft everywhere, you would not have believed it - frozen in time."

Allan Dickes (grandson of Sam Atkinson) recalls:
"The most ironic memento of failed imperial ambition was a 'Betty" bomber on whose canopy a ficus had seeded, Its roots had wrapped around the fuselage and now lift the plane skyward once again! Nearby is the up tilted carcass of a 'Zero'. Half the fuselage is buried by soil thrown up by a nearby crater, the 'Rising Sun' emblem, still faintly discernible, is neatly bisected by the soil. The sun had surely set on that one!"

References
Ballale Naval Engineering Group

Contribute Information
Have you visited Ballale island? Taken any photos of the wrecks?
A relative or veteran associated with this island? Contact us to share your experiences.

Opening 1971

Memorial Dedication

Ballale Island Gunners

Mass Grave of British POW & Memorial
When Australian forces arrived on the island in November 1945, 436 bodies were exhumed with artifacts that identified them as British artillerymen. They were exhumed and temporarily buried at the nearest Allied War Cemetery at Torokina. Later, they were permanently re-interred at Bomama War Cemetery outside Port Moresby, and are also memorialized on MIA Tablets at Singapore. In July 2003, relatives of the POWs visited the island and erected a memorial to them next to the terminal.

List of British Prisoners Killed on Ballale
Are you a relative? Contact Us to add name

Aircraft Recoveries
In 1968, Canadian Robert Diemert recovered four aircraft (D3A2 Val and three Zeros) plus other parts from the island, before Solomon Independence and the War Relics Act of 1980, protecting wrecks. Other planes were reportedly salvaged by Expatrioits working in the area, an American and a attempted salvage for the Solomon Island Museum Project in 2006 - 2007.

Broken Wings of Ballale

Sale of War Relics Only Short Term Beneficial