Honiara

Click For EnlargementLat 9° 25' 60S Long 159° 56' 60E  Modern day capital of Solomon Islands. Honiara did not exist as a town until after the war when the British colonial government occupied the American base infrastructure on Guadalcanal and created the town, as the new center of the colonial administration.

Click For EnlargementLunga Point
Rivermouth and point is where the Lunga River empties into Iron Bottom Sound.  The Lunga River made up the eastern perimeter of Henderson Field. The shallow, gravel river mouth was used as a car wash during the war, and is still used for that purpose today.

Henderson Field (Lunga Point, Honiara)
Japanese built, expanded by Americans, objective of Guadalcanal campaign

Fighter 1 (Lunga Field, The Cow Pasture)
Fighter strip built near Henderson, today abandoned

  A6M2 Zero Manufacture Number 3647 Tail Number V-103
   Discovered in 1993, remains recovered

  G4M1 Model 11 Betty Manufacture Number 1350
   Crashed two miles south-west of Henderson.

Lunga Point Anchorage
The ofshore waters was developed by American forces used as an anchorage for ships and staging area.

Peter Flahavin adds:
Click For Enlargement"if you drive up the road near henderson carpark to the beach at Lunga, you come upon the remains of metal barges and wood piers of the lunga point naval base. just a bit to the west is lunga lagoon, which was a major naval supply base. The initial supply landing point was at kukum beach on the existing jap pier there, but when the jap artillery started up that area was in range."

  USS Serpens AK-97

  USS John Penn APA-23

  USS Atlanta (CL-51)
   Sunk off Lunga Point in 500' of water

American Cemetery on Guadalcanal
American cemetery located slightly to the east and inland from Lunga beach.  After the war, all bodies where exhumed and sent to the United States, and the graveyard abandoned.  Today, its location is 500 yards behind (towards the sea) of the modern day site of the Airport Motel.

Headstone Discoveries
During 2003 and the RAMSI operations on Guadalcanal, the Australian forces used the hotel as part of their base, and located several gravestones from the old cemetery.  Although these were not in anyway associated with remains, they are interesting relics.  American Battle Monuments Comission (ABMC) was alerted to their presence, but was uninterested in them. But, many of these concrete slabs were made by buddies or friends, and some quite elaborate in their sentiments or messages to the fallen.

Solomon Islands National Museum
Museum location, that includes several WWII relics and displays.

WWII Memorial Park (Nana Police Barracks)
Memorial park with American and Japanese memorials and 150mm Gun.

Black GI's
at Guadalcanal

US Army 24th Infantry's 2nd Battalion
March 1 - August 6, 1943 for work detail, then rest in August.


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