Earl Hinz - Airplane Skeleton, New Hebrides

Earl Hinz New Hebrides

An airplane skeleton

"This unserviceable fuselage escaped the watery grave and is now a play house for local kids."

  In a gamble that the Japanese would be stopped in their southward movement at New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, a major staging base was built at Espiritu Santo island in the New Hebrides.
  The staging base, known as Buttons, became a city of 100,000 servicemen and provided every service needed to the Army, Navy and Marines to pursue their contact with enemy forces. Supplies from kitchen ware to heavy construction equipment to ice cream for the troops was available here. Several airfields on the island served military squadrons en route to battle zones in the north.
  As the Allies pushed the Japanese further north, Buttons became of less use and was eventually abandoned, but not before pushing hundreds of tons of new and serviceable fighting gear into the ocean at what later became known as Million Dollar Point.

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Interviews & Oral Histories