Bonegi River / Kinugawa Maru

Peter Flahavin Guadalcanal Revisited

January 1995 / February 1996 Peter Flahavin / Rod Bellars

Bonegi River

Sherman Tank "Jezebel"

US Army Firing Range

Bonegi River is west of Kokumbona and the Kinugawa Maru wreck is just east of the river mouth. Today, the Japanese goverment has funded this bridge over the river.

The tank is sitting on a former firing range about 600 yards south east of the shipwreck.

There was a US camp on the beach in 1943-45 and across the road was the firing range and a junk pile in the jungle.

Found the tank but missed the junk pile. The ridge they walked up in Thin Red Line is the next ridge to the east from here.

Peter Flahavin at
Bonegi River 1999

This is a photograph of me, sweating like a pig after 20 minutes up and down hills trying to find the junk pile. The sherman is behind the trees to my back. The junk pile was over the hill to the front of the tank . By the time a local told us that we were just too buggered to go up there again!

Click For Enlargement
Near Bonegi River; what Kinugawa Maru looks like today.

Aerial Photograph November 15, 1942
(click for larger version)

Hirokawa Maru capsized wreckage in 1944

Yamatsuki Maru near Doma Cove

November 15th 1942
Japanese transports attempt to reinforce their garrison. They were beached and destroyed.

Hirokawa Maru (Bonegi 1)
Near to the beahead at Lunga Point, US Costal artillery shelled this ship, causing it to capsize. This could have been a result of being punctured under the waterline by the initial coastal artillery shells.

Kinugawa Maru (Bonegi 2) were the nearest beached to Lunga Point, about 10 miles away. The US coastal artillery shelled and got hits on these two ships before the aircraft and the USN destroyer Meade finished them off.

Yamazuki Maru
Beached at Doma Cove

Yamaura Maru
Beached up near Tenaro near Cape Esperance

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