Peter Flahavin  Guadalcanal Revisited

Friday , January 16th 1998
At 10.00 a.m. Timothy , Leigh and I set off to drive West along the coast . We had until 1.00 p.m. when I had to see Lawrence about the permit . As we crossed over White River , about a mile West on Honiara , we noted that it looked like original American Bailey� bridge . Near the Matanikau there were some old US Nissen huts still being used and I had noticed piles of Bailey Bridge parts stacked nearby .

First stop was Fred Kona's War Museum at Vilu. I didn't take a lot of photos , as I had seen it all in 1995-1996 and nothing had changed much. It was still interesting to look over the stuff again though. I hadn't noticed before that the Corsair fighter still had one .50 calibre machine gun in its left wing. The storm of the previous week had been through here too and there were a few branches lying across some of the Japanese 37mm anti-tank guns. There were wartime Coke bottles for sale here at only S$5.00 (US$1.25) but we already had more than enough!

Kyusyu Maru Location Today

From Vilu we travelled East back towards Honiara . Next stop was Doma Beach to look at the wreckage of the Japanese transport Kyusyu Maru. It was beached here and sunk by American aircraft on October 15, 1942. I was able to take comparison shots of two wartime photos here.

Kinugawa Maru

A few miles further down the coast there was the wreck of transport ship Kinugawa Maru near the mouth of the Bonegi River . The bridge across the Bonegi is relatively new , being built by the Japanese in 1995 . Kinugawa Maru was one of the 11 Japanese transports sunk in November 1942.

  Only 4 reached Guadalcanal. They beached themselves along the coast on November 15th 1942 and by midday were all destroyed by US planes, coastal artillery at Lunga Point and the destroyer USS Meade from Tulagi . Today this is a favourite site for scuba divers. The bow of the ship is only about 10-15 feet from the shore, while the stern rests in 100 feet of water.

Lela Beach - Click for additional photos

Driving further we paused past Lela beach, just before reaching Kokumbona . The bay here was a Japanese supply landing point and I was able to take a comparison photo near where a Japanese 75mm AA gun was once emplaced . (I Company , First Battalion , 5th Marine Regiment landed near here on 19.8.42 in one of the first Marine offensive actions of the Guadalcanal Campaign).

I have since learnt that the rusted barrel and the toppled mount of another 75mm AA gun lies in the surf at Kokumbona beach. As we reached the outskirts of Honiara we stopped at the Police Barracks to take a photo of the monument to Solomon Islands scout Sir Jacob Vouza.

At 1.30 p.m. I went and saw Lawrence again. The Minister would not be back until January 25th and he was having trouble locating the permanent secretary to get him to sign it. He asked me to come back at 3.00 p.m. After a session in the pool I did just that. Lawrence still hadn’t been able to contact him, so he had signed the permit himself. That was a great relief to us . We walked down to the Market again and bought a few more .50 calibre heads. The stall owner had a couple of American mess kits, but they were very beat up.

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