Rapid Travel Chai

Seven decades past, Guadalcanal remains a vivid tribute to the lives lost and lives saved at this momentous battle. See here for how to visit. I will devote a separate piece to The Thin Red Line.

Red Beach, site of US landing, August 1942. The beach is a bowl, ideal for a trap so the Japanese did not expect a landing and defended coastal points instead. The initial landing was unopposed.

Alligator’s Creek and Hell’s Point. 20 August 1942 Colonel Ichiki and 800 men died in a bonzai attack on the US landing force.

US War Memorial.

Solomons Peace Memorial Park built by the Japanese, in the shadow of the final stand at Mt Austen and Gifu.

Tetere Beach and its abandoned amtracks.

Edson’s Bloody Ridge, site of unsuccessful 1942 attempt to seize Henderson Field.

US memorial marker in disrepair.

Japanese memorial marker.

Bonegi II, Japanese freighter sunk 13 November 1942, easy to swim out and snorkel.

Various sites around the island have collected war relics.

Betikama School, run by the Seventh-Day Adventist Mission, utilizing a WWII Quonset hut.

Vilu Open-Air Museum

Hill 27.

Foxholes on Hill 27.

View from Hill 27, the US forces charged up the facing hill and then swung around to Hill 27

Relics collected on Hill 27.

Gifu, Mt Austen, site of the final defeat of Japanese forces.