A remembrance ceremony to commemorate the efforts of all Solomon Islanders who served with Allied forces during the Solomons Campaign of WWII will be held next month August 7.
Executive Officer of the Solomon Scout and Coast watchers Memorial Trust Annie Kwai said that event will be the 4th anniversary of the ‘Pride of Our Nation’ Trust Board event at the Commonwealth Street since 2011, adding preparations are pretty much underway.
She said that the purpose of the wreath laying ceremony is to acknowledge the efforts of all Solomon Islanders who served one way or another with the Allied forces during the Solomons Campaign of WWII; who ensured that the ‘freedom’ we enjoyed as a nation today is secured through their decision of which sides of the ‘foreign enemies’ who came to fight on their land they should assist.
“A decision that contributes to the victory of the Allies in the Pacific Campaign, also to remember the remarkable degree of ‘togetherness ‘of ALL Solomon Islanders (men, women and children) to endure the challenges they faced in a war that is not of their making.
“This degree of ‘togetherness’ among other factors forms the foundation of our liberation from foreign colonial rule in the post war period.
“We believe that by acknowledging and remembering our ancestors for these deeds will create a sense of national identity and pride in our societies today,” she said.
Miss Kwai added that “this year’s program will be approximately 30 minutes and is mainly a wreath laying ceremony and we want this to be the practice in the future.
“There will be members of the US Marine Raider veterans association who will be here to attend the US Memorial Service and these are also usually our guests at the Commonwealth street service adding August 14/15 a 94 year old veteran of the US marine raider and other veterans of the raider battalion will be in the country.
“The US marine raider battalion first set foot on Tulagi at beach blue which is now where the McMahon School is.
“The raider veterans Association have funded a building for the McMahon secondary school so the visit will be to officially hand over and dedicate the school,” she said.
August commemoration ceremony is held annually.
“It falls in line with the American commemoration ceremony at the skyline.
“August 7th was important to the Americans because it’s the day the US Marines landed on Guadalcanal and Tulagi. Because Solomon Islanders fought more closely with Allied forces, it is fitting to choose August 7 as the commemoration day for the Pride of Our Nation-Solomon Scouts and Coast watchers Memorial Trust,” she stated.
Guadalcanal-Tulagi Invasion, 7-9 August 1942
The long fight for Guadalcanal formally opened shortly after 6AM on 7 August 1942, when the heavy cruiser Quincy began bombarding Japanese positions near Lunga Point.
In the darkness a few hours earlier, what was for mid-1942 an impressive invasion force had steamed past Savo Island to enter the sound between the two objective areas: Guadalcanal to the south and, less than twenty miles away, Tulagi to the north.
These thirteen big transports (AP), six large cargo ships (AK) and four small high-speed transports (APD) carried some 19,000 U.S. Marines. They were directly protected by eight cruisers (three of them Australian), fifteen destroyers and five high-speed minesweepers (DMS).
Led by Rear Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner, this armada was supported from out at sea by three aircraft carriers, accompanied by a battleship, six cruisers, sixteen destroyers and five oilers under the command of Vice Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher, who was also entrusted with the overall responsibility for the operation.
The great majority of these ships (9 AP, 6 AK and most of the escort and bombardment ships), with Marine Major General Alexander A. Vandegrift and the bulk of his Leathernecks, was to assault Guadalcanal a few miles east of Lunga Point. Tactically, this part of the landing went very well. There were few enemy combat troops present, and these were some distance away. The first of the Marines came ashore soon after 9AM at “Red” Beach, a stretch of grey sand near the Tenaru River.
By the afternoon of the following day they had pushed westwards to seize the operation’s primary object, the nearly completed Japanese airfield near Lunga Point. The surviving Japanese, mainly consisting of labor troops, quickly retreated up the coast and inland, leaving the Marines with a bounty of captured materiel, much of which would soon prove very useful to its new owners.
While the Marines consolidated their beachhead and began to establish a defensive perimeter around the airstrip, the landing of their supplies and equipment proceeded less well. Typically for these early amphibious operations, arrangements were inadequate to handle the glut of things brought ashore by landing craft. Mounds of supplies soon clogged the beaches, slowing the unloading of the ships offshore.
A series of Japanese air attacks, which forced the ships to get underway to evade them, didn’t help, and when the catastrophic outcome to the Battle of Savo Island and the withdrawal of Vice Admiral Fletcher’s carriers forced the the big transports and cargo ships to leave on 9 August, none of them had been completely unloaded.
Though the Marines had taken their objective, supply shortages would plague them in the coming weeks, as the Japanese hit back by air, sea and land in an increasingly furious effort to recover Guadalcanal’s strategically important airfield.
By STEPHEN DIISANGO
