The battle for the Solomon Islands remains one of the Second World War’s most important campaigns in the Pacific Theatre. It halted Imperial Japan’s advance and brought the first Allied victories on land. Following the devastating Japanese defeat at Midway, Allied landings on the Solomon Island of Guadalcanal on 7 August 1942 struck the next blow against the Axis forces. The ensuing island-hopping jungle fighting between Allied soldiers and outnumbered but tenacious Japanese occupiers has become infamous. Traces of this brutal episode linger as coral-encrusted shipwrecks and an annual ‘iron harvest’ of unexploded shells. For all the fame of the Solomon Islands campaign, though, parts of this story remain untold – moments never recorded by the Allies nor discussed by the defeated Japanese; a legacy of occupation known only from forgotten ruins in deep rainforest.
Island conflict archaeology
Kolombangara is conspicuous within the Solomon Islands’ Western Province. Its jungle-covered slopes rise to a cloud-shrouded summit 1,770m above sea level, leaving it towering above the surrounding atolls. In late 1943, Kolombangara became the seat of Imperial Japanese power in the Solomon Islands and was fortified to resist the Allied advance northwards until Japan’s fortunes could be restored. This ‘turning point’ was not to be, however, and by August 1943 Kolombangara was encircled by Allied forces, eventually compelling its Japanese occupiers to evacuate. In their haste to escape, they abandoned everything too heavy to carry within dugouts that had been prepared to repel an invasion that never came.
Those artefacts lay untouched for 77 years, before being rediscovered by an archaeological expedition in February 2020. It was led by Nikolaus Hochstein Cox, who had been working as a Cambridge Archaeological Unit archaeologist, and consisted of Major (retired) Andy Hawkins, MBE QGM, conflict archaeologist and Durand Group founding member, and Martin Potts, expedition cameraman.
Splendours of Sanxingdui