Figure 1

In September 2010 I flew to Guadalcanal on an RNZAF C130 transport plane. The flight was an emotional experience for me and one of the highlights of the entire year’s research.

Early in the year I had emailed the Chief of the New Zealand Defense Forces, Lieutenant -General Jerry Mateparai, requesting the opportunity to “hitch a ride” to Guadalcanal on an Air Force flight. New Zealand at that time had an ongoing commitment to maintaining the peace in the Solomon Islands as part of the Regional Aid Mission to the Solomon Islands (RAMSI). I figured there must be regular flights to Guadalcanal to rotate troops and replenish supplies at the RAMSI base in Honiara. I asked if I could join a flight and document the activities of the New Zealand contingent, as well as be taken to the sites of the major battles for the island that took place between the Americans and Japanese in 1942. I was also keen to visit the New Zealand Army campsite on Edson’s Ridge, where Harry Stone was stationed between Tuesday 14 September and Thursday 28 October 1943. Edson’s Ridge, also known as Bloody Ridge, was the site of one of the most vicious battles of the War in the Pacific and a turning point in the war with Japan. The Kiwi forces were encamped there about a year after the battle, as they prepared for action further north.

I received a reply from Mateparai’s personal assistant saying that he was interested in the project and had approved my request. I would be notified when a flight would become available.

In September I was offered the opportunity to make the trip on an Air Force C130 Hercules transport plane to Guadalcanal. However, it would not be possible for me to be “embedded” with the RAMSI troops because the Australians did not permit non-service personnel on the base. I would need to find my own accommodation in Honiara as well as arrange for a commercial flight home since the Air Force plane was returning to New Zealand the following day.

While this wasn’t quite the result I had been hoping for, the opportunity of flying on a military aircraft to Henderson Field was too good to miss. I gratefully accepted the offer. The Royal Society of New Zealand and University of Auckland helped me with the costs of accommodation and the return flight. I booked into the Mendana Hotel on the waterfront in Honiara for eight days.

I duly reported to Whenuapai Airfield in West Auckland in the early hours of Monday 13 September. Making the trip with me were about a dozen soldiers in uniform and a small stack of supplies and equipment. We were given heavy-duty ear-muffs to protect our hearing from the noise of the four engines during the seven hour flight. Seating was on benches running down the centre and sides of the cargo hold.

As I was settling myself onto one of the bench-seats one of the aircrew asked me if I would like to come up to the flight-deck for the takeoff. I was amazed that I was permitted to do this and eagerly accepted. I took my iPhone with me so I could take photographs. I was given a set of headphones so that I could converse with the crew and listen to them preparing for takeoff and instructed to brace myself by holding on with both hands.

After all of the systems checks were completed (Figure 2) we rolled down the runway and I was surprised at how effortlessly the big plane left the ground and banked to the right before heading north (Figure 3). I stayed on the flight-deck until we had cleared Cape Reinga at the northern tip of the North Island and climbed above the clouds (Figure 4) before returning to the hold and settling down for the flight with the morning newspaper.

After reading and dozing for the duration of the trip north, I felt the aircraft beginning the descent to Honiara and asked if I could go back to the flight-deck for the approach and landing. Permission was cheerfully given and as I climbed back to my position on the small bench behind the crew I saw the southern coastline of Guadalcanal through the windshield. There was silence on the flight deck as the C130 descended through the patchy clouds. Thick jungle stretched out around the plane with occasional clearings and villages apparent. Shortly the northern coast came into view in the distance, with just before it the unmistakable line of the airport runway: Henderson Field!

We over-flew the airfield out over “Iron Bottom Sound” (so named for the tonnage of Japanese, American and Australian warships sunk there) before banking to the left and flying back over Honiara (Figure 5), then descending for the final approach to the runway from the south (Figure 6). A USAF photograph shows almost the same view taken from a bomber lining up to land at Henderson in 1943 (Figure 7).

The airstrip got closer and closer as the big plane descended and finally hit the runway (Figures 8 and 9). It was an emotional moment for me as we came in to touch down. I had an overwhelming sense of the history of the airstrip which had cost so many lives in the War in the Pacific, and as the plane barrelled down the runway I could imagine my father stacking ammunition onto trucks among the coconut palms on the perimeter of the airstrip in 1943. We taxied back up the runway and came to a halt in front of the terminus (Figure 10). The ramp at the rear of the aircraft was quickly lowered and equipment began to be unloaded (Figure 11). I thought of the yawning bow doors in the photograph of LST 485 unloading on the beach at Falamai on Mono Island, now just 300 – 400 km to the north-west of where I stood.

As I stepped down from the plane a sight immediately burned itself into my internal visual memory bank. At the far end of the airfield a group of native Melanesians, strung out in a line, were swinging machetes cutting the grass. Their machetes glinted in the sun as they worked. On the edge of the tarmac was a New Zealand Defense Force Toyota 4 x 4 truck, painted white with the familiar Kiwi logo in silhouette on the door (Figure 12). Dad would have recognised it right away.

After taking a group photo of the air and ground crews (Figure 13) I headed for customs. The co-pilot helped me through the formalities and as the air-crew were also heading for the Mendana Hotel, I was invited to join them in their minibus into Honiara. The Air Force people were very helpful and supportive and I was able to join them for a meal and a Solbrew beer in the gardens of the hotel later that evening. I had arrived on Guadalcanal on Monday 13 September 2010. I checked the copy of his diary on my laptop in the hotel room that evening. The day dates in 2010 were exactly the same as those in 1943. Incredibly, my father had arrived one day later than me exactly 67 years before.

The airstrip was originally built by Japanese forces. Figure 14 is a photograph taken of the airfield soon after it was over-run by American Marines on 7 August 1942, less than twelve months after Pearl Harbour. The shell craters were made by Japanese aircraft and warship bombardments attempting to drive the Americans back out of the area.

Figure 14