“TUESDAY 14^TH SEPTEMBER: Went on deck this morning to find the Solomon Islands all about us, everywhere we looked there were islands. Tulagi, Malaita, Guadalcanal, being the three biggest. Planes came out to escort us. We pulled in towards the beach near Henderson Field (Figure 1) about 10.30, dropping anchor only about 400 yards from shore. Looking to the beach it was hard to believe that the heads of so many coconut trees had been blasted off by so many shells.” Figures 2 shows the Kiwi forces unloading supplies at Lunga Beach, compared with how the scene looks today. Figure 3 shows a landing craft arriving at the beach, with the mother ship in the background.

The Americans had invaded Guadalcanal a year previously and the evidence of the fighting with the Japanese was everywhere: unexploded hand grenades were a particular danger (mostly American ones, which had a high failure rate. Japanese grenades were more likely to do their job apparently). The Japanese were still attacking the airfield regularly although there was now no hope of them recapturing it.

“WEDNESDAY 15^TH SEPTEMBER: Last night, our first on Guadalcanal, Tojo gave us a bit of bother. The alarm went about 3.30 am, a bright moon was up and we could hear only one plane high up above. Searchlights struck, and then heavy Ack-Ack (90 mm). Occasionally we could see the Jap in the beam, but he kept above the Ack-Ack range…All around our camp are evidences of a tough battle, several bayonets (Jap) some ammo’, hand grenades, even rifles have been found. I saw some bone remains of some Japs, also their cooking canteens. When we landed yesterday, we saw some Jap prisoners of war being taken out to the boat we came up on.”

There followed several days of getting equipment and supplies off the beach and transported to the New Zealand Army camp. Dad never identifies the precise location of the camp in the diaries, although he mentions the close proximity of an American camp and the fact that it was about five miles from the airfield. Although Edson’s Ridge is closer than that in a direct line, it would seem like that distance along the potholed dirt road, skirting the air-field, that he was to drive frequently in his truck. The main New Zealand camp was on the east side of Edson’s Ridge, making it certain that this was the location of the camp that Dad was to remain at for the next six weeks.

Japanese air attacks on the Henderson Field (Figures 4 and 5) took place regularly, making sleep difficult for the troops, who were obliged to leap into foxholes whenever the alarm sounded. Attacks were always expected on a full moon, apparently because Japanese Prime Minister Tojo’s fighter-pilot son had been shot down and killed by Americans during a full moon. The airfield pennant in Figure 4 depicts the “Pagoda”: built by the Japanese, it became the flight operations center at the airfield for the Allies.

“FRIDAY 17^TH SEPTEMBER: Still carting rations from the beach. Last night I had my first unbroken sleep since we arrived here. Apart from the alert early in the evening, there was nothing in the early hours of the morning.”

A week after landing, there was a major Japanese attack on the airfield. The men must have assembled on the top of the ridge to watch the action as anti-aircraft guns opened up and fighter planes were scrambled to deal with the bombers. Harry vividly describes a plane shot down by a night-fighter. “Boy did she burn, halfway down the plane broke up, evidently one wing and motor fell rapidly past the burning fuselage. The motor left on the plane screamed as she came down, hitting the ground with a hell of a wallop and a good flash.” The drawing by Frank Cooze (Figure 6) from his book “Kiwis in the Pacific” (1944) is of the same engagement. It shows a pair of Lightning P-38’s attacking the Japanese aircraft, caught in the beams of the searchlights. The road in the foreground is the one that wound along Edson’s Ridge, with Kiwi army tents flanking it either side.

“TUESDAY 21^ST SEPTEMBER: The working party that was on this morning were lucky enough to have to go down past Henderson field with a load of petrol. They saw the remains of one of the planes that were shot down last night. The motors fell ¼ of a mile away, the pilots about the plane. They weren’t burnt, but evidently got out of the plane before it hit the ground (The Japanese were not issued with parachutes). There were seven in the crew, all in pieces, the biggest piece was the torso of one, but even he had his stomach tore open. They saw an arm that someone had cut the signet finger off to remove the ring. Barbarous, but the Jap had finished with it.”

The days were filled with training, instructional lectures, target practice, maintaining equipment, route marches and boredom, alleviated by reading, chatting with other servicemen, making art (although Harry does not appear to have made any while on Guadalcanal), and occasionally swimming.

“SATURDAY 18^th SEPTEMBER: “Mrs. Roosevelt was on the island yesterday. I was sitting on the beach road in the truck when some Yankee Provo’s came along on their motorbikes. Lots of our chaps were swimming. The Yanks yelled out ‘Put your pants on fellas, here’s Eleanor’. When our boys wanted to know who the hell was Eleanor, the Yanks said ‘Mrs. Roosevelt!’ There was a scatter. I was reading a book and noticed the two cars go past, but didn’t think to look. The sea is always warm here, no trouble getting in.”

As in New Caledonia, there were of course the movies. There were at least three open-air theatres in the New Zealand camp on Guadalcanal: my father mentions seeing films at both. One was called ‘The Regent’, the other was called ‘The Majestic’. I have not yet sourced images of either of these two theatres, but Oscar Kendall made a watercolour of the “St. James” (refer to “The Picture Theatres” section of this website).

“Friday 22nd October: All the picture houses on Guadalcanal have the names of our Queen St. (Auckland) theatres, we sit on coconut logs in rows, hard but serviceable”.

It is likely that the Kiwis snuck across the road to the American camp if they didn’t like what was showing in their own area. The Americans had numerous camps on Guadalcanal and each had its own theatre.

Occasionally the “Kiwi Concert Party” would visit and present a review. Harry attended one of their concerts on Saturday 23 October, which he describes as “very good”, but unfortunately (and typically) provided no details of the entertainment provided.

There was also the possibility of a bit of recreational sightseeing. The notoriety of the battlefields and war wreckage as tourist attractions was already spreading, and as life on the island became more relaxed and the Japanese threat retreated, the men were able to take time out to look around.

On Monday September 27 Harry was “lucky enough to go on a touring party”. We went about fifteen miles up the coast and saw…three Jap transports lying on the beach. One was on its side, bombed to beggary, the other two were upright, but down at the stern and the bow high out of the water.” Some of the men swam out to the wreck of the Kinugawa Maru, clambered up a “rickety gangway” and explored the beached ship. “She had been treated pretty rough while getting ashore, shells that had gone in one side and out the other left gaping holes.”  (Refer to the separate page on the Kinugawa Maru.)

Dad also reported seeing a “Yankee Mule Camp” during this excursion, with “mules by the thousand”. Pack mules were used experimentally by the American 97^th Field Artillery Battalion to supplement trucks to pull 75 mm. pack howitzers and ammunition over soft and sandy ground as they drove the Japanese westward, but they proved to be more trouble than they were worth. The mules moved very slowly and tended to obstruct traffic, creating more of a hindrance than a help.

Each battery, including extra personnel and mules needed for transporting ammunition, had 212 men and 182 mules. To feed the mules necessitated hauling 1,500 pounds of oats and 2,600 pounds of hay to the front daily by some agency other than the firing battery since the mules could not haul feed as well as howitzers and ammunition. The experiment was regarded as a failure.

The (possibly colourised) photograph below (Figure 7) supplied by historian Peter Flahavin from the Pacificwrecks website, shows a strangely bucolic scene of a column of pack mules moving through a coconut grove on Guadalcanal.

Figure 7