WW II

We are in Luganville with its World War II history. I so much wish I had recorded or written down my father's memories of his time here. When Japan expanded south towards Australia and New Zealand, America tried to stop them. New Zealand tourists told us America got its butt whupped until they reached the New Hebrides (Vanuatu). Then the American troops were sent to New Zealand to recuperate and New Zealand fed the Americans mutton and good food and gave them rest. That strengthened the Americans and they, along with the Australians and New Zealanders, went back to successfully stop the Japanese advance. Well, that is the Kiwi version. There were all told 500,000 Allied troops in the New Hebrides/Vanuatu. In 1942 Luganville was a city of 50,000 military personnel. The ni Vans still have good feelings about the Americans during that period. They pointed out the airfields, roads, buildings, the Quonset huts and wharves that the Americans built. We visited and SCUBA dived Million Dollar Point where the Americans bulldozed millions of dollars worth of engines, jeeps, bulldozers, forklifts and crates of Coco-Cola into the sea. The Americans had offered it to the Tu-Fella (British and French) government, but that "condominium" declined to pay the miniscule amount the Americans were asking. They figured the Americans would just leave it for free; however, the Americans, infuriated, pushed the whole lot into the sea. The niVans, of course, blame the French half of the government for this. There is no love lost on the French these days in Vanuatu.

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