Old WW2 stuff in the Solomon Islands. Beware 56k'ers!

[Marsuitor]

Hi all, didn't know whether to put these in the photos or history forum, but anyhow, they're from my vacation to the Solomon Islands in the Pacific this summer. Spent two months there relaxing, diving and WW2 sightseeing, and boy, that place is SO unspoilt (and perfectly safe if you were wondering)!
Anyhow, enough chat already, now some pictures;

First up is a batch from Guadalcanal. Going from top to bottom:
A Japanese 37mm AT gun located a fair distance along the Sendai trail. The Sendai trail was a path cut by the Japanese in an attempt to outflank the American positions at Bloody Nose Ridge not far from Henderson field. They dragged several guns like this along this rugged track and, unfortunately for them, were repulsed once they emerged at Henderson.

The following three photos are landscape pictures showing the battleground of Galloping Horse ridge above the village of Tuvaruhu and the Mataniko river. The battle featured in the movie "The Thin Red Line" went on here, and the first picture is actually taken from the hill where the infamous bunker was.

These two show just some of the debris still to be found on the above battleground. The area was literally littered with everything from old combat ration tins, machinegun parts, mortar baseplates and UXO's. The 81mm shell was later removed by Australian EOD personnel.

Next two are from northern Guadalcanal. First one is a Japanese memorial located at Tambea, not far from Cape Esperance. This is where the Japanese evacuated Guadalcanal. The other is a rather odd one IMO. It's from Visale catholic mission. Notice the flower pot...

Next load is from Western Province of the Solomons. Again, from top to bottom:
From New Georgia, the other major area where US ground troops took part in the Solomons. First up is a Japanese 140mm Naval gun located at Enoghae. Some time during 1943 a small unit of USMC Raiders were tasked to take this and four other guns like it controlling an important passage between New Georgia and Kolombangara. After paddling into a place called Rice Anchorage under heavy fire from these guns, they finally managed to capture/silence them. The second picture is an old US Stuart somewhere else on the island.

The next lot is from Kolombangara Island/Volcano. This was a major Japanese stronghold in Wester Province, not to mention the Solomons. It was a natural next step for the Americans after having gained control of New Georgia. However it was bypassed due to the amound of casualties the US Forces had sustained on NG. It was bombed and strafed until some date i can't remember, when the Japanese evacuated it. It was then used as a farming and R&R station to provide US troops with fresh food and rest. First piccie is me posing by an old Japanese Type-88 AA gun somewhere in the jungle. Four of these guns were located along a short trail, with an ammo truck located further in. There were also some massive shell holes from US naval bombardment to be found in the adjacent area of these. The other two pictures are from a Japanese cave we entered. This, for me, best describes why the South Pacific is probably the best place in the world to go WW2 sightseeing. I can't think of anywhere else you'd still find this stuff lying about in such amount and condition (just remember to keep your souvenirfingers away!).

Three last are also from Kolombangara. They're photos of a downed Japanese Zero fighter somewhere deep in the jungle. One of the slides on the canopy was still working!

Hope you enjoy these. If you want to see some more, non-military photos from the SI here's a link to my webshots page: http://community.webshots.com/user/marsuitor

Cheers,
Marcus

p.s. Hope this explains my somewhat corny avatar :roll:

[mustamato]

http://members.lycos.co.uk/marsuitor/Nr6.jpg

"Keep your fingers away", yeah right, I would take that helmet and mail it to my adress back home at the nearast postal office.

[soma]

That's some pretty amazing stuff. Out of curiosity, are there things like this in Europe? Naturally I would think so, but you don't see much of it in pictures.

[mustamato]

That's some pretty amazing stuff. Out of curiosity, are there things like this in Europe? Naturally I would think so, but you don't see much of it in pictures.

The finnish-russian front is quite much filled with forests and stuff. Some places were there was fighting was really out in the bush, and still today they are. If locating small battles with the help of battalion war diarys and so forth then you can still today find helmets and that kinds of mysterious crap out there. I have myself plans of making a trip to the place where my grandfather was injured (and later died of his injuries). I don´t hope to find anything really, but it was in the middle of nowhere out in a swamp so who knows. The battles were quite intence and the finns buried the dead ruskies in a massgrave afterwards and continued their attack. The ruskies are not directly known to take care of their dead properly, so I guess the massgrave is still there, and most of their equipment as well.

Saw on TV a while ago two finns that were searching for finnish MIA´s on the russian side of the border, to bring them back to finnish soil. They had located where the battles took place with the help of war archive documents. And with the help of a metal detector they started to search the area. They found a lot of ****, 82 mm mortar grenades and so forth. If you are lucky you can find machine guns and other stuff that were in a foxhole and was buried by a grenade or something like that.

As for finding complete fighter planes, well, maybe if it crashed in a lake or so.

[Kriz]

That's some pretty amazing stuff. Out of curiosity, are there things like this in Europe? Naturally I would think so, but you don't see much of it in pictures.

Not far from our home there still are some bunkers, my brother once found some grenades there and the military came and took em away for "destruction".

[Marsuitor]

"Keep your fingers away", yeah right, I would take that helmet and mail it to my adress back home at the nearast postal office.

Lol, unfortunately, post offices is the exception rather than the rule in the Solomons... Think there's only about five of them in the entire country. But seriously, i'm not that happy about taking souvenirs myself, it contributes to making WW2 sites quite a bit more less interesting IMO. Fortunately, it's not a major problem in the SI as both Australia and the Solomons have heavy penalties for trying to smuggle WW2 artifacts. (But yes, both the helmet and the woodpecker MG would make nice trophies back home...)

Soma,
I've heard talk about a forest in eastern Germany which is listed as a protected WW2 battle site. But that's all i know about that. Does somebody else know if this is true or not?
Also, some guy i served with was telling me how he'd found a bunker in eastern Norway with brand new, old (:P) Mausers still lying in their boxes. Also tons of helmets and crap. Never told me where the bunker was though so... Also here in western Norway there are tons of fortifications. Some of them are bound to have old debris lying about.


I'll post some more interesting piccies later today.

Cheers,
Marcus

[fdt]

[/quote] But seriously, i'm not that happy about taking souvenirs myself, it contributes to making WW2 sites quite a bit more less interesting IMO. Fortunately, it's not a major problem in the SI as both Australia and the Solomons have heavy penalties for trying to smuggle WW2 artifacts. (But yes, both the helmet and the woodpecker MG would make nice trophies back home...) [/quote]

And You really... cross Your heart.... haven't taken even a smallest piece of these remains as a souvenir? Confess, You must have taken smth... You can't be that saint. :D

[fdt]

By the way... it's a great pity You didn't make any underwater shots... Haven't those guys at the dive base had such cameras for rent?

[Roger Rabbit]

Excellent photographs, looks like it was a good holiday

[Marsuitor]

Ok i must confess, i did take a shell casing. But i lost it later that day (seriously). But then again, i literally live on the other side of the planet from this place, so taking something big wouldn't have been such an easy thing to do. Especially as i stayed in Australia for a month after and would thus have to have humped it around in my backpack...

[Tengu]

That's some pretty amazing stuff. Out of curiosity, are there things like this in Europe? Naturally I would think so, but you don't see much of it in pictures.here in belgium we still find stuff from the first and second world war in urban areas (we recently found a british granade in one of our biggest cities (antwerp) ) and forests. Including bombs on the land and in the sea. You should know that flanders fields (where i live) was a huge battlefield in the first world war. And the battle of the bulge was located in belgium.

We even find roman stuff from time to time.

[Marsuitor]

Ok, some more pictures here. Mostly various detail shots.

First up are some shots from Enoghae, New Georgia again. Four pictures as follows. Breech of the aforementioned 140mm Naval gun. Then some stuff found on the beach directly in front of the gun. American shell casings for the most (notice the .50 cal one to the left). Believe they all bore markings of 1942 as the product year and Indianapolis as the place of manufacture. Someone know any more about this? Also a .30 cal M1 clip and a US canteen.

This is from Mborouka Bay. It's the Japanese light transport Gyushu Maru i was told. It was unloading onto the shore when it was struck by an American air-launched torpedo and sunk. Apparently if you dive it you can still see the crane with a car hanging from it. However, at the time we were here we didn't have any divegear with us, and the water, i was told, was filled with crocs.

These three are from the tank seen in my first post. If you look closely on the lower hull you can see the holes where Japanese 37mm rounds penetrated the armor. I was told that this and one other tank of the same type + supporting infantry was tasked in taking out a small unit of entrenched Japanese. The tanks advanced and quite quickly one of them was knocked out. Crew bailed out to safety leaving just this tank to continue. It pressed on and was immidiately hit several times in the lower hull, forcing the crew to bail out and vacate the area. The entire force pulled back as a result. The next day the Americans had another go, only this time they brought 11 Stuarts and a company of infantry. They ended up killing all the defenders without losing a single tank. Walking about in the area in front of the wreck you could still see the remains of the Japanese foxholes. But no debris or other leftovers. The second tank was nowhere to be found, but it's out there somewhere.
Second picture is a closeup of the holes and the third being an internal photo of the ammo-rack. Notice some rounds still lying about.

Two last pictures, first of them some more debris from the Guadalcanal battlesite. First item is a bottom cap for a 81mm morter round container. The second is the opener for an American field ration anno 1942. And for all of you who were thinking an explosion is just a bang, a flash and a heroic soldier running through it in slow motion, the third item shows what an exploding morter round spawns hundreds of. Shrapnel. Found these everywhere along the path...
Last one is the Jap AA ammo truck i mentioned in my first post.

Enjoy,
Marcus

[Tengu]

these pics are gr8 man

[Vance]

Amazing pictures. Kind of cool to take a step back in time like that.

[Marmot1]

MORE MORE MORE!!!!

BTW AS far as i know on slovakia there is valley where you can still see several t-34 destroyed in 1944/45 winter they are standing where they were hit one for example in the middle of the field... and shells rounds and other stuff is very comon in poland (front was here in 1914-1918 1919-1921 1939-1945) recently i have seen a MAXIM HMG found on the gun position in moutains...
also in poland there is still a lot of heavy equipment in rivers in recent years Sdkfz 251,Heatzer,belly of Pzkw IV and V were found (251 is curently in WORKING !!! condition!!!!) also on tidal waters there are couple of U-boats (no deeper than 20m) and on polish waters there is sunken german ww2 only aircraft carier GRAf ZEPPELIN



OK this pict is off topic but is very nice and little related to military :-)
http://www.national-geographic.pl/gallery/28/288.jpg

[Marsuitor]

Thanks for kind comments guys! I took about 400 pictures during my stay there. I'll see if i can find any other good relevant stuff.

On a side note, Papua New Guinea supposedly is even more spectacular than the Solomons in regards of artifact conditions. But that's not so strange given the fact that it's the worlds second biggest island. A friend of mine who's well into Pacific front history actually uncovered an, until then then, undiscovered Japanese fighter plane somewhere around Moresby last year. Complete with the pilot's remains and all. Not something that happens so often these days... Result being the Japanese embassy sending out an expedition to recover the remains and give them a proper Shinto burial.
On a note of wrecks, did some very spectacular diving in Guadalcanal. Went down to a completely intact B-17 bomber. Complete with working stick and all. Also a Japanese submarine that was sunk by a New Zealand minesweeper(!)
A shame i couldn't get any pictures of those, maybe next time...

Cheers,
Marcus

[gilgoul]

Thanks for kind comments guys! I took about 400 pictures during my stay there. I'll see if i can find any other good relevant stuff.

On a side note, Papua New Guinea supposedly is even more spectacular than the Solomons in regards of artifact conditions. But that's not so strange given the fact that it's the worlds second biggest island. A friend of mine who's well into Pacific front history actually uncovered an, until then then, undiscovered Japanese fighter plane somewhere around Moresby last year. Complete with the pilot's remains and all. Not something that happens so often these days... Result being the Japanese embassy sending out an expedition to recover the remains and give them a proper Shinto burial.
On a note of wrecks, did some very spectacular diving in Guadalcanal. Went down to a completely intact B-17 bomber. Complete with working stick and all. Also a Japanese submarine that was sunk by a New Zealand minesweeper(!)
A shame i couldn't get any pictures of those, maybe next time...

Cheers,
Marcus

Next time, bring your NIKONOS ;)
Really amazing pics , and apparently a lot of EOD in perspective

:hug:

[Maj C]

This is a great site that specializes in WW2 artifacts that are still found today - mostly Europe but some stuff from the Pacific as well...

http://www.lerenfort.fsnet.co.uk/index.html

[Uncle Sam]

Excellent history lesson kiddies.

[Marsuitor]

Arse... the bastards over at tripod closed my account due to using too much bandwidth. :cantbeli:
I'll see if i can find a better hosting service. But for then, not much to be seen here...

[Edit] Does anyone know of a free hosting service without the silly "no outside linking" policy? I would be very grateful if you have any tips...