Henderson Field Update
Troops sent to Honiara; city in ruins
A FORCE of more than 100 Australian soldiers and 80 federal police have been rushed to the Solomon Islands to battle rioters laying siege to the island nation’s capital Honiara.The violence is the worst in the Solomons since Australia and other Pacific nations intervened in 2003 to end years of bloody ethnic gang conflict.
An uneasy calm had descended on Honiara last night as soldiers began to patrol the streets, but there was still sporadic looting and some buildings were still ablaze.
Government spokesman Alfred Maesulia said 90 per cent of Chinatown had been ransacked, looted and burned, with Honiara’s newest hotel also set alight.
In August, 1942, the United States and Japan finally came to grips in a land battle. They collided on the remote Pacific Island of Guadalcanal. It was a ferocious months-long battle. The Americans had landed in large numbers along the coast. The Japanese forces largely controlled the hinterland. In the daytime, the Americans dominated the sea and air, re-supplying and reinforcing our forces. But at night, the Japanese Navy, which had trained for and specialized in night-fighting, ruled the waves, and tried to re-supply their own forces.
Throughout the battle, a crucial element was a dirt landing strip within the American lines, called Henderson Field. With the fighters based at Henderson, the Americans were able to dominate the daytime skies, turning back Japanese bombing raids, protecting our sea and land forces. Eventually, the tide turned; the Americans secured Guadalcanal and began the island-hopping campaign that led to Tokyo Bay in August, 1945.
After the war, a city sprang up around the greatly expanded facilities of Henderson Field. That city is called Honiara.
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