Kolombangara Surveying a forgotten Second World War fortress Early this year, a team set out to survey long- overlooked fortifications on the island of Kolombangara. Their work is shedding new light on preparations to repel an anticipated Allied invasion, as Nikolaus Hochstein Cox reveals. ABOVE An expedition to Kolombangara resulted in a series of Second World War Japanese tunnels being surveyed for the first time. Here, Nikolaus Cox Hochstein Nikolaus Martin Potts; Hochstein Cox and Andy Hawkins examine what appears to have been an air-raid shelter. IMAGES: 30 CURRENTWORLDARCHAEOLOGY Issue 103 SOLOMON ISLANDS LEFT Kolombangara today. Its summit towers over the neighbouring atolls. refusal to yield Japanese-held territory without a fight. From June 1943, this Hiroshiman cavalry officer and tank commander led Japan’s ‘Southern Detachment’, which was tasked with mounting delaying actions on New Georgia and Arundel (now Kohiqo) Islands, south of Kolombangara. Sasaki managed to hold off four Allied divisions with a significantly smaller and under-equipped Japanese contingent for a remarkable length of time. However, on 5 August 1943, after the Americans Martin Potts had taken New Georgia’s Munda airfield, Sasaki fell back to Kolombangara. PHOTO: PHOTO: Alongside his command, surviving he battle for the Solomon compelling its Japanese occupiers to documents indicate he withdrew the 13th Islands remains one of the evacuate. In their haste to escape, they and 229th Infantry Regiment, 10th, 52nd, Second World War’s most abandoned everything too heavy to carry and 58th Artillery Battalion, 17th Military important campaigns in within dugouts prepared to repel an Police (the notorious Kempei-tai), and the Pacific Theatre. It halted invasion that never came. the 8th Combined SNLF – a detachment Imperial Japan’s advance and brought the Those artefacts lay untouched for of the Kaigun Tokubetsu Rikusentai, or firstT Allied victories on land. Following the 77 years, before being rediscovered Special Naval Landing Force (SNLF), of the devastating Japanese defeat at Midway, by an archaeological expedition in Imperial Japanese Navy. Allied landings on the Solomon Island February 2020. It was led by Nikolaus This increased the Kolombangara of Guadalcanal on 7 August 1942 struck Hochstein Cox, who had been working garrison to 12,000 men. The island’s the next blow against the Axis forces. The as a Cambridge Archaeological Unit north-eastern coast became the 229th ensuing island-hopping jungle fighting archaeologist, and consisted of Major Infantry’s regimental headquarters, which between Allied soldiers and outnumbered (retired) Andy Hawkins, MBE QGM, monitored enemy activity in ‘The Slot’ – but tenacious Japanese occupiers has conflict archaeologist and Durand Group the wartime nickname for New Georgia become infamous. Traces of this brutal founding member, and Martin Potts, Sound. Meanwhile, Kolombangara’s episode linger as coral-encrusted expedition cameraman. southern shore hosted a combined army shipwrecks and an annual ‘iron harvest’ of This survey came about after Nikolaus’ and navy presence focused on an airfield unexploded shells. For all the fame of the friend Robert Prebble worked on beside the Vila River. This became the Solomon Islands campaign, though, parts Kolombangara in 1995, becoming the first hub of Japanese control in the Western of this story remain untold – moments non-islander to be shown a stone-carved Province, hosting the 13th Infantry’s never recorded by the Allies nor discussed dugout, which Prebble remembered being regimental headquarters, alongside by the defeated Japanese; a legacy of littered with artefacts and described as the artillery battalions and Kempei-tai, occupation known only from forgotten a Japanese field hospital. Despite this the 12th Company of the 229th, and ruins in deep rainforest. first-hand account of significant remains, reputedly the Navy’s own 8th Combined there was little published information SNLF. Such tempting targets attracted Island conflict about how the island slotted into the daily Allied artillery and aerial attacks. archaeology larger picture of the Second World War With New Georgia and Arundel in Allied Kolombangara is conspicuous among – Kolombangara had been relegated hands, Sasaki assumed that Kolombangara the Solomon Islands’ Western Province. to the footnotes of military history. would be next. Previously, the Allied Its jungle-covered slopes rise to a cloud- But even from this sparce evidence a strategy had been to advance one island shrouded summit 1,770m above sea level, story eventually emerged, involving at a time without ‘leapfrogging’ Japanese- leaving it towering above the surrounding a determined Japanese general, and a occupied territory, making Kolombangara atolls. In late 1943, Kolombangara became mystery concerning a unit of troops the clear target. Sasaki’s men dug in, the seat of Imperial Japanese power in among his force. constructing gun emplacements and the Solomon Islands and was fortified to dugouts to protect the airfield and resist the Allied advance northwards until Fortress Kolombangara garrison. Allied intelligence – in the form Japan’s fortunes could be restored. This Throughout the Solomon Islands of maps now available in the National ‘turning point’ was not to be, however, Campaign, General Minoru (Noboru) Archives as well as Cambridge’s University and by August 1943 Kolombangara was Sasaki was renowned, even by the Allied Library (accessed by Amy Bigwood, encircled by Allied forces, eventually forces whose advance he stymied, for his expedition researcher) – followed this www.world-archaeology.com CURRENTWORLDARCHAEOLOGY 31 LEFT General Minoru Sasaki, seen here in a photograph taken in 1939, was responsible for the defence of the Solomon Islands. Cox Hochstein / Nikolaus Matzliach David by and edited colour to restored photo ABOVE Survey revealed a series of six dugouts in the jungle at Teme, to the east of the main concentration of Japanese forces at the Vila airfield. IMAGES: defensive build-up with interest, plotting slaughter. His men were exhausted to ‘wither on the vine’, but 12,000 troops the positions of the gun emplacements, and suffering the effects of prolonged amounted to a force the Imperial General the hospitals and living quarters, vessel combat in gruelling conditions against Headquarters could not afford to abandon. moorings, and aircraft disbursement a determined enemy. So Halsey decided During the night, from 28 September to grounds. One notable absence from these to bypass Kolombangara and strike the 3 October 1943, the entire garrison was Allied maps, though, is the position of lightly defended enemy positions on evacuated in Daihatsu landing barges and the SNLF unit supposedly deployed to the Vella Lavella Island, to the northwest, torpedo boats, which ran the gauntlet of island. If this formidable fighting force thereby sparing his men the ordeal of watchful American cruisers in The Slot. had participated in preparations for the assaulting the fortified nexus of Japanese The evacuation proved costly for the defence of Kolombangara, where was it operations. This plan was executed on 12 Japanese; 29 small boats were sunk and based? August, when an assault on Vella Lavella one destroyer was damaged, but 9,400 saw its disorganised defenders overrun. men were rescued. These survivors were Wither on the vine Success allowed the Allies to consolidate redeployed to Bougainville, where they As it turned out, the Japanese soldiers their control of the surrounding islands, continued to resist the Allies until Japan’s on Kolombangara laboured in vain. leaving Kolombangara’s 12,000 defenders capitulation in 1945. American Admiral Halsey had seen his untouched, but also isolated from their men suffer appalling casualties on New nearest comrades at Bougainville. Sasaki’s legacy Georgia and wished to avoid further Halsey expected the surrounded soldiers Just as General Sasaki faded into obscurity after the war, so too his measures to defend Kolombangara disappeared beneath its jungle. Although the 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry (United States Army) came ashore three days after the Japanese evacuation, they moved on swiftly, finding only discarded artillery pieces, abandoned Mitsubishi Zeroes on the runway, and Japanese troops who had been too unwell to evacuate. The Americans turned the island over to a contingent of Fijian soldiers, who in turn handed it back to British colonial LEFT Although the subterranean elements of the dugouts generally survived well, in most cases the entrance ways had collapsed. This one leads into a passage named Snake Tunnel by the survey team. In Martin Potts this case, though, opening the entrance revealed the tunnel immediately beyond was flooded. PHOTO: 32 CURRENTWORLDARCHAEOLOGY Issue 103 SOLOMON ISLANDS endured, in the form of dugouts that were burrowed into the hills of Teme and replete with in-situ artefacts. According to the allied maps, this area to the east of the Vila was never considered an enemy strongpoint. But it appeared possible that the dugout Robert visited in 1995 was part of an extensive subterranean defensive system. To assess this, contact was made with a local landowner, Stenrick Riapitu, and it was agreed that we would undertake the first archaeological survey of his land. Five dugouts at Teme Between 28 February and 14 March 2020, our survey located six Japanese dugouts and we entered five. All six dugouts ran along the inland face of a coastal ridge, on a southeast to northwest