Islands Of The

Dead

14 Missionaries Escape From Horrors of Tulagi Battlefield

PRIOR to last December—when Japan’s war-lords came to the point of fling ing themselves into a racial conflict which was to make them masters of Asia, and ultimately the world—the Solomon Islands were still in their cen turies-long sleep. They were referred to as the “Cinderella” of Pacific territories —meaning, broadly, that they were vir tually untouched by the doubtful bless ings of civilisation.

They are a group of rugged, mountain ous islands, noted for their primitive beauty and their sheltered waterways.

Residents were planters, traders and Government officials, and the Territory’s potentialities were mostly unexploited.

In the lee of Gela shore, on the three small islands of Makambo, Tulagi and Guvutu, stood the chief manifestations of “progress.” They were respectively the headquarters of Burns Philp; the Ad ministration, W. R. Carpenter & Co.; and Levers Pacific Plantations.

The Japs first bombed Tulagi in Janu ary, 1942; but it was not until early May that they appear to have landed in force and began to fortify the whole area from that point, outwards.

In August, American naval forces, air forces and marines threw them out of Tulagi, Makambo, their airfield on Gua dalcanal, and Guvutu: and, in the pro cess, Guvutu and its adjacent islet, Tan ambogo (to which it is joined by a coral causeway) became the graveyard of a thousand sons of Nippon.

Guvutu and Tanambogo, the head quarters of Levers, were together form erly a tropical paradise, a delight to those who made Islands cruises. But, when the US marines landed there on August 7 they wrested it inch by inch from the invaders, many of whom retreated into the caves for which Guvutu is famed, and there died like rats in a trap, at the mercy of United States bayonets and American airmen, who turned it into a land of bomb-craters—an island of the dead.

It was reported in the October issue of the “PIM” that four Roman Catholic missionaries, of the Marist Order, were murdered by the Japanese in Guadal canal. It has now been revealed that 14 other missionaries of the same Order escaped and have been evacuated from the Solomons.

Of these (seven priests and seven nuns), two were Australians and one a New Zealander—Brother George, of 42 Walters Street, Paddington, Sydney; Brother Michael, of Leopold Street. Kan garoo Point, Brisbane; and Father D.

Scanlon, of Miramar. Wellington, NZ.

They were led by the Bishop of the South Solomons, Right Rev. J. M. Aubin.

A former district officer in the Solo mons, D. C. Horton, now a sub-lieutenant in the RANVR, brought them to safety at Kakum, in the Guadalcanal patrol boat. Here they were transferred to an outward-bound cargo-vessel.

A CANADIAN. Father M. J. McMahon, told a graphic story of the party’s activities, between the Japanese invasion and the arrival of the Ameri cans in August.

Tulagi had been the headquarters of the Mission for three years; but. when the Japs bombed the island in January, they transferred to Visale, on the NW

tip of Guadalcanal. From here, regular missionary work was carried on.

Then, in May, the Japanese moved in.

They treated the missionaries in a friendly way, until the Americans arrived on the scene. Then, because of a fear of Japanese atrocities, everyone was cleared out of the station, on the seventh or eighth day of the American attack.

The party took to the bush and, with the help of loyal natives, who protected them in spite of enemy threats and attempts to persuade them to lead the Japs to the missionaries, they lived for four weeks in the jungle.

During that time two sisters returned to Visale to get fresh fruit and, while there, they attended a wounded Japanese airman, who had crashed. The day after his departure, the Japs arrived in force, took everything, including the livestock. and again tried to force the natives to

reveal the missionaries’ hiding-place In this they failed. The two sisters ’ got away and rejoined the party, and all shifted to Tangarere, where they re mained until rescued, Those who knew these sheltered islands in the days of peace, when life moved to the slow tempo of native workmen and the casual, inter-island schooners, and when the greatest excitement was the arrival of the six-weekly steamer from Australia, find it hard to believe that the destiny of the white races in this corner of the Pacific is being bloodily contested there in that backwater. There is con solation of a sort in the thought that, if they must be islands of the dead, it is the dead of the murderous invaders that have been buried there, But, remembering the peaceful haven that it was, this is poor recompense for the hell that it is.