The Changing Face Of
p. 12 · Read in the full issue
The Solomons
GREAT changes have occurred in the Solomons since his last visit there in July-August, 1943, Mr. Harold Cooper, of the Suva Information Office, said in early March. He had just returned from a 6,000-miles air journey into the South Pacific war zone.
In Bougainville, he saw with amaze ment, the comfort in which Allied troops were living inside their perimeter de fences at Empress Augusta Bay. The ' Seabees there had built some of the finest roads in the Solomons, within a few months. It would be impossible to believe that the Japanese were only a few miles away, if it were not for the recurrent rumble of American artillery, reminding one of that fact.
Mr. Cooper said that the enemy still makes an occasional jab at the perimeter, but it is very strongly held and there are not enough Jap troops on the whole of Bougainville to make even a small dent in it.