Solomons sell

the war

Now that the British Solomon ands can be reached with eater speed and comfort fol ding the inauguration of Fiji rways new Hawker Siddeley 8 turboprop aircraft on inter and routes, the Solomons )vemment and the Honiara tamber of Commerce have in isified their efforts to attract iitors. And one of their selling ints is the colourful war his y of the group. fhere are still many remnants of fierce fighting in that area, and itors will come upon them at every ning. Wartime scrap is still being ared from the beaches, fhere are new reminders every so ;n—as for instance the sound of tie which echoed again off adalcanal on October 3 when a >th charge blew the bows off a anese submarine. Parts of the sub e scattered into the trees along beach. The submarine had lain

submerged since the night of January 29, 1943.

This new attack, after nearly 25 years of peace, was made by Cyril Ashton, who has the salvage con cession on Guadalcanal. She was by Mr. Ashton, be cause he thought a torpedo was jammed in the sub’s bow tube and that any attempts to raise her might set this off. The depth charge that he used was another relic of Guadal canal’s war days.

The amount of material thrown up by the charge gave some support to the theory that there had in fact been a torpedo in the tube. But

although the hull was folded back like the petals of a rose, the ex plosion did surprisingly little damage to the submarine aft of the forward compartment.

Not even the coral growth had been shaken from the plates and the gun and conning tower. So the explosion opened up a whole new field of interest for the skin divers of Honiara.

Captain Stan Brown and John Roden, visiting divers from Fiji, re cently led a team of locals to make diving visits to the submarine. The locals included Rigamoto Nakaoro, son of the president of the Methodist Church in Fiji, the Rev. George N.ikaoro. Rigamoto is an instructor at the Navigation School at Honiara, and a former member of the crew of Captain Brown’s Maroro, well known to visitors to Suva for its regular cruises from that port.

There is still time for other visitors to do some under water investiga tions on Guadalcanal’s latest war relic, as Mr. Ashton thinks it will take from six to nine months to re cover all the available scrap from her.

The Japanese submarine ran on the reef after a battle with the New Zealand corvettes, Kiwi and Moa.

The Kiwi rammed the sub during the fight.

Commander of the Moa at the time was Lt.-Commander P. Phipps, who was later knighted, and these days is living in New Zealand, retired, with the rank of vice-admiral.

Rigamoto Nakaoro inspects the Jap wartime submarine, ripped open by a depth charge.