Guadalcanal Day 4

Today we headed northwest to Cape Esperance, the northernmost point on Guadalcanal. Throughout the Battle for Guadalcanal the Japanese landed reinforcement troops here and it was from here that the Japanese left the island for good. There was also a sea battle off of Cape Esperance. The godfather of one of our group was the scout pilot who spotted the Japanese Navy entering “The Slot” and warned the US Navy. The result of the navel battle was a significant victory for the US Navy and his godfather is named in all of the history books that contain information about the battle. Cape Esperance is only seven nautical miles from Savo Island so the sea battle was fought in very close quarters.

Heading back east along the coast we stopped at the Vilu World War II Museum. The collection here includes a number of Japanese field artillery pieces and recovered aircraft. One of the aircrafts is a P 38 Lightning that flew the mission to shoot down Admiral Yamamoto’s aircraft and killing the Admiral. This aircraft crashed while attempting to return to Fighter 2 from that mission. The collection also includes remnants of a Japanese Float Zero and a Betty bomber. The most interesting airplane in the collection was the F4F Wildcat. The wing on this aircraft actually folded back against the body of the aircraft without even a squeak after 82 years.

Further along the coast at Bonegi we stopped at the beached wreckage of the Kinugawa Maru a Japanese transport ship. By November,1942 the Japanese had lost so many transport ships to American bombers that their admiral ordered the captains to beach their ships so they would not be sunk if bombed and at least some of the supplies would be salvaged. The Kinugawa Maru was one of those ships however, it was the American Army not the Japanese Army who recovered the undamaged supplies.

Not far from the Kinugawa Maru is the hull of a Sherman tank. These tanks were not on Guadalcanal during the battle but the hull of this one was used for weapon testing after the battle. One side of the tank looks great but the other side of the tank is full of holes.