Wednesday 24th October.

48 days to go.

Well, I had some comments on one of my entries. It was from someone called "Blog Admin". Whoever this is, please let me know what you mean. If anyone has not read it, it says something along the lines of "This Blog could have been better, try changing the theme".

Now my purpose for writing this is two fold. One reason is to remind me of my experiences here in the Solomons. The other is to provide some entertainment for those friends of mine who are either interested in what I am doing or what I write in relation to the Solomons. I thought I would start with the historic side, WW2. I would then progress to what it was like now. I would gladly add or subtract things if someone thinks it would make better reading. So, please let me know and I will try and make it better.

More work stuff happened today. It is harder than I thought to make a difference here, but every little step leads to one giant leap for Solomonkind. If you excuse me, now back to the War.

Mt Austen overlooks the plains between it and the sea, the area includes Honiara and Henderson Field. By holding Mt Austen the Japanese could still mount attacks and keep their command structure safe as well as be aware of where the US force was gathering for their next push.

Although they held the high ground, no evidence was held that they held it with strength. So on December 18th they attacked the Japanese positions. On the 24th December the US forces discovered a heavily fortified area to the West of the summit of Mt. Austen This was named The Gifu by the Japanese. The Japanese had set up a horseshoe shaped series of interconnected pillboxes. They had interlacing field of fire. Successive attacks from the North and East were repelled. They had uncovered the heaviest fortified positions on the Guadalcanal.

Finally on the 2nd January 1943 the South had been taken by the US and they had the positions surrounded. It had cost 383 US lives. This started a period of attack and counter attack. On the 10th of January the US attacked a hill mass to the West of The Gifu called Galloping Horse, the name was taken as the hill and ridge shape resembled a galloping horse when the aerial photos were viewed. This took them until the 13th to secure the hill system. Other attacks over the same period forced the Japanese back to occupy only the central area of the Gifu and the pillboxes.Following days of artillery bombardment, a tank attack on the 22nd January destroyed 8 pillboxes.

A Japanese counter attack was repelled. Finally on the23rd January the Gifu fell. Another 106 US lives were lost bringing the total to 489. The Japanese lost about 900 lives.