Treasury Islands () are a small group of

island An island (or isle) is an isolated piece of habitat that is surrounded by a dramatically different habitat, such as water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, cays or keys. An island ...

s a few kilometres to the south of Bougainville and from the

Shortland Islands The Shortland Islands is an archipelago of Western Province, Solomon Islands, at . The island group lies in the extreme north-west of the country's territory, close to the south-east edge of Bougainville Island, Papua New Guinea. The largest isl ...

. They form part of the

Western Province Western Province or West Province may refer to: * Western Province, Cameroon *Western Province, Rwanda *Western Province (Kenya) *Western Province (Papua New Guinea) *Western Province (Solomon Islands) *Western Province, Sri Lanka *Western Provin ...

of the country of

Solomon Islands Solomon Islands is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 900 smaller islands in Oceania, to the east of Papua New Guinea and north-west of Vanuatu. It has a land area of , and a population of approx. 700,000. Its capita ...

. The two largest islands in the Treasuries are

Mono Island Mono Island is the largest island of the Treasury Islands, Solomon Islands, at . Geography Mono island is a volcanic island in the northwest of the Solomon Islands. It is separated by the Blanche Harbour from Stirling Island and the other cora ...

and the smaller Stirling Island. The deep water strait between these two islands is called

Blanche Harbor Blanche Harbor is a natural harbour between Mono Island and Stirling Island of the Treasury Islands archipelago, located n the Western Province of the Solomon Islands Solomon Islands is an island country consisting of six major islands ...

History

Early history

These islands were first discovered in 1788 by British

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

officer Lieutenant

John Shortland John Shortland (5 September 1769 – 21 January 1810) was an officer of the Royal Navy, the eldest son of John Shortland.German New Guinea German New Guinea (german: Deutsch-Neu-Guinea) consisted of the northeastern part of the island of New Guinea and several nearby island groups and was the first part of the German colonial empire. The mainland part of the territory, called , ...

save for Mono Island, which the Britain claimed as its naval coaling base. In 1899, the islands were included in the

British Solomon Islands Protectorate The British Solomon Islands Protectorate was first declared over the southern Solomons in 1893, when Captain Gibson, R.N., of , declared the southern islands a British protectorate. Other islands were subsequently declared to form part o ...

to be administered as part of Western District.

World War II

During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

the islands were held by the

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

ese until 25–27 October 1943, when the islands were

invaded An invasion is a military offensive in which large numbers of combatants of one geopolitical entity aggressively enter territory owned by another such entity, generally with the objective of either: conquering; liberating or re-establishing con ...

via amphibious assault by units of the

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

8th Brigade. Following the invasion, an

airstrip An aerodrome ( Commonwealth English) or airdrome (American English) is a location from which aircraft flight operations take place, regardless of whether they involve air cargo, passengers, or neither, and regardless of whether it is for pub ...

was built on the flatter Stirling Island by the

USN The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage o ...

87th Construction battalion. This airfield was then used to support a campaign to neutralize Japanese air power at Rabaul. Stirling airfield is still in use today by

Solomon Airlines Solomon Airlines is the national airline of Solomon Islands, based in Honiara. History Solomon Airlines was established in 1962 as a charter airline by Laurie Crowley. Crowley had a charter operation in Papua New Guinea with occasional charte ...

References

External links

The Treasury Islands Campaign

Archipelagoes of the Pacific Ocean Islands of the Solomon Islands Western Province (Solomon Islands) Archipelagoes of Oceania {{Solomons-geo-stub