Kolombangara (sometimes spelled ''Kulambangara'') is an island in the

New Georgia Islands The New Georgia Islands are part of the Western Province of Solomon Islands. They are located to the northwest of Guadalcanal. The larger islands are mountainous and covered in rain forest. The main islands are New Georgia, Vella Lavella, Ko ...

group of the nation state 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 capit ...

in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. The name is from a local language, a rough translation of its meaning is "Water Lord" with approximately 80 rivers and streams running down its flanks.

Geography

Almost perfectly round in shape and about across, the island is a stratovolcano that reaches an altitude of at

Mount Veve Mount Veve is an extinct volcano on the island of Kolombangara, in the Solomon Islands. With an elevation of , it is the island's highest point. See also * List of Ultras of Oceania * List of islands by highest point References External links ...

. The island forms part of the southern boundary of the

New Georgia Sound New Georgia Sound is the sound in the New Georgia Islands region that runs approximately southeast–northwest through the middle of the Solomon Islands archipelago in the Southern Pacific Ocean and Melanesia.Vella Gulf separates it from

Vella Lavella Vella Lavella is an island in the Western Province of the Solomon Islands. It lies to the west of New Georgia, but is considered one of the New Georgia Group. To its west are the Treasury Islands. Environment The island of Vella Lavella is lo ...

and Gizo, while to the southeast

New Georgia New Georgia, with an area of , is the largest of the islands in Western Province, Solomon Islands, and the 200th-largest island in the world. Geography New Georgia island is located in the New Georgia Group, an archipelago including most ...

lies across the Kula Gulf. West-southwest of Kolombangara is Ghizo Island, upon which the Western provincial capital Gizo is located. The island is heavily forested, with few inhabitants. There are two notable settlements, Ringgi and Mongga, the former being the larger. The most significant industry on the island is logging, principally based at Poitete.

Environment

Two sites associated with the island have been identified by BirdLife International as Important Bird Areas (IBAs) because they support populations of

threatened Threatened species are any species (including animals, plants and fungi) which are vulnerable to endangerment in the near future. Species that are threatened are sometimes characterised by the population dynamics measure of ''critical depensa ...

or restricted range bird species. The Kolombangara Upland Forest IBA comprises 30,963 ha of forested land covering the central caldera and the high ridges of Mounts Veve and Rano, with four corridors down through lowland forest to the coast. The birds include yellow-legged pigeons,

crested cuckoo-dove The crested cuckoo-dove (''Reinwardtoena crassirostris'') is a species of bird in the family Columbidae. It is endemic to the Solomon Islands archipelago. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forest and subtropical or tr ...

s, Mayr's swiftlets, Roviana rails, Heinroth's shearwaters,

Sanford's sea eagle Sanford's sea eagle (''Haliaeetus sanfordi''), also known as Sanford's fish eagle or the Solomon eagle, is a sea eagle endemic to the Solomon Islands archipelago. Taxonomy Sanford's sea eagle was discovered by and named after Dr Leonard C. Sa ...

s, Meek's lorikeets,

black-faced pitta The black-faced pitta (''Pitta anerythra'') is a species of bird in the family Pittidae. It is found on Bougainville Island in Papua New Guinea (subspecies ''pallida''), and Choiseul Island (subspecies ''nigrifrons'') as well as Santa Isabel ...

s, North Melanesian cuckooshrikes, white-winged fantails, Kolombangara monarchs, Kolombangara leaf warblers and Kolombangara white-eyes. The Kolombangara Marine IBA covers some 80,000 ha of marine waters around the island, the site boundaries based on a seaward extension of 7 km from the coast, to encompass foraging and transit areas for the Heinroth's shearwaters that are believed to breed in the uplands of the island.

History

The first recorded sighting of Kolombangara by western explorers was in 1568 by the Spanish explorer

Álvaro de Mendaña de Neira Álvaro de Mendaña y Neira (or Neyra) (1 October 1542 – 18 October 1595) was a Spanish navigator and discoverer, best known for two of the earliest recorded expeditions across the Pacific in 1567 and 1595. His voyages led to the discovery of ...

. On March 15, 1893 Kolombangara was declared part of the British Solomon Islands

protectorate A protectorate, in the context of international relations, is a state that is under protection by another state for defence against aggression and other violations of law. It is a dependent territory that enjoys autonomy over most of its int ...

. The island was occupied by the

Empire of Japan The also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was a historical nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the post-World War II Constitution of Japan, 1947 constitu ...

in the early stages of the Pacific War.

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 opposing ...

the island and the waters around it were the scene of much fighting. The

Imperial Japanese Army The was the official ground-based armed force of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945. It was controlled by the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office and the Ministry of the Army, both of which were nominally subordinate to the Emperor o ...

used an airstrip on some flat ground at Vila on the south shore of the island, and in May 1943 based several military units with over ten thousand troops garrisoned on the southeast side of the island under the command of Major General Minoru Sasaki, in an attempt to establish a defence line through the Central Solomons. Naval battles nearby included the

Battle of Kula Gulf The naval Battle of Kula Gulf (Japanese: クラ湾夜戦) took place in the early hours of 6 July 1943 during World War II. The battle involved United States and Japanese ships off the eastern coast of Kolombangara in the Solomon Islands. It took ...

and

Battle of Kolombangara The Battle of Kolombangara (Japanese: コロンバンガラ島沖海戦) (also known as the Second Battle of Kula Gulf) was a naval battle of the Pacific campaign of World War II, fought on the night of 12/13 July 1943, off the northeastern coas ...

. The most famous and bloody battle was the mission to intercept the " Tokyo Express" supply convoy which resulted in the ramming and explosion of U.S. torpedo boat PT-109, manned by

John F. Kennedy John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination ...

and his crew. Australian coastwatcher,

Sub Lieutenant Sub-lieutenant is usually a junior officer rank, used in armies, navies and air forces. In most armies, sub-lieutenant is the lowest officer rank. However, in Brazil, it is the highest non-commissioned rank, and in Spain, it is the second high ...

Arthur Reginald Evans Arthur Reginald Evans, DSC (14 May 1905 – 31 January 1989) was an Australian coastwatcher in the Pacific Ocean theatre in World War II. He is chiefly remembered for having played a significant part in the rescue of future US President John ...

, who manned a secret observation post at the top of the island's Mount Veve volcano, spotted the explosion. After decoding news that the explosion he had witnessed was probably from the lost ''PT-109'' he dispatched Solomon Islanders Biuku Gasa and Eroni Kumana in a

dugout canoe A dugout canoe or simply dugout is a boat made from a hollowed tree. Other names for this type of boat are logboat and monoxylon. ''Monoxylon'' (''μονόξυλον'') (pl: ''monoxyla'') is Greek – ''mono-'' (single) + '' ξύλον xylon'' ( ...

to look for possible survivors. Their efforts led to the subsequent discovery and rescue of John F. Kennedy and the surviving crew. After destroyers succeeded in sinking the supply ships three nights later and isolating the garrison of 12,400 there, US forces were able to "leapfrog" Kolombangara to land on

to the west. The Japanese evacuated Kolombangara between September 23 and October 4, 1943. In January 1944 a detachment of 1 officer and 6 enlisted men from the 350th Engineer General Service Regiment stationed at Munda, established a vegetable farm on the abandoned Japanese airstrip at Vila. The British government furnished 16 male natives to help with the project. With seeds acquired through the

International Red Cross The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC; french: Comité international de la Croix-Rouge) is a humanitarian organization which is based in Geneva, Switzerland, and it is also a three-time Nobel Prize Laureate. State parties (signato ...

, many vegetables were sent back to the base hospital to supplement the dehydrated meals served the recuperating veterans. The main item was

watermelon Watermelon (''Citrullus lanatus'') is a flowering plant species of the Cucurbitaceae family and the name of its edible fruit. A scrambling and trailing vine-like plant, it is a highly cultivated fruit worldwide, with more than 1,000 varie ...

Post-World War II

Since 1978, the island has been part of the independent state of the

. Beginning in 2019, the Chinese state-owned China Forestry Group Corporation expressed interest in purchasing the hardwood forestry plantation that makes up much of the island, including a port and former airstrip that could be used as a base for Chinese military assets.

References

External links

Pacificwrecks.com: "Kolombangara, a military history"
* {{Authority control Islands of the Solomon Islands Important Bird Areas of the Solomon Islands Stratovolcanoes of the Solomon Islands Subduction volcanoes Western Province (Solomon Islands) World War II sites in the Solomon Islands Pleistocene stratovolcanoes