The Second World War: The New Hebrides as a Pacific Base

The base

After the fall of the Solomon Islands, the Americans built up Espiritu Santo and Efate as staging bases for the Guadalcanal campaign. Santo held airfields, wharves, hospitals and at peak something on the order of 100,000 personnel — against a local population of a few thousand.

What ni-Vanuatu saw

The labour corps brought men from across the archipelago into contact with a scale of material wealth nobody had encountered, and with American servicemen, including Black servicemen, who treated them differently from the planters. Wages were higher and the racial order was visibly not the one the Condominium had built.

That contrast fed directly into post-war political movements, including the Nagriamel movement on Santo and the John Frum movement on Tanna.

What was left behind

The SS President Coolidge went down off Santo in 1942 and is still there. At Million Dollar Point the Americans dumped their equipment into the sea to avoid shipping it home or selling it cheaply. Quonset huts, coral runways and concrete foundations are still visible across both islands.

James Michener

A naval officer stationed on Santo wrote a set of linked stories about the campaign there. Tales of the South Pacific won the Pulitzer Prize and became the musical South Pacific; the volcanic island on the horizon of the book is Ambae.

Why here

After the Japanese advance through the Solomons, the Americans needed a staging base within range of Guadalcanal that was not itself exposed. Espiritu Santo and Efate fitted, and construction began in 1942 at a pace that the Condominium administration had no capacity to influence.

The scale

Santo received four airfields, wharves, fuel farms, hospitals with thousands of beds, and at peak around 100,000 personnel. The island’s own population was a few thousand. Roads were cut, coral was crushed for runways, and the geography of Luganville was rewritten in a year.

The Vanuatu Labour Corps

Thousands of ni-Vanuatu were recruited to work for the Americans. They were paid far better than plantation rates, worked alongside servicemen including Black American servicemen, and saw a scale of material abundance that no one on the islands had encountered. The contrast with Condominium conditions was not subtle and nobody missed it.

What it produced politically

The Nagriamel movement on Santo and the John Frum movement on Tanna both drew on the experience. John Frum in particular fused existing prophecy with the American presence, and its adherents still mark 15 February. Treating these as curiosities misses what they were: a political response to having seen an alternative.

What was left

The Coolidge lies where she sank. At Million Dollar Point the Americans drove their equipment into the sea in 1945 after the Condominium declined to buy it at a price they would accept. Coral runways are roads, Quonset huts are sheds, and the foundations are everywhere in the bush around Luganville.

Michener

James Michener, a naval officer on Santo, wrote Tales of the South Pacific there. It won the Pulitzer and became South Pacific. Bali Ha’i, the island on the horizon, is Ambae, visible from Santo across the channel.

The end of the base

The Americans withdrew through 1945 and 1946. Everything that could not be shipped was offered to the Condominium administration, which declined at the price asked, expecting it to be abandoned free. Instead it was driven into the sea at what is now Million Dollar Point — a decision still recounted on Santo with some relish, and one that created a dive site.

Efate’s share

Efate was developed first, from early 1942, with airfields at Bauerfield — still the international airport — and Quoin Hill, and an anchorage at Havannah Harbour on the north-west coast. It was the rehearsal for what was then built at a far larger scale on Santo, and Bauerfield carries the name of an American pilot killed in the Solomons.