JAPANESE VISITORS HONOR SOLOMONS WAR CASUALTIES

PACIFIC ISLANDS REPORT

Pacific Islands Development Program/East-West Center
With Support From Center for Pacific Islands Studies/University of Hawai‘i

JAPANESE VISITORS HONOR SOLOMONS WAR CASUALTIES
Group collecting bones on Guadalcanal

By John Toki
HONIARA, Solomon Islands (Solomon Star, Feb. 8, 2010) - Four Japanese last Friday visited Visale Community High school.

The four have been collecting bones of their dead who fought on Guadalcanal during the Second World War.

They are looking for about 500 bones of engineers and about 5,000 that of soldiers.

Their visit to Solomon Islands will finish after they burn the bones of the engineers and soldiers who fought here in August 1942 at Tambea and Poha areas in North West Guadalcanal.

Their visit to Visale was to see their volunteer who is also teaching at the school apart from visiting sites.

During their visit at Visale community high school they donated five thousand biros and SBD12, 000 to help the school finish their secondary classroom.

One of the four Japanese Kankoh Sakiysu said Japan will never forget Solomon Islands and will continue to maintain the relationship they have with the Solomon Islands Government.

"This is a graveyard of our fathers and grandfathers and a place which they endured pain and the atrocities of the war."

More than 200 students witnessed the visit of the four Japanese whose names are Kankoh Sakiysu, Ohju Ishikawa, Yuki Sasa and Yuto Inakaki.

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