During World War II, Santo Island was home to a huge military base. There were 500,000 men and women stationed there. There were three air strips, two hospitals, ports for all kinds of military ships, etc. Today there is evidence of the war everywhere. There are hundreds of cement pads left. Most of the buildings wee destroyed, but there are many quonset huts left. Some are buried with earth. Some have been somewhat maintained for use even now.
There are some of the native people that have collected items from the war days and created their own little museums. This little museum - one small building - has old guns, helmets,ammunition, coke bottles, etc. The man was trying to tell us about the things. However, in some cases they did not know what they had. There were some old bombs there, the bombs the planes would drop. They thought that they were parts of the old buildings. They were very definitely partsof the bombs!
We had a tour guide that was a member of the church. He took us to a very isolated spot. It was not that far from one of the old air strips. There was the remains of an old B-17 bomber. There was not much left. This crash site was not even discovered until 1993. The crew finally went home.
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