The Second World War in Nanumea and Tuvalu
Japan carried out a devastating sneak attack on the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, at dawn on December 7th 1941, destroying a significant portion of the U.S. Pacific fleet. The next day the United States declared war on Japan and officially entered the Second World War. For the next four years, the Central and Western Pacific would be a major naval and air battleground. The Gilbert and Ellice Islands became an important staging ground in the war against Japan, and Nanumea was the closest island to the Japanese bases in the central Pacific.
As Peter McQuarrie describes in his book, Strategic Atolls, On 15 August, 1943, an advance party of U.S. marines landed on Nanumea, and soon afterward Landing Craft LST -203 brought in 128 Seabees and heavy equipment so they could begin building an airfield. Many more troops followed.
Nanumea would serve as a forward base against the Japanese forces in the Gilbert Islands, the Marshalls and other Micronesian islands. Before the U.S. troops even arrived, Nanumeans had moved their entire village to Lakena and lived there for the duration of the war.
This was an important time for Nanumeans — click on the link here for more on the war in Tuvalu and Nanumea:
The aerial photo above, taken by the U.S. military on July 5th 1943 from an altitude of 12,900 feet, shows that Nanumea’s entire main village had been moved to Lakena and rebuilt by then, even before most of the U.S. soldiers had arrived. Vaka kaiva and other vaka seem not to have been moved to Lakean yet. Click the 2nd photo be;pw to enlarge it and notice that time has passed and that, now, there are dozens of Vaka Kaiva on the beach. All houses are fale lau. Other aerial photos of Nanumea from this “sortie” can be accessed below.
Pre-War Aerial Photos (5 July 1943)
Photos from Logan Cavanaugh
Photos from Peter Fiori
Photos from Lee Spencer and Frank Arnold
Unloading equipment at Nanumea - August 1943
Photo courtesy Peter McQuarrie from his book A Floating World.
Nanumea, August 1943 — U.S. troops come ashore
Peter McQuarrie’s well-researched, well-written and nicely illustrated book, Strategic Atolls: Tuvalu and the Second World War (1994) is essential for understanding the war years. It can be purchased from Peter himself — see the section of this website called “Writings”.
Young kids in Nanumea in 1943 — photo by Logan Cavanaugh, an American soldier who was stationed on Nanumea during the Second World War.