A Guadalcanal Memorial Ceremony to Remember: Walking to the American War Memorial at Dawn

We were on our way to the sunrise service commemorating the Battle of Guadalcanal: 81st Anniversary of Operation Watchtower in Honiara, Solomon Islands.

It was dark as we picked our way up Skyline road. On the way, we passed some people sleeping in the street. Later, someone jogged past and still we trudged on, winding our way up towards the American War Memorial in Honiara, Guadalcanal. Another person caught us in the beam of his flashlight.

The air was heavy with humidity and we thought nothing as we passed a group of men sitting on the back of trucks. Later, Rick said he thought they were waiting for a drive to work. One local woman, told me that she saw the men too, and thought the men were grieving. It is customary here in the Solomon Islands to mourn the dead throughout the night for ten nights.

To me, it was just a group of men hanging out. We said good morning and kept walking. We saw nothing amiss. I saw brown eyes and dark skin against a backdrop of grey. The dust had dried on the road and it crunched as we walked.

The boys in my family kept a speedy pace. Betty and I kept together. We saw a tour bus pass us. Wearing my most office-like dress and running shoes, I thought about how nice it would be to be in an air-conditioned bus.

We were going to a sunrise ceremony to commemorate the 81st anniversary of Battle of Guadalcanal (between the Americans and the Japanese in World War 2). The event would be attended by about 40 high-ranking officials, including the Solomon prime minister, members of his cabinet, the governor general, police, the archbishop, ambassadors from Australia, New Zealand, Japan and the United States, as well as a representative from the World Health Organization (WHO), members of the U.S. Marines, Army, Navy, and Coast Guard, about 30 American tourists and our family.

I had some apprehensions about going because I had read that there were some problems at a similar event the year prior. In 2022, a military ceremony at Bloody Ridge was disrupted when a Japanese sailor was stabbed in the neck with scissors but that was categorized as an isolated incident by someone deemed mentally unstable.

We were almost there. Karen sprang along with the energy of a jack rabbit. She ran ahead and circled back, doubling the distance we covered on the steep roads leading up to the Memorial site.

Just five minutes from our destination two men shuffled up behind us. I’m pretty sure I said to them, “Good morning! My goodness, you were so quiet, I hardly heard you at all.” Then, one of the men slipped into the darkness, leaving only one man in a hoodie and beard. He sidled up to Betty and grabbed her hand as if to shake it. But, in a second, his body language became awkward. He seemed to loop himself over her arm.

An Attempted Mugging on Skyline Road, Honiara

Fearing she was being groped, I immediately went over to Betty. She told me that the man was trying to grab her bag. It was a nice bag made in North Pentecost Island, Vanuatu. It withstood the strain as the man and I launched into a tug-of-war.

I kept repeating “Let go, let go of her”, just loud enough to communicate, but with echoes of someone being dragged into a hole. It wasn’t a strong voice. It wasn’t my voice

I pushed my back towards him, cemented my feet in place and just kept pulling back and forth. All the while, I was thinking that my behavior was counter to everything I’ve ever read.

Aren’t you supposed to just hand over the bag, and walk away with your life? But, the bag contained Betty’s phone and the man seemed to be half my size.

I remembered that you are supposed to make a lot of noise. Betty says that during the struggle, I began yelling out in the darkness, “You are a thief. THIEF. THIEF.” It seemed to me to be the most absurd reprimand. As I yelled, I wondered if I should be yelling “fire” instead. After a few yanks, he did let go.

Then, our would-be thief ran behind a line of vehicles parked on the opposite side of the road. Now, he could be anywhere. If we walked ahead, he would be somewhere behind us. It was still dark. There were no street lamps. And, there was no sign of his friend. Betty vomited on the side of the road.

Meanwhile, my yelling had alerted Karen to the troubles we were having.

Karen was about 250 m up the hill from us. I could hear her crying and I told her to run ahead. I couldn’t trust the neighborhood and I didn’t want Karen to stick around. That is when a truck’s headlights caught her in its beam. Karen asked for help and said, “I think my mom is being robbed.”

A man came out of nowhere with a flashlight. The truck at the top of the hill turned on their high beams. With the vehicle in our sights, Betty and I went up the hill. A woman and her family were incredulous that we were walking at Koa Hill. “Didn’t anyone tell you that you shouldn’t be walking here?” she said. Karen’s age hit home to their family as they have young daughters ages 6 and 12. The woman offered us a lift to the Memorial, and said that she had been carjacked in her vehicle in almost exactly the same spot.

Koa Hill: A High-Risk Neighborhood in Honiara

Koa Hill is, as one Honiara resident describes it, is a squatter’s community. It is like no neighborhood I have ever seen. Because it was dark and have no desire to revisit, I can tell you that the Koa Hill community is built up a hill so that the houses are not visible from the street level. Koa Hill is scarred with violent acts, including the beating of 2 police officers in 2018, a stabbing on a public bus in 2023, and arson related to a stabbing incident in 2012. I gather there is a Jacob’s Ladder in the neighborhood, which is where our thief may have run.

We didn’t realize when we set out for a morning walk, that we were walking through one of the most problematic areas of Honiara. A study published in 2020, determined that 1 in 10 children under the age of 5 in that area die due to illnesses related to diarrhea. To make matters worse, Koa Hill is on a flood plain. In 2014, flash floods resulted in 18 deaths in Honiara. Some of them were from Koa Hill.

Meeting the Locals Who Helped Us

I mentioned the attempted robbery to some Australian friends of ours on another boat. They already suspected that we were the people accosted on Skyline road. Apparently, our rescuer had posted on Facebook about the incident.

This led me to meet two lovely local families in Honiara. They would want you to know that our thief brings shame to their community and this criminal is not representative of the many good people who live here. While we have not bagged every tourist hotspot, I’m glad to have made connections with people who are proud of their country and want tourists to visit. Here is a picture of us with Sabe Liligeto who is the woman that rescued us in her truck with her husband, Malcolm and her father who she was driving to the airport.

We could have had a much better morning if we had taken a taxi and followed basic safety precautions. To recap, we will no longer walk in the dark, or carry large pouch bags, or get separated. Our Australian missionary friends have been exposed to crimes much, much more serious. They said they put fear over faith. And, so too – we carry on.

81st Guadalcanal Commemoration

Sabe and her father drove us to the commemoration. The memorial site was just a short distance ahead. Here we are pictured with dignitaries in the US Marine archives. I swallowed a bit as I watched the young men in the procession, representing the marines, navy, and army. Some of them looked to be barely 20 years old. Eighty-one years ago they were just the sort of men who might have been here fighting and risking their lives for freedom.

 “We all owe it to all who paid the ultimate sacrifice here 81 years ago to keep relationships strong to face tomorrow’s challenges.”

A quote from Lt. Col. Robert J. Hillery, commanding officer of Task Force Koa Moana 23 made during the ceremony

Footnote 2025

To this day, I still keep in touch with Sabe. She is a strong woman with a lovely family. I feel blessed that we met. That’s one of the nicest thing about traveling, meeting new people and hearing about and seeing the world through their eyes seems to bridge the distance.

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