Angry Planet - World War II Is Still Killing People in the Pacific

Episode Date: May 30, 2023

World War II is still killing people. Unexploded ordnance, the remnants of globe spanning conflict, litters the fields of Europe and the waters of the Pacific. The world spends a lot of money and time cleaning up UX in Europe and helping its victims. In the Pacific? Well, there it’s a different story. Especially in the Solomon Islands.Thomas Heaton is a reporter for Civil Beat and the author of its ‘Lethal Legacy’ series, which focuses on the devastation World War II is still wreaking in the Pacific.Civil Beat’s Lethal Legacy series.Angry Planet has a Substack! Join to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.https://angryplanet.substack.com/subscribeYou can listen to Angry Planet on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Love this podcast. Support this show through the ACAST supporter feature. It's up to you how much you give, and there's no regular commitment. Just click the link in the show description to support now. Hello and welcome to Angry Planet. I'm Matthew Galt. And I'm Jason Fields. World War II is still killing people. Unexploited ordinance or U.X, the remnants of globe-spending conflict litters the fields of Europe and the waters of the Pacific. The world spends a lot of money and time cleaning up U.X. in Europe and helping its victims in the Pacific. Well, there it's a different story, especially in the Solomon Islands. Thomas Heaton is a reporter for Civil Beat and the author of its Lethal Legacy series, which focuses on the devastation World War II, is still wreaking in the Pacific. Sir, thank you so much for coming on Dangar Planet and talking to us about this. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.

So you've got a kind of a four-part series and then some follow-ups. That's what Lethal Legacy is. It's Civil Beat. I encourage everyone to go to Civil Beat and read this online. It's really excellent reporting. And it focuses on the Solomon Islands. So can you kind of tell us where that is and describe the place for us? Sure. So the Solomon Islands is in the South Pacific. If we are to consider what region it's in, it's in Melanesia. So just north of Australia and east of Papua New Guinea

It's a kind of like a splatter of almost a thousand islands The population Running up close to about 800,000 Lives on about a third of those islands It's a Dillic country It's made up of atolls

and beautiful tropical islands. And, yes, it runs, you know, a fair distance from east to west, and it borders directly with Papua New Guinea. And it was formerly part of a British protectorate alongside Fiji and a couple of other nations. And, yes, so now it's been independence since 1976 from the United Kingdom. And, yeah, so it's certainly a developing nation in the global south.

And it really is a very beautiful country, but highly undeveloped. And it is a nation that still, you know, as you've noted, is still kind of reeling with the realities of in the wake of war, you know, with all of the many problems that that kind of brings. You called it lush but killer. Yes. Yes. So, you know, if you imagine the dense jungle that you see in many, many war movies, you know, where you've got soldiers kind of trudging through all of this kind of dense landscape,

that's what it's like. It is extremely lush. it's kind of evergreen and beautiful, but what's underneath, what nature is consumed and what many people don't see is the realities that there are these unexploded ordnance, kind of buried in the earth or reconsumed by the earth, or even just in the near-shore waters. Can you tell us what its role was during World War II? Sure. So during World War II, of course, I think perhaps the most, more famous than the name

Solomon Islands is the name Guadalcanal. So Guadalcanal was a key area for the Japanese. They took it over in early 1942. And so just after Pearl Harbor kind of occurred, the Japanese started advance in south.

They took Guadalcanal pretty easily from the British. Essentially what happened was the British saw the Japanese, saw the Japanese, he's coming and they hedged their bets. Well, hedged their bets. They just ditched, ditched the country, really. They evacuated their own people out of the country and down to Australia and encouraged

their kind of their subjects, their Solomon Islander subjects, to head back into the villages or head high into the mountains and kind of get out of the way of the Japanese. and what came along with that was kind of a call to action of the US and it was essentially the first amphibious landing of the US Marines and the key area that they were really, really concerned about on Guadalcanal was a place called Henderson Field this air strip that was being created that essentially many feared would give Japan access to Australia to New Zealand,

and then also compromise these kind of key communication lines between Australia and New Zealand and the US. So that's kind of what drove the US coming in to really help the UK and its colonial subjects in Australia and New Zealand. And yeah, so that's kind of where it all happened. and then what happened afterwards was very intense fighting, the eventual retaking or just taking of this Henderson Field, which is actually now the international airport. It's still the same place. So if you just imagine the stockpiling of munitions from there,

which essentially fed the rest of the US war, in the Pacific. If you just imagine the enormity of how many bonds, how many munitions were just stockpiled there, it's a pretty good kind of indicator of what still exists today. Because of course, a lot of that was either dumped in the ocean or was left in place or actually what happened in, I think it was 1943, was one of the key areas where these munitions were held. There was a bushfire that ran through it, and essentially it was a ton of fireworks,

and everything exploded, sending everything outwards. So there's actually a 300-acre swath of land right next to Henderson Airport on Guadalcanal, which is also home to the capital. Honiara and so that 300 acre kind of swathe of land is completely cut off to Solomon Islanders they're not allowed to go in there because that's actually so highly contaminated that they don't even know

when they're going to get it cleaned up. It's also home to the EOD squad, the Explosive Ordnance Disposal Team. So yes, so that's kind of a little bit of what's being faced on Guadokanal. And a little bit about why, you know, why it was so important during World War II. Well, you say there's a team working there now. Who are they? Are they a U.S. team or is this the local team trying to deal with this?

So this is a local team. It's from the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force. They are a squad of really, really well-trained and very, very skilled, bomb disposal technicians. They do have advisors occasionally come through. They have been trained to international standards by various nations under various kind of programs, but they do have advisors who come in and they have a permanent Australian explosive ordinance disposal expert who kind of works with them on their issues.

But one of the things that are really stymied by is just to, a lack of funding. And so the kind of the flow-on effect, the symptom of that is that the lion's share of, if not, maybe 95% of all explosive disposal work has been done around the capital city. And it hasn't really been done elsewhere, you know, because the reality is that the Solomon Islands is a bunch of islands. It's an archipelago. There are airports everywhere and a lot of those airports are historical airports that were built for the World War II effort. So along with an airstrip comes the UXO reality. So actually in recent years there have been kind of smaller efforts to

clear air strips as they kind of get resurfaced. But of course, course that it's only really surface level stuff that's being done. Is it mostly these kind of abandoned munitions or is there stuff that was there like shelling and duds and things that just kind of didn't explode that are lingering around? Is it mostly stuff that got left behind because it was easier and cheaper to just leave it behind? Yes. So it's a mixture of all of those actually, you know.

So I was in kind of doing my reporting and reading all of these reports, there was one assessment done in Palau which made an estimation that 30% of bombs dropped during World War II didn't actually explode. And if you just imagine, I'm sure that you guys know well, the enormity, the share poundage, tonnage of munitions dropped during World War II across the position. is massive. So there's that, you know, there's that problem, but then there is the stockpiling as well. So kind of in the wake of the war, and as the U.S. is cleaning up and Britain is kind of taking over the Solomon Islands again, essentially it was kind of ditch and run was a part of the mentality, I guess. So, you know, there are many kind of accounts and even

some images that I've seen that show, you know, just barges off the coast, just dropping tons of detritus, including the UXO. In fact, in western province, we were out there doing some reporting, looking at some shipwrecks. Some of the scuba sites, you know, the places that people go, you know, the Solomon Islands doesn't have a great tourism industry, but the tourism industry is definitely driven by, scuba dive in and you know some of these sites you know there's the kashimaru there's the kunugawa maru these ships but then also there's u.s dump site where you know you can go down and see a digger and a bunch of bombs and stuff like that so in fact and there's also another one around there where there was just a military hospital and they in new zealand just decided okay well we'll take this all and just dump it in the ocean so yeah

It's a bit of a different thing, really. So if these munitions, like, they'll last 70-something years, I mean, or they'll explode after 70-something years, should we be taking these bombs and shells and be sending them to Ukraine? Okay. I take that back. There's an ammunition shortage on the other side of the world, right? Exactly. Here's what I'm like a couple.

No, my actual. question, though, is, I mean, does this mean that how dangerous are these things? Like, if you touch them, like with a pin, do they go off? Or, yeah, I mean, just to give some sort of sense of like what danger a person would face if you're near one. How, there's a lot of firsthand accounts of things that have happened to people in the reporting. I think that'll kind of illustrate how fragile the earth is all around you in the Solomon Islands and how. dangerous it can be i think tell us some of those stories yeah so you know on the kind of the integrity of these kind of unexposed ordinance i mean one story is about i saw it um sorry scenery i saw tangata a young young boy not even a teenager yet um was out playing in the essentially in the backyard of what is his home. After school one day, he was friends, and it had been raining,

and essentially in his backyard, there's kind of like a swampy area. So he also lives next to Bloody Ridge, which is close to the airport, and also a place with key battle during World War II. So you can imagine the ridge was mortared to hell and was a site of a lot of, you know, sacrifice really on the US and Allies part as well as a lot of death for Japan. Anyway, so Asaya was out playing with his friends and climbs a tree and then he sees from the top of his tree that there's a box of bombs underneath or just maybe not a box,

maybe just a little pile of bonds that are there, and unbeknownst to him, the mortar shells. His father had told him growing up, never touch the bombs, you know, as if it's like, don't talk to strangers or as if it's like, don't go into the woods too late or, you know, those kind of things that maybe we're told when we're younger.

But yet, don't touch the bombs if you see them, tell an adult. So he's a young boy, he's a young lad, he's boisterous. He does what young lads do. He disobeys his parents. But unfortunately, against his friend's kind of advice, he picks one up. So they suspect that in this bomb, what had happened was it rusted. But in the way that it had rusted in this kind of boggy area in the swamp, mud had kind of kept it sealed. So this is a white phosphorus mortar. So it's actually kind of, it was safe, concealed in the swamp. But what happened was when he picked it up, they suspect that

the mud that was kind of plugging a hole that had rusted in this white phosphorus mortar, essentially kind of opened up. And of course, when white phosphorus meets air, it does this job. And unfortunately, unfortunately, for scenery, that meant that. his hands and up to his elbows were covered in white phosphorus, reacting with the air and just leaving him with these horrific burns. So the burns essentially fused a few of his fingers together. And he was rushed to hospital, which in itself is a kind of a dangerous place. It's not like most sanitary or lovely place to get health care.

they drove him. Luckily there was a friend that had a car that could drive them because like ambulances aren't really a thing in Honiara. But now this kid is, you know, years later, still living with the realities of a war that happened, you know, close to 80 years ago. And, yeah, and actually just, just adding onto that when I was visiting the family, at their home I was talking to the father and he said oh yeah there's some bombs out of the back there was a fire that ran through the back like a wildfire that ran through the back of our place and it kind of uncovered some bombs do you want to have a look so we went out there and there on behold two massive shells um sitting there so it's just kind of very normal um for them to kind of see

them around. And yeah, so, I mean, if a wildfire tore through there again, who knows whether those bombs have gone off, but it would be a massive explosion. Anyway, so, yeah, this young boy has kind of been scarred for life. He, he, you know, acts as though he's got a thousand miles stare, you know, he isn't fully engaged. He's not returned to school because he's embarrassed. and he's just having trouble with living with this like massive scarring on his arms and on his lower belly and yeah it's a really sad situation

and one that you know they're trying to get help for him for but and then other instances of course you know where sorry to kind of answer your question better there are other instances where people light a fire in their backyard and because fire is the way that they cook they don't cook with ovens or some might cook on gas minutes the the majority of people cook over fire and kind of like a barbecue kind of thing or

maybe it's just a fire on the ground with some corrugated iron over the top cooking crabs and yeah unbeknownst them underneath that fire is a bomb a uxo and that'll go off so there was another family that I spent close to a day with and the family had lost the father and one of their sons while cooking dinner one night because underneath was a was a bomb and the mother can't walk properly because their kind of legs are pocked with holes from shrapnel and the son. The second eldest son has got just a humongous scar on his, just covering his sternum from where a piece of shrapnel lodged pretty close to his heart. He was pretty lucky to survive. So, and then there are other stories of a lady hoeing who guard in and striking a bomb,

you know, just so, so many of these kind of stories where people are going about their everyday lives, not realizing that, well, not realizing or maybe realizing, but just kind of going about their lives and then it's a bit of a crapshoot when it comes to putting down fires to cook dinner or gardening or just growing food to eat. How many people die every year? So it's very hard to quantify, but research has kind of estimate. estimate it's around 20, if not more. The reason it's very hard to quantify is because A,

the Solomon Islands Police doesn't have the capacity to kind of collect data on all of this. And then secondly, it's because it's a country of almost a thousand islands. And how do you kind of keep track of deaths by bomb when it might be, you know, on a small island miles and miles away from the capital where the police are not and um that village might not have any electricity might not have any way to report it and they don't have a local hospital to go to so as one um with my contacts told me he said you know the reality is is maybe they bundle them up and put them in a boat and try and get them somewhere but they'll just die on the boat so they'll just turn around and bury them there so that that's kind of the

reality, but they estimate 20 or more die every year by bomb. If people sue the United States, does the United States have any kind of responsibility on this legally or

you know, just wondering what's happened in all these years since? A big issue here is that this is the reality of life in the Solomon Islands. A lot of Solomon Islanders don't have the means or the kind of voice to raise this.

So there has been kind of maybe one or two that have tried to get in contact with the U.S. Embassy, which was in Papua New Guinea. The Solomon Islands only recently had its embassy open up. and essentially they've just been met with radio silence. There was an agreement between the US and the Solomon Islands that was drafted up a couple of decades ago, but that was never ratified by the Solomon Islands, so it can't really really leverage the power that would have come with that. And I mean, for instance, Cenary, the young boy who was hurt or devastated by white,

phosphorus he's not he's he's actually getting help in australia at the moment um thankfully he's he's undergoing some surgical procedures to unfuse his fingers and perhaps give him some kind of better quality of life but that's from a rotary group that's not from the u.s australia or japan um so yeah the the kind of the ways that one might get help such as those in Cambodia, Lao, Vietnam might get help through this Leahy fund, the Congressman Patrick Lehi, helped kind of champion this to get help. Yeah, the Solomon Islands doesn't fall under that and I don't believe that any of the Pacific nations really do either. So yeah, it's the kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place, unfortunately. And the, um,

They have been raising their voice about it, you know, while I was there. I spoke one other family that I spoke to. They are pretty well connected politically. I think the brother of one of the victims, sorry, the sister of one of the victims, is married to the brother of the leader of the opposition party. But even they have, like, been having trouble kind of getting this out there or getting some help. Because the reality is, for the Solomon Islands, reparation is a massive part of culture.

That's culture. Reparation is crucial. But, yeah, just getting the air of the right people seems virtually impossible. Is there a toxicity issue around the... these weapons too in the munitions? I'm wondering beyond just the explosives and the physical dam, well, beyond the explosive damage from them, is there anything, is there any lasting impact from the chemicals and the metals in the soil? There hasn't been any research into it to really kind of prove yes or no. There has been mustard gas found, stoppiled, but I have been

speaking to a Georgetown professor a doctor, public health expert who kind of has a very strong affinity for the Solomon Islands who I believe it was an uncle is currently

resting in Iron Bottom Sound was killed during the conflict and she believes from our conversations that it does have an impact because of course a lot of it was dumped in the water, but it was stockpiled and dropped and buried, right?

So she believes there is some cause for concern there, but yeah, in terms of like fully quantifiable evidence, I haven't come across any, but it is certainly a concern, and perhaps one that I didn't really delve into as much, but I would have liked to in this series, but something I'm trying to keep. keeping on now.

I'm pulling up your story from January of this year. The State Department is going to kick in a million dollars. Seems like a pretty small amount of audience. You can't see this. He's been pretty sad-faced the entire time that we've been talking. As soon as I brought this story up, he started laughing. It is a grim laughter. mind. Yes. I mean, that million dollars is a really quite laughable amount, really,

if you consider the enormity of the issue. So a million dollars, while perhaps there has been a bit of a celebration around that, to put that into context, the US has given 6.8 million since 2011. So tack on another million to that And they've still got not much The million dollars is essentially to do we survey It's to quantify the problem So You know that

How far that will go is Who knows? Because you know this The greatest picture that we have in the Solomon Islands Of this UX problem This unexploded ordinance problem Is around Honourney are the capital, you know, the key area for all of the battles, for all of the stockpiling.

But there is a whole massive country that has to be surveyed as well. And the way that they survey is not necessarily, so they can call them technical surveys and non-technical surveys. This million dollars is for a non-technical survey, which essentially is you pass the historical records, you find out where the stockpiles were, you know, the main battles were, and then you kind of make an assessment based on that. And then the technical survey is when you've actually got your wand out and you're making the quadrants and you're going through

and essentially trying to find the bombs. So this million dollars is while it was announced, the reason that I was actually laughing was because this million dollars was put forward actually a couple of years ago for a non-technical survey which was not completed. The reason it wasn't completed, completed, the non-government organisation that was charged with doing the survey was essentially kicked out of the Solomon Islands. Why you might ask? Not a reason for

laughter, but two of the people working for that NGO were killed because they had taken bonds, taken UXO out of their work area. And they were essentially tinkering with them and trying to disarm them in their own apartment. So, of course, that kind of led the Solomon Islands to say, hey, this is like massive mission creep. What are you doing? You're only supposed to be like looking at the records and trying to figure out where our bombs are so that maybe in the future, the US and Japan can kick in some money to actually deal with the problem. So it was a very unceremonious exit for Norwegian people's aid. Did anyone else die in those explosions?

No, it was just those two. It was, I believe, a UK national and an Australian national. And it was in the middle of Ponnihara. So it caused for some controversy, for sure. So that million dollars was already put out there for the survey. So announcing it this year as some new thing kind of, yeah, puts it in. Yeah, but perhaps I'm a bit of a cynic, but you know, it seems... I think you've been given good reason to be cynical, right?

Perhaps. This is a, as you said at the very beginning of this conversation, this is a developing country. This is a country that is building things all the time. And it's hard to do that development and make new construction and build new buildings. When every time you break the earth, there's a chance something. could explode, right? Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.

Now it's kind of being talked about the rumors swirling when I was in the Solomon Islands for a few weeks. You know, that, oh gosh, the government's going to make us have to do surveys every time that we put up a building. You know, I mean, well, that seems like the pragmatic thing to do, it does kind of scare people because it's a massive expense on top of what is all. already a massive expense for them. But it is a reality, like the government now, on all government projects, they bring on serving teams to make sure that they're clear so that they can build. But then it also kind of brings up the issue of like, how deep are we looking?

Because that's also an issue, you know, when a bomb's dropped from the plane and it's 200 pounds, it might go pretty deep. poor, you know, so there's all these other things and that need to kind of be considered. And I certainly feel for the people who are trying to just build a home and need to bring on this help. But part of what's kind of emerging from this is that former EOD techs who work with the police are kind of coming in now and starting their own private companies. And I think it's, you know, with certain things going on at the moment in terms of development,

is becoming a little bit lucrative for them, but it's relatively inaccessible for the everyday person. And I mean, the everyday person isn't going to even bother with it. But for instance, there was one EOD squad that I met up with that was surveying an area for the local parish, just kind of like a pro bono thing. and yeah that was kind of the way that they got into it just hoping that it's goodwill of like a brother or a cousin might come through for them but yeah so it's definitely a big issue especially around those kind of key infrastructure elements

this is also a region where China is seeking to grow its influence what are relationships between the Solomon Islands and China? Yeah, so, I mean, it was interesting. I kind of, in the development of the story, China was kind of just a glimmer and or a twinkle in the eye of the Prime Minister, I guess. But as I kept working on it, those relationships really started getting stronger. The Solomon Islands does have a long history with China, perhaps longer than people.

people realize, Honiara has a Chinatown, you know, being, I guess it's a natural thing, being a British, having a British colonial past, right? So there are, you know, I talk to Solomon Islanders. They're like, oh yeah, no, I'm like, I'm a quarter Chinese, you know, or, you know, so there is a natural kind of relationship there, but I guess the more contemporary relationship is a bit more fraught, right? So, of course, China has been kind of taking steps through the Pacific, strengthening relationships and giving a lot of money or lending money, sorry, to a lot of these places. And it's a real concern for a lot of people in the Solomon Islands.

If I talk to an everyday Solomon Islander, they might say, you know, one might say, oh, no, I'm really kind of scared about this. this is a bad idea. We shouldn't have taken our relationship away with Taiwan. We shouldn't have aligned with China. But then in another conversation, I might be talking to someone who will say, well, where's the US been for the last 80 years? Sure.

China came here. They're offering us help, so why not take it? So, you know, there are these kind of separate conversations going on there. But one underlying fear with that is, does our Prime Minister know how to manage his relationship with China? Because that's a big relationship to carry. And also there have been many, many concerns over recent kind of bribery. There's been evidence of kind of bribery going on where Chinese money has kind of gone through. ended up in politicians' hands from China.

And, you know, the Solomon Islands isn't the cleanest country when it comes to corruption. Do we have any sense what China is looking to gain there, like building its own airstrips, or just having a region of influence? Or is it too early to tell? I personally think it's too early to tell. While I was there, there were a few stories about Chinese interest in a place called Columbangara. So Columbangara is an island in western province. There was a story that was run in Australia about China's interest in this island because it had the potential to be a deep sea port.

I don't know whether all of that reporting kind of stood up personally. if I'm completely honest but you know so that that kind of puts out the question of does it want to have some key infrastructure there

or personally I think at this stage really it's more of like a kind of a softer influence kind of thing at the moment but things are getting things are getting more and more interesting

by the day right you know just just now really still going on or recently finished as been the US kind of visit and cozying up with Papua New Guinea, which is of course Solomon Island's neighbor. So you said earlier

that there are also shipwrecks. Can you tell us a little bit about those? Yes, so actually it wasn't really part of, I guess, UXO lethal legacy, the project, like the four-parter. It was a additional piece that we did.

But yes, so essentially shipwrecks litter the Solomon Islands, shipwrecks and down to plains. And of course, if you look at Guadalcanal, the tract of water to the north of Guadalcanal between Guadal and Malaita, which is another big province, there is a place called Iron Bottom Sound, and it is named for the ships that litter the cede. So one of the big concerns with this is that every so often you'll hear anecdotally that, you know, there's oil-slicking iron bottom sound. So what's happening over time is that these ships degrading just like these bombs, they were holding a lot of oil and fuel. So it's quite a large concern among the environmental groups around the Solomon Island. and it's a Pacific wide problem. But yeah, in the Solomon Islands you can really see evidence of it.

In fact, I imagine fishing is a main source of protein, right? Yes, fishing is a key source of protein. You know, there isn't like really livestock in Solomon Islands. And fishing is also done, funnily enough, with repurposed unexploded ordnance, which is also a source of death and maiming for Solomon Islanders. But in fact, in November last year, there was an earthquake in the Solomon Islands, and soon after that earthquake oil was lapping onto the shores on Guadokanau. So that's a pretty massive issue.

There are some really interesting kind of groups doing work around it at the moment. In the Pacific, there's one called Major Projects Foundation, which is based out of Australia, which has surveyed all of the shipwrecks around the Pacific and essentially it's kind of prioritised the shipwrecks that need to be essentially drained or else with climate change with increased turbidity and the kind of unstable ocean environment

that could accelerate the chance of essentially oil. spills happening after so, so many decades. So that was one other thing that we kind of really got into in the Solomon Islands and was just another kind of part of the legacy of World War II and the Solomon Islands. But that's also felt in like the federated states of Micronesia. I believe there are shipwrecks around Papua New Guinea as well. Pretty much any way the war was, there are shipwrecks and kind of a latent risk of oil skills.

Thomas Heaton, thank you so much for coming on to Angry Planet and walking us through this. Where can people find your work? Please visit civilbeat.org to find my work. Thanks for listening to another episode of Angry Planet. The show is produced with love by Matthew Galt and Jason Fields with the assistants of Kevin this is the place where we ask me. This is the place where we ask you for money. If you subscribe to us on substack.angriplanet.com, it means the world to us.

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