Guadalcanal American Memorial

The Guadalcanal American Memorial stands on Skyline Ridge, south of the city centre, commemorating the approximately 7,100 American servicemen killed during the six-month Guadalcanal campaign. The memorial is a simple, dignified structure — an open colonnade with inscribed walls listing the major operations and formations involved.

The views from Skyline Ridge are the best in Honiara — out over the town, the harbour, and Iron Bottom Sound beyond. The site is quiet and well maintained. Take a taxi to the ridge; the drive up gives you a sense of the terrain over which the campaign was fought. The nearby hills and valleys still contain unexploded ordnance in places — do not leave marked paths.

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The American memorial records 36 separate engagements fought on Guadalcanal and in the waters around it between August 1942 and February 1943. More Americans died in the naval engagements alone than in the land fighting — the supply convoys that ran down The Slot from the north were intercepted repeatedly, and the sailors who died have no graves except the floor of Iron Bottom Sound.

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