Get Charlie Noah

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER TWELVE

Japanese people, in the main, are very nice people, especially these days. It's likely they, in the main, were always very nice people as probably were the Germans, but at the top of the political tree you will always find delusional idiots who think they should be the rulers of the world and in order to do so will kill millions of people to achieve their goals. In the early 1940's, very powerful Japanese idiots felt they should control the world and started doing that by killing lots of people and taking over their countries. The Japanese were initially underestimated in their determination, skills and wherewithal to build huge fighting machines, ships, tanks, planes, guns and to place this equipment in the hands of men who would rather die fighting than return to their homeland defeated. Many high ranking Japanese officers even took their own lives rather than return to their own land defeated. They performed a ritual which required them to disembowel themselves with a specially prepared knife and then if necessary, if their death lingered, be beheaded by a witnessing comrade with a samurai sword.

The invading Japanese army swept across the South Pacific in droves capturing Singapore and then island after island as they targeted Australia, New Zealand and ultimately America. Resistance was mounted by each of these countries facing invasion and the arena of war and the greatest loss of life would ultimately be in the South Pacific...that was until the USA dropped nuclear bombs in two major Japanese cities, killing millions of people. How odd is it that it takes millions of relatively innocent people to die in order to force the surrender of a handful of delusional idiots, most of whom kept well away from the devastation of their own people.

Major air strike attack bases for the Americans against the Japanese were on the islands of Vanuatu and in particular, airfields constructed on Espiritu Santo and Efate to the south. Wave after wave of bombers and escorting fighters left these airfields each day on their 600 mile flight over water in order to crush the Japanese invaders. Many never returned. The Japanese invasion over the Pacific Ocean ultimately failed because of these air operations.

At the end of the second world war, the Americans approached the French who governed Vanuatu at that time and offered to sell them millions of dollars worth of trucks, cars, machinery, bulldozers, you name it, for a fraction of their actual worth because it would have cost far too much to ship that gear back to America. The French government, sensing a bargain, offered to buy all this left over war equipment for far less than the pittance offered by the Americans and would not budge on their counter offer. The Americans came back with another offer. They drove millions of dollars worth of war machines and earth moving equipment which would have been invaluable to the French government, into the ocean off a point south of Luganville, the capital of Espiritu Santo. Then the Americans gave the French "the bird" and went home. The dumping area is now called "million dollar point" for obvious reasons. Divers from all over the world now enjoy it as do millions of fish.

'I just love Santo,' said the woman seated next to Ben as they went on approach to Luganville airport in the glow of the setting sun. 'The airport is actually called Pekoa...did you know that?'

'No,' said Ben. He had no idea what the airport was called.

'My husband Frank, bless his soul, brought me here all the time.'

'So when did he die?' asked Ben, as he glanced at the woman.

'Oh he's not dead. He's got dreadful dementia so he might as well be dead. He can't travel. He wanders off all the time.'

'I see.'

'It started here you know.'

The pilot had lowered the wheels and dropped the flaps to around 20 percent. He was bucking a side wind from the left. The locals called it 'Trade Winds' but the winds had long ago stopped bringing trade to these islands. Jets and big boats brought the supermarket supplies. Ben looked at the woman again. She was in her early 60's, quite good looking but wearing far too much makeup. She had short cropped bleached blond hair and was wearing a bright coloured 'moo moo' as Ben liked to call loose fitting flowing female garments. 'I'm sorry,' he said. 'What started here?'