HONIARA, Solomon Islands (AP) – U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry paid a visit Wednesday to the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific, where he met the tiny nation’s leaders and commemorated the ferocious World War II battles fought on Guadalcanal.
Kerry met with Solomon’s Prime Minister Gordon Lilo and Governor General Frank Kabui to discuss sustainable development, ocean preservation and how the islands’ 600,000 residents are coping with the effects of climate change.
Kerry laid a wreath at the Solomon Scouts and Coastwatchers Memorial, which pays tribute to Allied personnel and island natives who observed Japanese movement in the Pacific Ocean during World War II.
It was those scouts who rescued Navy Lt. John F. Kennedy and his crew after the sinking of PT-109 in August 1943. Kerry, who’s from Kennedy’s home state, Massachusetts, told Kabui, “We are very tied to you in many ways, certainly from my part of the country.”
Kerry then went on to visit the American Memorial on Guadalcanal and the “Bloody Ridge” battlefield site, where some of the fiercest combat in the Pacific theater took place between American and Japanese forces in September 1942.