Coastwatcher, Hero, Witness To History Dies

The BBC has reported that Solomon Islander Eroni Kumana passed away at the age of 93.  In August 1943, Kumana and his friend Biuku Gasa were working as Coastwatchers, mostly indigenous agents who kept track of Japanese movements in the islands and reported them to Allied forces.  One day in their canoe, they encountered the shipwrecked crew of an American Patrol Torpedo (PT) boat.  The PT boat had been rammed in the night by a Japanese destroyer.  The PT skipper wrote a message on a coconut shell, and Kumana and Gasa took the shell in their canoe through 35 miles of Japanese patrolled waters to the Allies, who successfully rescued the American sailors.  The PT boat commander was U.S. Navy Lieutenant John F. Kennedy, Jr. (below, far right).