The Toumoa Bell

© David Kerr 2001-2007

Toumoa is a village of about 750 on Fauro Island in the Shortland Islands. You can see it on our chart of the Solomons. It is the Eastern of the two small Islands labelled "Shortland Islands" just South of Bougainville. This area at the top end of the Solomon Islands is quite close to Bougainville, PNG. The village was occupied during WWII. Initially, the Japanese Navy treated the people quite well and occupied the location as if they were permanently colonising it. As fighting intensified in the area, the Japanese Army arrived and conditions significantly worsened ; the men were enslaved, the children enrolled in Japanese schools and other women and children lived on coconuts in the hill caves. Large numbers of Japanese ships moved through the area and there were frequent dogfights overhead. The Americans bombed the village and totally destroyed it.