Tulagi, less commonly known as Tulaghi, is a small island in

Solomon Islands Solomon Islands, also known simply as the Solomons,John Prados, ''Islands of Destiny'', Dutton Caliber, 2012, p,20 and passim is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 1000 smaller islands in Melanesia, part of Oceania, t ...

, just off the south coast of Ngella Sule. The town of the same name on the island (pop. 1,750) was the capital of the

British Solomon Islands Protectorate The British Solomon Islands Protectorate was first established in June 1893, when Captain Herbert Gibson of declared the southern Solomon Islands a British protectorate.''Commonwealth and Colonial Law'' by Kenneth Roberts-Wray, London, St ...

from 1896 to 1942 and is today the capital of the Central Province. The capital of what is now the state of Solomon Islands moved to

Honiara Honiara () is the capital and largest city of Solomon Islands, situated on the northwestern coast of Guadalcanal. , it had a population of 92,344 people. The city is served by Honiara International Airport and the seaport of Point Cruz, and lies ...

Guadalcanal Guadalcanal (; indigenous name: ''Isatabu'') is the principal island in Guadalcanal Province of Solomon Islands, located in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, northeast of Australia. It is the largest island in the Solomons by area and the second- ...

, after

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. The island was originally chosen by the United Kingdom as a comparatively isolated and healthier alternative to the disease-ridden larger islands of the

Solomon Islands archipelago The Solomon Islands (archipelago) is an island group in the western South Pacific Ocean, north-east of Australia. The archipelago is in the Melanesian subregion and bioregion of Oceania and forms the eastern boundary of the Solomon Sea. Th ...

. In October 2019, the government of Central Province signed a deal to grant the 75-year lease of the entire island of Tulagi to a Chinese company China Sam Enterprise Group. However, this was declared unconstitutional by the Solomon Islands parliament after a week and, consequently, the deal was cancelled.

Climate

History

The first recorded sighting by Europeans was by the Spanish expedition of

Álvaro de Mendaña Álvaro or Álvar (, , ) is a Spanish, Galician and Portuguese male given name and surname of Germanic Visigothic origin. The patronymic surname derived from this name is Álvarez. Given name Artists * Álvaro Carrillo, Afro-Mexican songwrit ...

on 16 April 1568. More precisely the sighting was due to a local voyage done by a small boat, in the accounts the

brigantine A brigantine is a two-masted sailing vessel with a fully square-rigged foremast and at least two sails on the main mast: a square topsail and a gaff sail mainsail (behind the mast). The main mast is the second and taller of the two masts. Ol ...

''Santiago'', commanded by ''

Maestre de Campo ''Maestre de campo'' was a rank created in 1534 by the Emperor Charles I of Spain, inferior in rank only to the '' capitán general'' and acted as a chief of staff. He was chosen by the monarch in the Council of State, and commanded a ''tercio'' ...

Pedro Ortega Valencia Pedro is a masculine given name. Pedro is the Spanish, Portuguese, and Galician name for ''Peter''. Its French equivalent is Pierre while its English and Germanic form is Peter. The counterpart patronymic surname of the name Pedro, meaning ...

and having

Hernán Gallego Hernán is a Spanish masculine given name, originating from Germanic Hernan in the Visigoth culture in Spain. It is the Latinized version of the compound name ''Fard-nanth'', which seems to mean "gentle traveler" or "spiritual traveler". The House ...

as pilot.Brand, Donald D. ''The Pacific Basin: A History of its Geographical Explorations'' The American Geographical Society, New York, 1967, p.133.

World War II

The

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

ese occupied Tulagi on May 3, 1942, with the intention of establishing a

seaplane A seaplane is a powered fixed-wing aircraft capable of takeoff, taking off and water landing, landing (alighting) on water.Gunston, "The Cambridge Aerospace Dictionary", 2009. Seaplanes are usually divided into two categories based on their tech ...

base nearby (see Japanese Tulagi landing). The ships in Tulagi harbor were raided by planes from the following day in a prelude to the

Battle of the Coral Sea The Battle of the Coral Sea, from 4 to 8 May 1942, was a major naval battle between the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) and naval and air forces of the United States and Australia. Taking place in the Pacific Theatre of World War II, the battle ...

. Allied forces, primarily the 1st

Marine Raiders The Marine Raiders are special operations forces originally established by the United States Marine Corps during World War II to conduct amphibious warfare, amphibious light infantry warfare. Despite the original intent for Raiders to serve ...

, landed on August 7 and captured Tulagi as part of

Operation Watchtower The Guadalcanal campaign, also known as the Battle of Guadalcanal and codenamed Operation Watchtower by the United States, was an Allies of World War II, Allied offensive against forces of the Empire of Japan in the Solomon Islands during th ...

after a day of hard fighting. After its capture by

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...

and Marine Corps forces, the island hosted a squadron of

PT boat A PT boat (short for patrol torpedo boat) was a motor torpedo boat used by the United States Navy in World War II. It was small, fast, and inexpensive to build, and it was valued for its maneuverability and speed. However, PT boats were hampe ...

s for a year, which included

LTJG Lieutenant junior grade is a junior commissioned officer rank used in a number of navies. United States Lieutenant (junior grade), commonly abbreviated as LTJG or, historically, Lt. (j.g.) (as well as variants of both abbreviations), i ...

John F. Kennedy John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), also known as JFK, was the 35th president of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. He was the first Roman Catholic and youngest person elected p ...

's ''

PT-109 ''PT-109'' was an Elco PT boat (patrol torpedo boat) last commanded by Lieutenant (junior grade) John F. Kennedy, future United States president, in the Solomon Islands campaign of the Pacific theater during World War II. Kennedy's act ...

'' as well as other ancillary facilities. A small 20-bed dispensary was operated on Tulagi until its closure in 1946. The island also formed part of

Purvis Bay Purvis Bay is located in the Nggela Islands, part of the Solomon Islands. Purvis Bay is the sheltered area to the south of the island Nggela Sule (referred to as Florida Island during World War II), including and trending southeast from the neighbo ...

, which hosted many US Navy ships during 1942 and 1943.

Postwar

The present-day Tulagi has a

fishing fleet A fishing fleet is an aggregate of commercial fishing Ship, vessels. The term may be used of all vessels operating out of a particular port, all vessels engaged in a particular type of fishing (as in the "tuna fishing fleet"), or all fishing vessel ...

Scuba diving

Tulagi offers numerous

scuba diving Scuba diving is a Diving mode, mode of underwater diving whereby divers use Scuba set, breathing equipment that is completely independent of a surface breathing gas supply, and therefore has a limited but variable endurance. The word ''scub ...

locations. The wrecks of USS ''Aaron Ward'', USS ''Kanawha'', and HMNZS ''Moa'' are close by, and the wrecks of

Ironbottom Sound "Ironbottom Sound" (alternatively Iron Bottom Sound or Ironbottomed Sound or Iron Bottom Bay) is the name given by Allied sailors to the stretch of water at the southern end of The Slot between Guadalcanal, Savo Island, and Florida Island o ...

are not much further off, to the south and west. These three ships were all sunk in the same Japanese naval air raid, part of the Operation "I" on April 7, 1943. The ''Ward'' lies upright and intact, its deck replete with artifacts, on a sandy bottom at . Tulagi is developing a

tourism industry Tourism is travel for pleasure, and the Commerce, commercial activity of providing and supporting such travel. World Tourism Organization, UN Tourism defines tourism more generally, in terms which go "beyond the common perception of tourism as ...

based on scuba.

References

{{Authority control Former national capitals Islands of the Solomon Islands Populated places in Central Province (Solomon Islands) Wreck diving sites