Sir Jacob Charles Vouza, KBE, GM, QPM (c. 1892 – 15 March 1984) was a native police officer of the British Solomon Islands Protectorate, who served with the United States Marine Corps in the Guadalcanal campaign during World War II.
Vouza was born in Tasimboko, Guadalcanal, British Solomon Islands, and educated at the South Seas Evangelical Mission School there.
Having found a small American flag in Vouza's loincloth, the Japanese tied him to a tree and tortured him for information about Allied forces.
[2] Before receiving medical attention, he gasped a warning to Martin Clemens[3]: 209–210 and Lieutenant Colonel Edwin A. Pollock, whose 2nd Battalion 1st Marines held the defences at the Ilu River mouth.
In 1945, he also was awarded the Legion of Merit for outstanding service with the 2nd Raider Battalion during November and December 1942, and was made an honorary sergeant major in the Marine Corps.
[7] In the 1979 Birthday Honours, he was promoted to a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) for outstanding services to his country and local community, and thereby granted the title sir.
A monument in his honour stands in front of the police headquarters building in Honiara, the capital of the Solomon Islands.