Mono Island

The island is rimmed by limestone cliffs of more than twenty metres in height.

Five houses and all school buildings collapsed and four people were reported missing.

Many of the men at that time left the island on labour vessels to work on plantations at Fiji and elsewhere in the Pacific.

On October 27, 1943, the 8th Brigade of the Third New Zealand Division and the U.S. 87th Navy Construction Battalion landed at two locations: at Falamai (site of the Japanese HQ on the island) in the south, and at Purple Beach at Soanotalu in the north.

[5] Stirling Island was turned into a huge airstrip by the Allies, which was left deserted after the war ended.