ONE OF THE PEOPLE I interviewed for my book about Saipan way back in 1996, was a Roland Fronheizer. He was with the 33rd Coast Artillery there during the war.

He told me that, after Saipan had been secured, the troops were kept on the island in anticipation of the invasion of the Japanese home islands later in the war, an operation that never came to pass as a result of Japan’s capitulation following the dropping of the atomic bombs on two of their cities.

Roland also told me the US military was stockpiling chemical shells for their 155-mm Long Toms for possible use against the Japanese when they invaded. Ever since then, I have been curious about what happened to those shells.

Some years back, I asked the EOD [Explosive Ordnance Demolition] man operating out of Saipan what happened to them, but never received a definitive reply.

Fast forward to this past week. I had just finished the last of my on-cruise Pacific War lectures on 25 August, when an Australian, a retired EOD from the Australian Army, approached me.

He said he had attended all my lectures, and then proceeded to tell me some interesting things about his days in EOD in PNG, the Solomon Islands and other island groups.

He said in the area where the battles of Buna and Gona were fought in New Guinea — probably at Dobadura — they found chemical bombs shoved off into the jungle. He said they contained blister gas. (I am guessing it was a mustard gas.)

In 1989-1990, in the Russell Islands, they found over 150 155-mm chemical shells lying around in the open. The US military was notified, planes and crews from Johnston Island flew in, picked them up and flew them back to Johnston Island, where they were disposed of. Their orders were to not talk about what they had found.

After the battle for Buna-Gona, Australian officers reported that some of the Japanese showed signs of having died from gas poisoning.

I think this is worth further investigation; just one more item to add to my list.

There is also some interesting information coming my way about some Kiwis captured on Tarawa early in the war. The Japanese decapitated them and buried them on the island.

More recently, while looking for the missing graves of US Marines left behind on Tarawa in 1943, the graves of these missing Kiwis were found. I am now waiting some follow-up on that story from individuals I network with on Pacific War issues, and who were involved in finding those graves.

I hope the New Zealand government or military will follow up on this.

And that’s it for this cruise from your nondescript-garden-variety white guy. G’day, mates, and Happy Trails.