During WWII, the US military turned Espiritu Santo into a military supply base, naval port, and airfield. After the war, they dumped everything they couldn’t carry home into the ocean, creating an underwater museum called Million Dollar Point. The island inspired the setting of the musical South Pacific.
Espiritu Santo, the largest island in the Vanuatu archipelago in the South Pacific, was turned into a military supply base, naval port, and airfield by the United States after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. The island is mild it became a convenient hub for striking Japan during WWII. When the fighting stopped, the US military left roads, buildings and runways, but failed to get the French and British colonial authorities to agree to buy the supplies the Americans would not be able to carry home. So the Americans dumped everything in the ocean: everything from vehicles and weapons to clothes and crates of Coca-Cola.
An underwater arsenal:
The Europeans of the island gave up the goods, even if they were offered at the low price of 6 cents on the dollar, because they thought the Americans would simply drop everything and go away.
Today Million Dollar Point (so named for the value of the equipment submerged there), has become a strange underwater museum where snorkelers and scuba divers can spot tanks, guns, bulldozers, forklifts and jeeps.
Espiritu Santo was the inspiration for the setting of the popular 1949 musical South Pacific, which features an American nurse who falls in love with a French plantation owner during the war.
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