Like so many Southwest Pacific Islands, Espirutu Santo, Vanuatu's largest island, was occupied by the United States during the Second World War. Establishing a base on Espirutu Santo allowed the allied forces to launch attacks against the Japanese in the Pacific. The island later became the biggest military base and port in the South Pacific during the war; It had four runways and five military hospitals.
The biggest legacy the allied forces left behind during their departure from the island was Million Dollar Point, the site we dived today. It's both historically fascinating and perhaps more worryingly environmentally destructive.
During the 1940's Vanuatu was known as the 'Condominium of the New Hebrides' and was jointly colonised by Britain and France. At the time came for US departure from the island, thoughts turned to the bases which were full of vehicles, furniture, clothing and other troop sustaining equipment. A decision had been made not to repatriate any of the equipment, but instead to offer it to the Condominium at rock bottom prices. However, the Condominium refused the offer in assumption that they would eventually acquire everything for free.
This was a rather unpopular idea with the United States military who, in a moment of madness, took all the vehicles and other gear to a wharf on the south side of Espirutu Santo. The army then drove the vehicles into the sea, then used bulldozers to dump everything else over the wharf before ditching the bulldozers themselves in on top. Millions of dollars of goods were destroyed in a span of two days, contaminating the channel with fuel, rubber, metal and coca cola.
Today, this dive side is a must dive spot on Espirutu Santo. Myself, Menno, Zoe and Timo got a taxi from the Beachfront Resort where we're anchored to Million Dollar Point. One can see the all rusting vehicles, a mash-up of twisted metal cranes, bulldozers, trucks, tyres and goodness knows what else. It's rather hard to distinguish what exactly you're looking at; The site is basically an unsorted underwater junkyard! I had a rather leaky mask which proved to be rather irritating, but still managed to get some photos of the site and got rather close to a turtle which is cool!
Seventy odd years later there are discussions debating whether the United States military should return to clean up the site. Perhaps it's to late. Million Dollar Point, like so many World War Two sites, is now part of history. A part which, despite its initial detrimental impact, now generates a tourism economy from the scores of scuba divers that flock their to explore the junkyard.
