Qualla: Shortland Islands

Shortland Islands: Introduction

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NASA, Public domain. In 1788, a Royal Navy lieutenant named John Shortland was sailing home from Botany Bay. He had just helped deliver the First Fleet - the ships carrying Britain's first load of convicts to the newly founded penal colony in New South Wales - and was now looking for a safe northern route through Melanesia. On a chart he drew of an archipelago at the northwestern edge of the Solomons, he wrote his own surname. It stuck. The people who actually lived there had a name for the largest island - Alu - that had been in use for generations and would go on being used long after Shortland had gone home to write his report.

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Image: NASA | Public domain

Shortland Islands: A Scatter of Islands

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. The Shortland group sits in Western Province of the Solomon Islands, its northern edge pressed against the international border with Bougainville. The inner ring - Shortland Island itself, plus Faisi, Balalae, Poporang, Magusaiai, and a handful of smaller offshoots - forms one ad...

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Image: Public domain

Shortland Islands: The German Era

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NASA, Public domain. In 1886 the German Empire and the United Kingdom divided the Solomon archipelago between them, with the initial boundary sitting further south than it sits today. The Shortlands, along with Choiseul and Santa Isabel, were on the German side. This arrangement lasted only until the...

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Image: NASA | Public domain

Shortland Islands: A Harbor the Allies Skipped

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Masalai, CC BY-SA 3.0. Japanese warships entered Shortland Harbor on 30 March 1942 and landed two special naval landing force platoons. There was no resistance. Within weeks the Japanese had set up a seaplane base, with moorings and fortifications in Tuha Channel and on the southeastern portion of Shor...

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Image: Masalai | CC BY-SA 3.0

Shortland Islands: After the Garrison Left

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NASA, Public domain. When the war ended, the seaplane base was dismantled and reclaimed by the forest. The fortifications on Poporang and Faisi are still there, half-swallowed by vines. The Shortlands today are a quiet constituency of Western Province, inhabited by a few thousand people across the ma...

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Image: NASA | Public domain

Shortland Islands: The View from Above

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NASA, Public domain. From cruising altitude the Shortlands look exactly like a satellite image of a volcanic archipelago: a fringe of deep green around pale coral shallows, with Shortland Island dominating and the rest scattered around it like a fleet caught at anchor. Flying over, you can see why Sh...

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Image: NASA | Public domain