Historical – Aore Island
The war
in pictures
Aore Island
Just across the Segond Channel from Luganville, Aore Island played an important supporting role during World War II as part of the vast Allied base network centred on Espiritu Santo.
During the war, the island became home to enormous fuel and water storage facilities, large ammunition depots, and assembly areas for naval sea mines. From its sheltered shoreline facing Luganville, supplies and ordnance flowed constantly in support of operations across the Pacific.
Yet despite its strategic importance, Aore was also remembered for something very different.
The island became home to the Navy’s famous Fleet Recreation Centre — one of the most popular rest and relaxation destinations anywhere in the South Pacific. Servicemen stationed throughout the region came to Aore to escape the pressures of war, playing baseball and gridiron, swimming, relaxing in recreation huts, or simply enjoying a rare sense of normality far from the front lines.
Today, Aore Island is known for something altogether more peaceful. Coffee plantations first established decades ago have been revived, producing some of the finest coffee grown and roasted anywhere in the Pacific.
Aore Island Ammunition dump
Aore Island housed one of the largest ammunition storage facilities within Base Button, holding enormous quantities of US Navy ordnance, munitions, and military supplies during the war.
Life on Aore
To support the island’s fuel farms, ammunition depots, and recreation facilities, extensive camp infrastructure was established across Aore, housing the personnel responsible for keeping the operation running.
The Fleet Recreation Centre
Aore Island’s Fleet Recreation Centre became one of the most famous recreation facilities in the South Pacific during World War II.
Widely regarded as one of the finest in the region, it offered weary servicemen an opportunity to rest, play sport, and briefly escape the realities of war in the Pacific.
