'Yes, I am ready to die'

A Last Secret 17

The tragic fate of Ocean Island - today the mostly abandoned Banaba and part of modern Kiribati — is linked to the coast watcher story. They had a shared massacre that is as unknown as that of the Tarawa killings. At the opening of the 20th century Banabans were living in a lush paradise; 50 years on the landscape was a blasted ruin, its phosphate rich topsoils stolen for a pittance to enhance the weak soils of Australia and New Zealand. Its people were so completely dispossessed it is hard to imagine how any civilisation allowed it to happen.