Examining Vanuatu's World War II memorial places and events

The John Frum ceremony is an enduring annual event on 15 February that commemorates the legacy of the American presence during World War II (also known as the Pacific War) on Tanna Island situated in the southern region of the Vanuatu archipelago. It has attracted the interest of tourism researchers, anthropologists, film makers and notable authors including Paul Theroux and David Attenborough. This chapter examines the World War II ceremonial event by John Frum movement villages near the north-eastern side of Tanna’s Mount Yasur volcano. In it we contextualise this event as part of travel to the broader area that comprises the World War II-era warscape with associated memories and landscapes including Million Dollar Point and the SS Coolidge in Espiritu Santo. This discussion enables greater examination and understanding of the present-day significance of war heritage and commemoration to the ni-Vanuatu community as well as tourists and official visitors associated with former combatant countries. In doing this we emphasise that John Frum commemoration in Tanna, far from being an idiosyncratic commemorative event, is instead a logical continuation of cultural expression stemming from the arrival of the Allied forces in the 1940s.