Melanesians who lived mainly in small coastal villages of about one hundred people, the island had been listlessly batoned among a series of imperial powers during the early twentieth century until the Japanese invaded in early 1942 to establish small air and sea bases adjacent to Bougainville’s harbors, primarily along the east coast. They made no attempt—and certainly did not have the resources—to control the whole island. Like latter-year Portuguese colonial settlers, the Americans decided to follow much the same coastal pattern. They knew it made no sense to invest blood and treasure to
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