Solomon Islands wants to emulate Papua New Guinea's battlefield tourism as the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Guadalcanal approaches.
The country is looking to the US, Australia, New Zealand and Japan for visitors, keen to discover the history of this legendary conflict.
In this remote corner of the Pacific, the tide of war turned against the Japanese in a series of battles that began with Guadalcanal.
“This where it started, this is where we took ground off the Japanese, and the first step on the road to Tokyo took place here ,” Solomon Islands war historian John Innes told SBS.
A US landing craft abandoned at Tetere Beach, Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands. Source: Stefan Armbruster SBS News
For decades he has run war history tours around the capital Honiara, which is built on a battlefield.
“WWII tourism is seen as an integral part of what they do here, but tourism here has been tiny,” he said.
Just over 20,000 tourists a year visit the Solomon Islands, less than 100 a day.
Unlike Papua New Guinea's famous Kokoda track, the Solomon Islands does not have the same lure yet.
The war’s trail of destruction could give one of the world's poorest countries a step up as a tourist destination.
After the Allies landed on August 7, 1942, they fought a brutal six-month battle across the archipelago that cost tens of thousands of lives.
A US P-39 Airacobra in the Rendova Harbour, Solomon Islands. Source: Stefan Armbruster SBS News
Wreckage from the war is littered across the Solomon Islands.
But underdeveloped tourism infrastructure and the high cost of travel are two reasons why the Solomons' industry struggles despite an incredible array of war relics to see above and below the water.
Australian-owned dive operator Dive Munda specialises in war wrecks and has just won an international tourism award.
“The world doesn't really know about a tiny little village in Munda and how much of the WWII history we have here,” co-owner Belinda Botha said.
Lying in the surrounding lagoons are Koviki Corsair, Wildcat, Douglas Dauntless and P-39 Airacobra warplanes and the Japanese ship Kashi Maru.
Ammunition collected from the Munda battlefield, Solomon Islands. Source: Stefan Armbruster SBS News
“We're still discovering WWII wrecks. We dived a couple of weeks ago and we just happened to stumble upon some American tanks,” Ms Botha said.
Out in these remote islands, the Allies and the Japanese suffered heavy losses in the air, at sea and on land.
In Munda, Alphie Barney Paulsen runs the Peter Joseph WWII Museum on what was the battlefield for the local airstrip.
“This is Peter Joseph, the first dog tag that I found, and so this when I began my collection,” he said showing the tag he found decades ago.
The museum is Mr Paulsen's life's work and he scours the jungles for relics of the soldiers’ daily routine and their instruments of death.
US dog tags found in Munda, Solomon Islands. Source: Stefan Armbruster SBS News
Piled high are helmets, guns, hand grenades, Coke bottles and a large quantity of ammunition and bombs, most of which he says have been defused.
“It's my hobby, I have to go around in the bush, it's right inside my blood stream,” Mr Paulsen said.
The commemoration for the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Guadalcanal will be held next year.
The last veterans - a large foreign military contingent from the United States, Australia and New Zealand - are expected to attend along with war buffs, relatives and visitors.
