Nauru
Command Ridge
Japanese guns rust on their wartime mounts, still guarding empty Pacific above the world's smallest republic.
Rust bleeds down the barrel of a Japanese gun, its aim still fixed on empty sky. The concrete beneath it has cracked but not crumbled. Seventy-one metres up, at the highest point on Nauru, coast, reef and open Pacific lie close in every direction.
Command Ridge is the highest point on Nauru at seventy-one metres, a line of high ground geologists read as probably the original rim of the coral-limestone island. Japanese forces fortified it during the 1942 to 1945 occupation, mounting 127-millimetre anti-aircraft guns above an island ringed with six-inch coastal guns and pillboxes. The command complex still holds machine-gun mountings, zig-zag trenches, rifle pits and a stone bunker marked with Japanese writing, and the recorded relics run from ammunition crates and a searchlight battery to ceramic rice bowls, radio valves and a typewriter. The occupation was catastrophic for Nauruans: 1,200 were deported to Truk and only 737 survived to come home after the surrender aboard HMAS Diamantina in September 1945. Guided walks climb the ridge on well-formed paths, taking in the cannons, the old railway alignment and an abandoned German communications centre.
Solo
Climb with a guide and stand where the gunners stood; seventy-one metres is enough, on Nauru, to put the sea on every horizon. The relics reward slow looking, from the trench lines to the writing on the bunker.
Friends
The overgrown emplacements and the view give a group plenty to explore and argue over. A local guide turns rusting metal into the island's sharpest history lesson, and the climb is short enough to leave the afternoon free.
- Anti-aircraft guns of 127 millimetres were mounted here during the Japanese occupation, and guided tours still climb to the cannons.
- At seventy-one metres, the ridge is Nauru's highest point and probably a remnant of the coral island's original rim.
- The command complex keeps its zig-zag trenches, rifle pits and a stone bunker with Japanese writing, with rice bowls and radio valves among the recorded relics.
- Well-formed paths cross the ridge past the old phosphate railway alignment and an abandoned German communications centre.
The ridge itself sells nothing; take water up and eat once you are back down on the coast.
Ask for fish done the Nauruan way once you descend: raw is the island favourite, with barbecue and deep-frying close behind.
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