The next day a repair ship set about hoisting the submarine with a crane. But the cable snapped, consigning her back to the seabed. By mid-afternoon, with the air running out and water seeping through the damaged craft, tapping came from just one compartment.

Another attempt to raise her that evening had to be suspended due to an air raid. And when the diver next visited the submarine, the tapping had ceased.

After getting a good going-over in February and April 1944, Truk was essentially isolated and left to starve.

Meanwhile the American armada continued through the Pacific, stopping off to capture strategic islands including Guam, Tarawa and Iwo Jima. It proved to be a costly and bloody exercise against desperate Japanese soldiers who didn’t know how to surrender and fought with the tenacity of Monty Python’s Black Knight.

Outnumbered and out of ammunition they made mad, hopeless banzai charges into the American guns. Of the 5000 Japanese defenders on Tarawa, only 17 were taken alive. In the face of such stubbornness, the Americans reckoned it would take three years and one million casualties to invade Tokyo, and ran out of patience.

On 6 August 1945,a B-29 Super Fortress dropped an atom bomb on Hiroshima, obliterating the city centre plus 120 000 residents. Three days later, an atom bomb on Nagasaki killed another 70 000 civilians. In the face of such devastation even the Japanese flinched and finally surrendered.

After the war, there were still some scores to be settled and loose ends to be tied up, such as the fate of 10 American pilots who had been shot down over Truk and captured. Investigations revealed they had been used for bayonet practice, bizarre medical experiments, or simply beheaded and eaten.

In May 1947, twelve Japanese soldiers were hung for war crimes committed on Truk. Meanwhile, back in America, the architects and executioners of the strategy to fire-bomb civilians became heroes and politicians. In some ways the morality of war is complicated, but in other ways it’s simple: don’t lose.

It’s New Year’s Eve and we’re gathered on the deck of the SS Thorfinn, tired from our diving but determined to see in the new year. Lithe young local girls sashay past in tightly-wrapped skirts, serving a cocktail of fruit juice and gasoline. In their midst is Skipper Lance Higgs, who’s married or related to most of them.

Lance has been sailing these seas for over 20 years, and if only a fraction of his salty tales are true, he’s still lived a more colourful life than most. As we count down to midnight, Lance unwraps and lights an ancient flare, which we all expect to blow up in his hand.

Miraculously, it fires off successfully, tracing a bright arc into the night and illuminating the silhouette of a nearby atoll as it flowers and softly drops. Lulled by a warm breeze and gently rocking boat, you can almost forget the lagoon’s many ghosts and imagine you’re in paradise.

Published courtesy of Out There Travel.