Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Honiara The American development of Honiara as an army base and war depot turned Honiara into the new capital for the British Solomon Islands. The Catholic population tripled between 1947 and 1957, from 1000 to 3000. The first Holy Cross Church, built in 1947, was replaced by a much larger structure in 1957. The statues of the Blessed Virgin and St Joseph, which had somehow survived the Japanese air raids of the Battle of Guadalcanal, were positioned outside the 1957 church. These statues were re-positioned once again outside the 1978 cathedral; damage caused by bullets can be easily seen on both.
Honiara the 1960s and 1970s some two-thirds of the investment into economic development in the country went into developing the infrastructure of Honiara, despite the fact that at the time only some five percent of Solomon Islanders lived there. Like Tulagi, the town did not grow substantially as a result of industrialisation. As Trevor Sofield says, "The shops and businesses in these centers served the needs of the government officials and expatriate businessmen, planters, and traders. Honiara, like many other ex-colonial cities, still reflects the political, economic and cultural structure of its former metropolitan mentor much more than it does the