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 South Seas Evangelical Church, the United Church, the Seventh-day Adventist Church and other Christian churches. The name Honiara derives from "nagho ni ara" which roughly translates as "place of the east wind" or "facing the southeast wind" in one of the Guadalcanal languages. The town has not been extensively documented and little detailed material exists on it. The Battle of Henderson Field (1942), the last of the three major land offensives conducted by the Japanese during the Guadalcanal Campaign of World War II took place in what is now the airport area about to the east of the city