Pacific Partnership Delivers Books to Kiribati

Navy News

Pacific Partnership 2009 delivered 16 boxes of historical books and archival materials as part of Project Handclasp to the Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart convent.

"A dream has come true with the arrival of these archival materials," said Sister Margaret from the Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart convent.

The donation includes new and used World War II-related historical, non-fiction books and numerous related DVDs/VHS videotapes and magazines.

"We also included numerous archival materials (storage boxes, binders, protective sheets, etc.) which the convent requested," said Jones.

"The historical items are to supplement the orderly, but limited convent library/archives which serves the Tarawa community and Republic of Kiribati. We also purchased a new laptop computer and software packages for the archives and included these in the shipment."

"The project resulted from a World War II tour I led to Tarawa in November 2008 for the 65th anniversary of the Battle of Tarawa, when the 2nd Marine Division assaulted the Japanese forces on the atoll and along with the Army's assault on Makin atoll, also in Kiribati, liberated the then-named Gilbert Islands," said retired Navy Capt. Wilbur Jones, in an email about the donation.

"During the week I spent there I visited the convent and was impressed with how little information they had on World War II, the Pacific War and their liberation."

Jones, a member of Wilmington, N.C. Rotary Club, organized a book and archival materials drive shortly after he returned from his Tarawa trip.

"On return, I contacted the U.S. ambassador, Steve McGann, in Fiji, whom I had met on Tarawa. He turned me over to his military attache, U.S. Army Maj. William Boswell," said Jones.

Boswell knew Pacific Partnership would travel to Tarawa as part of the 2009 mission, so he contacted Lt. Cmdr. Jason Patterson, one of the mission's advance team leads. Patterson was familiar with Project Handclasp and suggested the Wilmington Rotary Club turn the donation over to Project Handclasp to be transported to Kiribati as part of the mission.

By this point, the donated materials needed to arrive in San Diego in time to leave as part of Pacific Partnership. But Jones knew that moving his time line up was the right thing to do. He said his biggest concern at the time was finding a way to ship the books to Kiribati because of the expense and the amount of time it takes packages to travel to Kiribati. He said he shipped a package to the sisters via U.S. Mail in December 2008 and it reached the convent in early May.

Project Handclasp ensured safe delivery to Kiribati at no cost to either the Rotary Club or the convent, as Project Handclasp is designed to provide opportune lift on U.S. Navy ships for goods donated by the people of the United States for people of the nations the Navy visits.

Pacific Partnership works by, with and through partner nations, non-governmental organizations and other U.S. government and international agencies to execute a variety of humanitarian civic assistance (HCA) missions in the Pacific Fleet Area of Responsibility from a ship dedicated to this HCA mission. This year's mission is focused ashore with a variety of engineering, medical and dental civic action programs providing humanitarian civic assistance. The mission continues on to the Republic of the Marshall Islands and has completed visits to Samoa, Tonga, Solomon Islands and Kiribati.

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