After the Protectorate Government established a lease system, leases on all three areas were sold to Lever's Pacific Plantations Pty. (q.v.) as part of a much larger block of land Levers controlled on the north coast.(Golden 1993, 146, 202; BSIP files 18/I/2 and 18/II 5) In 1919-1920 a Lands Commission was appointed to investigate all previous land alienation in the Protectorate, including claims that purchases on Guadalcanal had been unfair.

The area to the west, bordering on Point Cruz, called 'Ta-wtu' or Mamara Plantation, was purchased by Karl Oscar Svensen (q.v.) and his partner Rabuth, and the area to the east, named 'Tenavatu' was purchased by Svensen's employee William Dumphy, apparently late in the first decade of the century.There they quickly began building an airfield at Lungga and a camp at nearby Kukum, from which they planned to interact with Allied shipping in the Pacific and with operations in nearby New Guinea.The Japanese airfield on Guadalcanal was almost complete when in early August the Americans invaded and secured Guadalcanal, which halted the Japanese southern advance.Heavy fighting took place all along the Guadalcanal coast, much of it in what is now the centre of Honiara; for several months the surrounds of Mataniko River was a 'no-man's land' between the Japanese and the American forces.Once the Japanese were routed, the Americans set up their main base at Lungga to the east of the present town, although the huge 1st Marine Division was spread over three Levers' plantations: Kukum, Lungga and Tenaru.