World War II had left the islands in ruins. Trees had been destroyed and bomb craters were everywhere. The boom years of business under the Japanese were nothing but a dim memory. At the end of the war, the US Navy worked on what could be done to rebuild a shattered economy. The US Commercial Company (USCC) was engaged to survey the islands and design a plan for development during the post-war years. USCC would give rise to the big island trading companies that dominated some of the islands for years afterwards. Its other attempts to jump start small-scale production in the islands, however, prefigured persistent problems for the islands.