Woleai, also known as Oleai, is a

coral atoll Corals are marine invertebrates within the class (biology), class Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact Colony (biology), colonies of many identical individual polyp (zoology), polyps. Coral species include the important C ...

of twenty-two

islands An island (or isle) is an isolated piece of habitat that is surrounded by a dramatically different habitat, such as water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, cays or keys. An island ...

in the western

Caroline Islands The Caroline Islands (or the Carolines) are a widely scattered archipelago of tiny islands in the western Pacific Ocean, to the north of New Guinea. Politically, they are divided between the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) in the centra ...

in the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

, and forms a

legislative district An electoral district, also known as an election district, legislative district, voting district, constituency, riding, ward, division, or (election) precinct is a subdivision of a larger state (a country, administrative region, or other poli ...

in the

Yap State Yap State, also known in the Yapese language as Nam nu Wa'ab (lit. "Island of Yap") or simply as Wa'ab, is one of the four states of the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM). The other states are Kosrae State, Pohnpei State, and Chuuk State. C ...

in the

Federated States of Micronesia The Federated States of Micronesia (; abbreviated FSM) is an island country in Oceania. It consists of four states from west to east, Yap, Chuuk, Pohnpei and Kosraethat are spread across the western Pacific. Together, the states comprise a ...

and is located approximately west-northwest of

Ifalik Ifalik (also spelled Ifaluk) is a coral atoll of four islands in the central Caroline Islands in the Pacific Ocean, and forms a legislative district in Yap State in the Federated States of Micronesia. Ifalik is located approximately east of Wolea ...

and northeast of

Eauripik Eauripik Island is a coral atoll of three islands in the western Caroline Islands in the Pacific Ocean, and forms a legislative district in Yap State in the Federated States of Micronesia. Its total land area is only 23.6 hectares , but it encl ...

. Woleai is also the name of the largest of the

islets An islet is a very small, often unnamed island. Most definitions are not precise, but some suggest that an islet has little or no vegetation and cannot support human habitation. It may be made of rock, sand and/or hard coral; may be permanent ...

constituting the atoll, lying to the northeast. The population of the atoll was 1,081 in 2000, on an area of 4.5 km².

Geography

The islands constitute a double atoll forming the number eight, with a total length of and up to wide; however, most of reef on the southern rim is submerged or poorly developed. The northern and eastern rims have several relatively large islets. The western lagoon is deeper and larger than its eastern counterpart. Both components are part of the same

seamount A seamount is a large geologic landform that rises from the ocean floor that does not reach to the water's surface (sea level), and thus is not an island, islet or cliff-rock. Seamounts are typically formed from extinct volcanoes that rise abru ...

. The total land area for both components combined is only .

History

The Austronesian ancestors of the

Micronesians The Micronesians or Micronesian peoples are various closely related ethnic groups native to Micronesia, a region of Oceania in the Pacific Ocean. They are a part of the Austronesian ethnolinguistic group, which has an Urheimat in Taiwan. Ethno ...

who make up the indigenous population of the Caroline Islands arrived in the islands around 2000 BC. Woleai subsequently became culturally unique among the Caroline Islands because of a

script Script may refer to: Writing systems * Script, a distinctive writing system, based on a repertoire of specific elements or symbols, or that repertoire * Script (styles of handwriting) ** Script typeface, a typeface with characteristics of handw ...

in use among some speakers of the

Woleaian language Woleaian is the main language of the island of Woleai and surrounding smaller islands in the state of Yap of the Federated States of Micronesia. Woleaian is a Chuukic language. Within that family, its closest relative is Satawalese, with which ...

prior to 1913. Woleai was among islands to the southeast of

Yap Yap ( yap, Waqaab) traditionally refers to an island group located in the Caroline Islands of the western Pacific Ocean, a part of Yap State. The name "Yap" in recent years has come to also refer to the state within the Federated States of Micro ...

that became

tributaries A tributary, or affluent, is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream or main stem (or parent) river or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean. Tributaries and the main stem river drain the surrounding drainage b ...

of the Yapese Empire from about 1500 BC. Woleai came under the control of the

Spanish Empire The Spanish Empire ( es, link=no, Imperio español), also known as the Hispanic Monarchy ( es, link=no, Monarquía Hispánica) or the Catholic Monarchy ( es, link=no, Monarquía Católica) was a colonial empire governed by Spain and its prede ...

in 1686, governed along with the rest of the Caroline Islands as part of the

Spanish East Indies The Spanish East Indies ( es , Indias orientales españolas ; fil, Silangang Indiyas ng Espanya) were the overseas territories of the Spanish Empire in Asia-Pacific, Asia and Oceania from 1565 to 1898, governed for the Spanish Crown from Mexico C ...

. Spain sold the islands to the

German Empire The German Empire (),Herbert Tuttle wrote in September 1881 that the term "Reich" does not literally connote an empire as has been commonly assumed by English-speaking people. The term literally denotes an empire – particularly a hereditary ...

in 1899. In 1914, in the early weeks of

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, the

Empire of Japan The also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was a historical nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the post-World War II 1947 constitution and subsequent fo ...

seized German possessions in the Pacific, including Woleai. Assigned a

League of Nations mandate A League of Nations mandate was a legal status for certain territories transferred from the control of one country to another following World War I, or the legal instruments that contained the internationally agreed-upon terms for administ ...

to administer the islands after the war in accordance with the

Treaty of Versailles The Treaty of Versailles (french: Traité de Versailles; german: Versailler Vertrag, ) was the most important of the peace treaties of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June ...

of 1919, Japan subsequently administered Woleai under the

South Seas Mandate The South Seas Mandate, officially the Mandate for the German Possessions in the Pacific Ocean Lying North of the Equator, was a League of Nations mandate in the "South Seas" given to the Empire of Japan by the League of Nations following Wo ...

. In 1944, as Allied forces closed in on the

Mariana Islands The Mariana Islands (; also the Marianas; in Chamorro: ''Manislan Mariånas'') are a crescent-shaped archipelago comprising the summits of fifteen longitudinally oriented, mostly dormant volcanic mountains in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, betw ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, a contingent of 6,426 troops from the

Imperial Japanese Army The was the official ground-based armed force of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945. It was controlled by the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office and the Ministry of the Army, both of which were nominally subordinate to the Emperor o ...

’s 50th Independent Mixed Brigade and the

Imperial Japanese Navy The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN; Kyūjitai: Shinjitai: ' 'Navy of the Greater Japanese Empire', or ''Nippon Kaigun'', 'Japanese Navy') was the navy of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945, when it was dissolved following Japan's surrender ...

’s 44th Base Guard Unit and 216th Base Construction Unit heavily fortified Woleai. They completely leveled Wolfe Islet and made into an

airfield An aerodrome (Commonwealth English) or airdrome (American English) is a location from which aircraft flight operations take place, regardless of whether they involve air cargo, passengers, or neither, and regardless of whether it is for publ ...

with a single runway and taxiway. They also constructed a

seaplane A seaplane is a powered fixed-wing aircraft capable of takeoff, taking off and water landing, landing (alighting) on water.Gunston, "The Cambridge Aerospace Dictionary", 2009. Seaplanes are usually divided into two categories based on their tec ...

anchorage off the southwest corner of Woleai Islet. Allied aircraft bombed the atoll and its military facilities on numerous occasions until the middle of 1945, driving its defenders underground and isolating them from supplies or reinforcements. By the

surrender of Japan The surrender of the Empire of Japan in World War II was announced by Emperor Hirohito on 15 August and formally signed on 2 September 1945, bringing the war's hostilities to a close. By the end of July 1945, the Imperial Japanese Navy ...

on September 2, 1945, only 1,650 survivors remained of the initial 6,426-strong Japanese garrison, the rest having perished largely because of starvation and disease rather than in Allied air raids. The

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

destroyer escort Destroyer escort (DE) was the United States Navy mid-20th-century classification for a warship designed with the endurance necessary to escort mid-ocean convoys of merchant marine ships. Development of the destroyer escort was promoted by th ...

picked up the surviving Japanese on September 17, 1945. Following World War II, the atoll came under the control of the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. The United States administered Woleai as part of the

Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands The Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (TTPI) was a United Nations trust territory in Micronesia administered by the United States from 1947 to 1994. History Spain initially claimed the islands that later composed the territory of the Trus ...

, a

United Nations trust territory United Nations trust territories were the successors of the remaining League of Nations mandates and came into being when the League of Nations ceased to exist in 1946. All of the trust territories were administered through the United Natio ...

, from 1947 until 1979, when Woleai became part of the independent

Education

Public schools:Higher Education in the Federated States of Micronesia
." Embassy of the Federated States of Micronesia Washington DC. Retrieved on February 23, 2018. * Woleai High School

Transportation

Woleai Civil Airfield, administered by the Federated States of Micronesia Division of Civil Aviation is located at an altitude of on Falalap at , southeast of

Yap International Airport Yap International Airport is an airport on Yap, the main island of the State of Yap in the Federated States of Micronesia. The airport receives regular commercial flights from Guam. Pacific Missionary Aviation makes periodic trips to the outer ...

and northeast of the main settlements on the island. The

runway According to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a runway is a "defined rectangular area on a land aerodrome prepared for the landing and takeoff of aircraft". Runways may be a man-made surface (often asphalt concrete, as ...

has not been maintained since 1992, and the airfield has closed due to severe deterioration of the runway and the government's decision not to perform repairs. The runway is now covered with vegetation. Before the airfield closed,

Caroline Islands Air Caroline Islands Air is a charted air carrier based in the Caroline Islands. Founded in 1995 as Caroline Pacific Air and renamed in 1997. Destinations * Pohnpei International Airport – former base 1995–2020 * Yap International Airport – ...

provided chartered flights to it. The runway was built by the

during World War II. After the war it was shortly US Naval Base Woleai, Fleet Post Office #3246.Woleai
'pacificwrecks.com''

References

* ''Columbia Gazetteer of the World''. Vol. 1, p. 900 * Skog, Captain Peter (2019). ''A Unique Live at Sea''. Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse UK. .

External links

*
Pacific WrecksV6T Amateur Radio Woleai
{{authority control Islands of Yap Municipalities of Yap Atolls of the Federated States of Micronesia

Geography

History

Education

Transportation

See also

References

External links