French Frigate Shoals airfield aerial photo

PBY-5A USCG at French Frigate Shoals 1953

Tern Island is a tiny

coral island A coral island is a type of island formed from coral detritus and associated organic material. It occurs in tropical and sub-tropical areas, typically as part of a coral reef which has grown to cover a far larger area under the sea. Ecosystem ...

located in the

French Frigate Shoals The French Frigate Shoals ( Hawaiian: Kānemilohai) is the largest atoll in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. Its name commemorates French explorer Jean-François de La Pérouse, who nearly lost two frigates when attempting to navigate the sh ...

in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, at , approximately west north west of

Oahu Oahu () ( Hawaiian: ''Oʻahu'' ()), also known as "The Gathering Place", is the third-largest of the Hawaiian Islands. It is home to roughly one million people—over two-thirds of the population of the U.S. state of Hawaii. The island of O� ...

. It has a land area of . The island provides a breeding

habitat In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...

to 18 species of seabirds, threatened Hawaiian green sea turtles, and endangered

Hawaiian monk seal The Hawaiian monk seal (''Neomonachus schauinslandi'') is an endangered species of earless seal in the family Phocidae that is endemic to the Hawaiian Islands. The Hawaiian monk seal is one of two extant monk seal species; the other is the ...

s. It is maintained as a field station in the

Hawaiian Islands National Wildlife Refuge Hawaiian may refer to: * Native Hawaiians, the current term for the indigenous people of the Hawaiian Islands or their descendants * Hawaii state residents, regardless of ancestry (only used outside of Hawaii) * Hawaiian language Historic uses * ...

by the

United States Fish and Wildlife Service The United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS or FWS) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior dedicated to the management of fish, wildlife, and natural habitats. The mission of the agency is "working with othe ...

. The island has an

airstrip 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 pub ...

over the length of the island, built in 1942. This has supported use by the U.S. Navy, Coast Guard, and wildlife services since that time, and various types of operations have been conducted from this location which is host to limited facilities for habitation. The US Fish & Wildlife service closed its field station on the island at the end of 2012. There was a Naval base from 1942 to 1946, a Coast Guard Base from 1952 to 1979, and finally a Fish & Wildlife station from 1979 to 2012.

History

Atoll research bulletin (1971) (19722865924)

The atoll is home to an airstrip created in 1942-3, and was later used by the Coast Guard. During WW2 nearly 130 people staffed the island, while the later wildlife station had between 5-15 staff on Tern. After the

Battle of Midway The Battle of Midway was a major naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II that took place on 4–7 June 1942, six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea. The U.S. Navy under ...

in the summer of 1942, the

U.S. 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 o ...

built a Naval Air Station on Tern Island, enlarging the island sufficiently to support a 3300 ft. (1005 m) landing strip. The station's main function was as an

emergency landing An emergency landing is a premature landing made by an aircraft in response to an emergency involving an imminent or ongoing threat to the safety and operation of the aircraft, or involving a sudden need for a passenger or crew on board to term ...

site for planes flying between Hawaii and Midway Atoll. The original

seawall A seawall (or sea wall) is a form of coastal defense constructed where the sea, and associated coastal processes, impact directly upon the landforms of the coast. The purpose of a seawall is to protect areas of human habitation, conservation ...

, runway, and some of the buildings remain. Construction on the island started in July 1942 and the facility was commissioned in March 1943 as a Naval Air Station. The base was meant to stop the Japanese using the atolls to attack mainland Hawaii, as had happened during

Operation K was a Japanese naval operation in World War II, intended as reconnaissance of Pearl Harbor and disruption of repair and salvage operations following the surprise attack on 7 December 1941. It culminated on 4 March 1942, with an unsucces ...

. The island was increased from 11 acres to 34 acres, and there were parking spots for 22 aircraft. There was a 90 feet tall radar tower also and barracks for the island's crew. Air patrols were flown from Tern island to do reconnaissance in this region. The base had some defenses during WW2, including a battery of 90 mm guns, 3-inch guns, and also numerous .30 cal machine guns emplacements. Having survived the battle of Midway, the base on Tern island served as a stopping point for aircraft flying between Midway and the main Hawaiian islands, such as for refueling or emergency landings. One extraordinary emergency landing occurred in 1944, when a Curtis Commando with dozens of marines had an engine failure and was close to ditching in the ocean. The twin-engine transport plane was down to an altitude of less than 300 feet, despite having ditched as much weight as feasible when it managed to land on Tern island. The aircraft was able to land with one engine out, and there were no deaths. In 1945, Tern island hosted the USMC comedy show "All Fouled Up" when the entourage's R4D aircraft could not land at Midway due to fog. The show was performed at Tern island, and the group went on to Midway later. The show did a two month long tour at US Pacific bases. The naval base operated from 1942 to 1946, and a

U.S. Coast Guard The United States Coast Guard (USCG) is the maritime security, search and rescue, and law enforcement service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the country's eight uniformed services. The service is a maritime, military, mul ...

station operated from 1952 until 1979. In 1969, a

tsunami A tsunami ( ; from ja, 津波, lit=harbour wave, ) is a series of waves in a water body caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a large lake. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other underwater exp ...

wiped out much of the station, and it had to be repaired. In 1969, when the island was inundated with water, the crew was evacuated by helicopter by the ship HMNZS ''Waikato'', and taken to Midway. In 1946 two fisheries were established on Tern island, and they flew out fish to Honolulu on a DC-3 aircraft. From 1961 to 1983 there was also a missile tracking station on Tern island. Between 1986 and 1991 Tern Island was used to study the Green Turtle (

Chelonia mydas The green sea turtle (''Chelonia mydas''), also known as the green turtle, black (sea) turtle or Pacific green turtle, is a species of large sea turtle of the family Cheloniidae. It is the only species in the genus ''Chelonia''. Its range exten ...

). A

Piper Aztec The Piper PA-23, named Apache and later Aztec, is an American four- to six-seat twin-engined light aircraft aimed at the general-aviation market. The United States Navy and military forces in other countries also used it in small numbers. Origin ...

has landed over 600 times at Tern Island. There are typically monthly flights to

Honolulu Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the island ...

for mail, and heavier cargo usually comes by water. An alternative is email, either by satellite phone or the island's broadband

internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

connection. The old U.S. Coast Guard barracks continued to be used into the 21st century. Upgrades include the cleanup of old waste, improved water tanks, and

solar power Solar power is the conversion of energy from sunlight into electricity, either directly using photovoltaics (PV) or indirectly using concentrated solar power. Photovoltaic cells convert light into an electric current using the photovolta ...

. The solar power runs a reverse osmosis water maker, capable of producing 1200 gallons a day. There is also a diesel generator with a 500-gallon fuel tank. In the summer of 2004, 1200 feet of seawall was repaired with a new design, and the old boat dock was replaced by boat ramp for small boats. However, thousands of feet of seawall were still in need of repair. A Fish and Wild Life field station was active at the island from 1979 to 2012. The closure came after a storm in December 2012, when several people evacuated from Tern island in advance of a severe storm. The storm damaged some of facilities on the island including the barracks. The US Fish & Wildlife service closed its field station on Tern island at the end of 2012. In 2013, the island was imaged for a Google Street View project, to allow the islands to be viewed online in a special viewer. Google and the US Government worked to make 5 islands of a National Pacific nature reserve viewable as part of this project. The other islands in the Pacific surveyed for the program included East Island (also in the French Frigate Shoals), Laysan Island, Lisianski Island, and Pearl and Hermes Atoll. The online viewer allows a series of panoramic images from head height to be viewed a course around the island. The path takes views along much of the length of the airstrip and along part of the shore. In 2013 the NOAA ship ''Oscar Sette'' visited the French Frigate Shoals, and tent field camp was setup on Tern island. The storm at the end of 2012 had left the existing barracks uninhabitable, and the water system also not usable. Water had to be brought to the island in jugs from boats on this expedition. The goods for the expedition were offloaded from small boats at the Tern island dock. In 2019, a full survey of green sea turtles on Tern island was conducted by biologists. 371 green sea turtles were found on the island. In 2020, the beach at Tern island was designated as environmentally polluted by plastic trash. This ruling came after years of research at the site, including 14.5 thousand kilograms of trash within 5000 meters of the beach over 11 years. Of this debris over 70 percent of the trash was plastic, which has become a point of concern on these Pacific islands. The nature of how debris from the sea accumulates on Tern island was studied in the 2010s. In 2020, the Papahanaumokuakea Marine Debris Project removed tens of thousands of pounds/kg of debris from the French Frigate Shoals, including Tern island.

Birds

The use of Tern Island by birds has been studied. One concern is birds eating plastic trash, which was studied at Tern between 2006 an 2013. Tern Island is a popular place for researchers to study Pacific sea and shore birds. There are about sixteen (16)

seabird Seabirds (also known as marine birds) are birds that are adapted to life within the marine environment. While seabirds vary greatly in lifestyle, behaviour and physiology, they often exhibit striking convergent evolution, as the same enviro ...

species seen at Tern Island in the early 21st century. Some of the bird species found at Tern Island include: * Sooty tern *

White tern The white tern or common white tern (''Gygis alba'') is a small seabird found across the tropical oceans of the world. It is sometimes known as the fairy tern, although this name is potentially confusing as it is also the common name of '' Sternu ...

Brown noddy The brown noddy or common noddy (''Anous stolidus'') is a seabird in the family Laridae. The largest of the noddies, it can be told from the closely related black noddy by its larger size and plumage, which is dark brown rather than black. The b ...

Black noddy The black noddy or white-capped noddy (''Anous minutus'') is a seabird from the family Laridae. It is a medium-sized species of tern with black plumage and a white cap. It closely resembles the lesser noddy (''Anous tenuirostris'') with which it ...

Masked booby The masked booby (''Sula dactylatra''), also called the masked gannet or the blue-faced booby, is a large seabird of the booby and gannet family, Sulidae. First described by the French naturalist René-Primevère Lesson in 1831, the masked boo ...

* Brown booby * Red-footed booby *

Wedge-tailed shearwater The wedge-tailed shearwater (''Ardenna pacifica'') is a medium-large shearwater in the seabird family Procellariidae. It is one of the shearwater species that is sometimes referred to as a muttonbird, like the sooty shearwater of New Zealand and ...

Tristram's storm petrel Tristram's storm petrel or ''akihikeehiale'' (''Hydrobates tristrami'') is a species of seabird in the storm petrel family Hydrobatidae. The species' common and scientific name is derived from the English clergyman Henry Baker Tristram; the specie ...

Black-footed albatross The black-footed albatross (''Phoebastria nigripes'') is a large seabird of the albatross family Diomedeidae from the North Pacific. All but 2.5% of the population is found among the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. It is one of three species of al ...

Laysan albatross The Laysan albatross (''Phoebastria immutabilis'') is a large seabird that ranges across the North Pacific. The Northwestern Hawaiian Islands are home to 99.7% of the population. This small (for its family) gull-like albatross is the second-most ...

* Great frigatebird In 1998 and 1999, the

black-footed albatross The black-footed albatross (''Phoebastria nigripes'') is a large seabird of the albatross family Diomedeidae from the North Pacific. All but 2.5% of the population is found among the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. It is one of three species of al ...

(''Phoebastria nigripes'') and

(''Phoebastria immutabilis'') were studied at Tern Island. The research recorded a particularly unsuccessful nesting season for the albatrosses. In 2010, a study of the area noted that other rare birds are sometimes seen at Tern, as well. Examples of birds occasionally but seldom seen at Tern Island include the

short-eared owl The short-eared owl (''Asio flammeus'') is a widespread grassland species in the family Strigidae. Owls belonging to genus ''Asio'' are known as the eared owls, as they have tufts of feathers resembling mammalian ears. These "ear" tufts may or ...

(''Asio flammeus'') and fork-tailed swift (''Apus pacificus''). Tern Island is popular with green sea turtles; in 1977 there were no nests on the island; twenty years later, this had apparently grown to around 700 nests. Some of the migratory shorebirds known to overwinter at Tern in the early 21st century include: * Pacific golden plover (Pluvialis fulva) *

Ruddy turnstone The ruddy turnstone (''Arenaria interpres'') is a small cosmopolitan wading bird, one of two species of turnstone in the genus ''Arenaria''. It is now classified in the sandpiper family Scolopacidae but was formerly sometimes placed in the plov ...

(Arenaria interpres) *

Sanderling The sanderling (''Calidris alba'') is a small wading bird. The name derives from Old English ''sand-yrðling'', "sand-ploughman". The genus name is from Ancient Greek ''kalidris'' or ''skalidris'', a term used by Aristotle for some grey-colou ...

(Calidris alba) *

Wandering tattler The wandering tattler (''Tringa incana''; formerly ''Heteroscelus incanus'': Pereira & Baker, 2005; Banks ''et al.'', 2006), is a medium-sized wading bird. It is similar in appearance to the closely related gray-tailed tattler, ''T. brevipes''. ...

(Heteroscelus incanus) *

Bristle-thighed curlew The bristle-thighed curlew (''Numenius tahitiensis'') is a medium-sized shorebird that breeds in Alaska and winters on tropical Pacific islands. It is known in Mangareva as ''kivi'' or ''kivikivi'' and in Rakahanga as ''kihi''; it is said to be ...

(Numenius tahitensis)

Seawall

During WW2 in response to the Japanese use of the atolls and to provide a link with Midway, the island was expanded to allow for a landing strip. The island was protected from the surf by 5000 feet of double steel pylon sea wall, with walls separated by 4 feet (over 1 meter) which was finished in 1943. The original WW2 sea wall is composed of over 5000 steel pilings. Maintenance on the wall was further conducted by the U.S. Coast Guard between 1952 to 1979. In 2000/1 the United States Congress approved 10 million USD to repair the island. In 2004, the Fish & Wild Life service did a 12 million dollar project to repair the seawall and some other maintenance on the island. This project repaired 1200 feet of seawall. The project was managed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Geography

Some of the beaches on the island include: * Shell Beach & Crab Beach, on the north side of the island * East Beach * South Beach There is a small boat ramp since 2004, which replaced dock and boat hoist.

References

External links