Wake Island ( mh, Ānen Kio, translation=island of the kio flower; also known as Wake Atoll) is a

coral Corals are marine invertebrates within the class Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact colonies of many identical individual polyps. Coral species include the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and secre ...

atoll An atoll () is a ring-shaped island, including a coral rim that encircles a lagoon partially or completely. There may be coral islands or cays on the rim. Atolls are located in warm tropical or subtropical oceans and seas where corals can ...

in the western Pacific Ocean in the northeastern area of the

Micronesia Micronesia (, ) is a subregion of Oceania, consisting of about 2,000 small islands in the western Pacific Ocean. It has a close shared cultural history with three other island regions: the Philippines to the west, Polynesia to the east, and ...

subregion A subregion is a part of a larger region or continent and is usually based on location. Cardinal directions, such as south are commonly used to define a subregion. United Nations subregions The Statistics Division of the United Nations (UN) ...

, east of

Guam Guam (; ch, Guåhan ) is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States in the Micronesia subregion of the western Pacific Ocean. It is the westernmost point and territory of the United States (reckoned from the geographic ce ...

, west of

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 islan ...

, southeast of

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and List of cities in Japan, largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, ...

and north of

Majuro Majuro (; Marshallese: ' ) is the capital and largest city of the Marshall Islands. It is also a large coral atoll of 64 islands in the Pacific Ocean. It forms a legislative district of the Ratak (Sunrise) Chain of the Marshall Islands. The at ...

. The island is an unorganized,

unincorporated territory Territories of the United States are sub-national administrative divisions overseen by the federal government of the United States. The various American territories differ from the U.S. states and Indian reservation, tribal reservations as ...

belonging to (but not a part 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 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

that is also claimed by the Republic of the Marshall Islands. Wake Island is one of the most isolated islands in the world. The nearest inhabited island is

Utirik Atoll Utirik Atoll or Utrik Atoll ( Marshallese: , ) is a coral atoll of 10 islands in the Pacific Ocean, and forms a legislative district of the Ratak Chain of the Marshall Islands. Its total land area is only , but it encloses a lagoon with an area ...

in the Marshall Islands, to the southeast. The United States took possession of Wake Island in 1899. One of 14 U.S.

insular area In the law of the United States, an insular area is a U.S.-associated jurisdiction that is not part of the 50 states or the District of Columbia. This includes fourteen U.S. territories administered under U.S. sovereignty, as well as three s ...

s, Wake Island is administered by the

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army S ...

under an agreement with the

U.S. Department of the Interior The United States Department of the Interior (DOI) is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government headquartered at the Main Interior Building, located at 1849 C Street NW in Washington, D.C. It is responsible for the ma ...

. The center of activity on the atoll is at Wake Island Airfield, which is primarily used as a mid-Pacific refueling stop for military aircraft and as an emergency landing area. The runway is the longest strategic runway in the Pacific islands. South of the runway is the Wake Island Launch Center, a

missile In military terminology, a missile is a missile guidance, guided airborne ranged weapon capable of self-propelled flight usually by a jet engine or rocket motor. Missiles are thus also called guided missiles or guided rockets (when a previously ...

launch site. The island has no permanent inhabitants, but approximately 100 people live there at any given time. On December 8, 1941 (within a few hours of the

attack on Pearl Harbor The attack on Pearl HarborAlso known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawa ...

, Wake Island being on the opposite side of the

International Date Line The International Date Line (IDL) is an internationally accepted demarcation on the surface of Earth, running between the South and North Poles and serving as the boundary between one calendar day and the next. It passes through the Pacific ...

), American forces on Wake Island were attacked by Japanese bombers. This action marked the commencement of the

Battle of Wake Island The Battle of Wake Island was a battle of the Pacific campaign of World War II, fought on Wake Island. The assault began simultaneously with the attack on Pearl Harbor naval and air bases in Hawaii on the morning of 8 December 1941 (7 December ...

. On December 11, 1941, Wake Island was the site of the Japanese Empire's first unsuccessful amphibious attack on U.S. territory in World War II when U.S. Marines, with some U.S. Navy personnel and civilians on the island, repelled an attempted Japanese invasion. The island fell to overwhelming Japanese forces 12 days later; it remained occupied by Japanese forces until it was surrendered to the U.S. in September 1945 at the end of the war. The submerged and emergent lands at Wake Island comprise a unit of the

Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument The Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument is a group of unorganized, mostly unincorporated United States Pacific Island territories managed by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service of the United States Department of the Int ...

. Wake Island is one of nine insular areas that comprise the

United States Minor Outlying Islands The United States Minor Outlying Islands is a statistical designation defined by the International Organization for Standardization's ISO 3166-1 code. The entry code is ISO 3166-2:UM. The minor outlying islands and groups of islands consist ...

, a statistical designation defined by the

International Organization for Standardization The International Organization for Standardization (ISO ) is an international standard development organization composed of representatives from the national standards organizations of member countries. Membership requirements are given in Ar ...

ISO 3166-1 ISO 3166-1 (''Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions – Part 1: Country codes'') is a standard defining codes for the names of countries, dependent territories, and special areas of geographical interest. It ...

code.

Etymology

Wake Island derives its name from British

sea captain A sea captain, ship's captain, captain, master, or shipmaster, is a high-grade licensed mariner who holds ultimate command and responsibility of a merchant vessel.Aragon and Messner, 2001, p.3. The captain is responsible for the safe and efficie ...

Samuel Wake, who rediscovered the atoll in 1796 while in command of the ''Prince William Henry''. The name is sometimes attributed to Captain William Wake, who also is reported to have discovered the atoll from the ''Prince William Henry'' in 1792.

Geography

Wake is located two-thirds of the way from

. Honolulu is to the east, and Guam to the west. Midway Atoll is to the northeast. The closest land is the uninhabited Bokak Atoll, away in the

Marshall Islands The Marshall Islands ( mh, Ṃajeḷ), officially the Republic of the Marshall Islands ( mh, Aolepān Aorōkin Ṃajeḷ),'' () is an independent island country and microstate near the Equator in the Pacific Ocean, slightly west of the Internati ...

, to the southeast. The atoll is to the west of the

and in the Wake Island Time Zone (

UTC+12 UTC+12:00 is an identifier for a time offset from UTC of +12:00. As standard time (year-round) ''Principal cities: Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Mata Utu, Majuro, Yaren, Funafuti, South Tarawa on Tarawa'' North Asia *Russia – Kamchatka ...

), the easternmost time zone in the United States and almost one day ahead of the

50 states The United States of America is a federal republic consisting of 50 states, a federal district ( Washington, D.C., the capital city of the United States), five major territories, and various minor islands. Both the states and the United ...

. Although Wake is officially called an island in the singular form, it is geologically an atoll composed of three islets (Wake, Wilkes, and Peale islets) and a

reef A reef is a ridge or shoal of rock, coral or similar relatively stable material, lying beneath the surface of a natural body of water. Many reefs result from natural, abiotic component, abiotic processes—deposition (geology), deposition of ...

surrounding a central lagoon.

Climate

Wake Island lies in the tropical zone, but is subject to periodic

temperate In geography, the temperate climates of Earth occur in the middle latitudes (23.5° to 66.5° N/S of Equator), which span between the tropics and the polar regions of Earth. These zones generally have wider temperature ranges throughout t ...

storms during the winter. Sea surface temperatures are warm all year long, reaching above in summer and autumn.

Typhoons A typhoon is a mature tropical cyclone that develops between 180° and 100°E in the Northern Hemisphere. This region is referred to as the Northwestern Pacific Basin, and is the most active tropical cyclone basin on Earth, accounting for ...

occasionally pass over the island.

Typhoons

Wake Island Memorial Chapel damaged by Hurricane-Typhoon Ioke 2006

On October 19, 1940, an unnamed typhoon hit Wake Island with winds. This was the first recorded typhoon to hit the island since observations began in 1935. Super Typhoon Olive impacted Wake on September 16, 1952, with wind speeds reaching . Olive caused major flooding, destroyed approximately 85% of its structures and caused in damage. On September 16, 1967, at 10:40 pm local time, the eye of Super Typhoon Sarah passed over the island. Sustained winds in the eyewall were , from the north before the eye and from the south afterward. All non-reinforced structures were demolished. There were no serious injuries, and the majority of the civilian population was evacuated after the storm. On August 28, 2006, the United States Air Force evacuated all 188 residents and suspended all operations as Category 5 Super Typhoon Ioke headed toward Wake. By August 31 the southwestern eyewall of the storm passed over the island, with winds well over , driving a

storm surge A storm surge, storm flood, tidal surge, or storm tide is a coastal flood or tsunami-like phenomenon of rising water commonly associated with low-pressure weather systems, such as cyclones. It is measured as the rise in water level above the ...

and waves directly into the lagoon inflicting major damage. A U.S. Air Force assessment and repair team returned to the island in September 2006 and restored limited function to the airfield and facilities leading ultimately to a full return to normal operations.

Ecology

Air Force partners for environmental conservation on Wake Atoll

Wake Island is home to the Wake Atoll National Wildlife Refuge. Native vegetation communities of Wake Island include scrub, grass, and wetlands. ''

Tournefortia argentia ''Heliotropium arboreum'' is a species of flowering plant in the borage family, Boraginaceae. It is native to tropical Asia including southern China, Madagascar, northern Australia, and most of the atolls and high islands of Micronesia and Polyn ...

'' dominated scrublands exist in association with '' Scaevola taccada'', ''

Cordia subcordata ''Cordia subcordata'' is a species of flowering tree in the borage family, Boraginaceae, that occurs in eastern Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia, northern Australia and the Pacific Islands (including Hawaii). The plant is known by a variet ...

'', and '' Pisonia grandis''. Grassland species include ''

Dactyloctenium aegyptium ''Dactyloctenium aegyptium'', or Egyptian crowfoot grass is a member of the family Poaceae native in Africa. The plant mostly grows in heavy soils at damp sites. Description This grass creeps and has a straight shoot which are usually about ...

'' and '' Tribulus cistoides''. Wetlands are dominated by ''

Sesuvium portulacastrum ''Sesuvium portulacastrum'' is a sprawling perennial herb that grows in coastal areas throughout much of the world. It is commonly known as shoreline purslane or (ambiguously) "sea purslane," in English, ''dampalit'' in Tagalog and 海马齿sl i ...

'', and '' Pemphis acidula'' is found near intertidal lagoons. The atoll is home to multiple species of land crabs, with '' Coenobita perlatus'' being especially abundant. The atoll, with its surrounding marine waters, has been recognized as an

Important Bird Area An Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA) is an area identified using an internationally agreed set of criteria as being globally important for the conservation of bird populations. IBA was developed and sites are identified by BirdLife Int ...

(IBA) by

BirdLife International BirdLife International is a global partnership of non-governmental organizations that strives to conserve birds and their habitats. BirdLife International's priorities include preventing extinction of bird species, identifying and safeguarding ...

for its

sooty tern The sooty tern (''Onychoprion fuscatus'') is a seabird in the family Laridae. It is a bird of the tropical oceans, returning to land only to breed on islands throughout the equatorial zone. Taxonomy The sooty tern was described by Carl Linna ...

colony In modern parlance, a colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule. Though dominated by the foreign colonizers, colonies remain separate from the administration of the original country of the colonizers, the ''metropole, metropolit ...

, with some 200,000 individual birds estimated in 1999. 56 bird species have been sighted on the atoll. Due to human use, several

invasive species An invasive species otherwise known as an alien is an introduced organism that becomes overpopulated and harms its new environment. Although most introduced species are neutral or beneficial with respect to other species, invasive species adv ...

have become established on the atoll. Feral cats were introduced in the 1960s as pets and for pest control. Eradication efforts began in earnest in 1996, and were deemed successful in 2008. Two species of rat, '' Rattus exulans'' and '' Rattus tanezumi'', have colonized the island. ''R. tanezumi'' populations were successfully eradicated by 2014, however, ''R. exulans'' persists. '' Casuarina equisetifolia'' was planted on Wake Island by boy scouts in the 1960s for use as a windbreak. It formed large mono-cultural forests that choked out native vegetation. Concerted efforts to kill the populations began in 2017. Other introduced plant species include ''

Cynodon dactylon ''Cynodon dactylon'', commonly known as Bermuda grass, is a grass found worldwide. It is native to Europe, Africa, Australia and much of Asia. It has been introduced to the Americas. Although it is not native to Bermuda, it is an abundant invasi ...

'' and ''

Leucaena leucocephala ''Leucaena leucocephala'' is a small fast-growing mimosoid tree native to southern Mexico and northern Central America (Belize and Guatemala) and is now naturalized throughout the tropics including parts of Asia. Common names include jumbay, ...

''. Non-native species of ants are also found on the atoll.

History

Wake Island Lagoon Paradise by Matthew Piatkowski

Prehistory

The presence of the

Polynesian rat The Polynesian rat, Pacific rat or little rat (''Rattus exulans''), known to the Māori as ''kiore'', is the third most widespread species of rat in the world behind the brown rat and black rat. The Polynesian rat originated in Southeast Asia, ...

on the island suggests that Wake was likely visited by Polynesian or Micronesian voyagers at an early date.

Early European contact

The first recorded discovery of Wake Island was on October 2, 1568, by Spanish explorer and navigator

Álvaro de Mendaña de Neyra Álvaro (, , ) is a Spanish, Galician and Portuguese male given name and surname (see Spanish naming customs) of Visigothic origin. Some claim it may be related to the Old Norse name Alfarr, formed of the elements ''alf'' "elf" and ''arr'' "warrio ...

. In 1567, Mendaña and his crew had set off on two ships, ''Los Reyes'' and ''Todos los Santos'', from

Callao Callao () is a Peruvian seaside city and region on the Pacific Ocean in the Lima metropolitan area. Callao is Peru's chief seaport and home to its main airport, Jorge Chávez International Airport. Callao municipality consists of the whole Call ...

Peru , image_flag = Flag of Peru.svg , image_coat = Escudo nacional del Perú.svg , other_symbol = Great Seal of the State , other_symbol_type = Seal (emblem), National seal , national_motto = "Fi ...

, on an expedition to search for a gold-rich land in the South Pacific as mentioned in

Inca The Inca Empire (also known as the Incan Empire and the Inka Empire), called ''Tawantinsuyu'' by its subjects, ( Quechua for the "Realm of the Four Parts", "four parts together" ) was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The admi ...

tradition. After visiting

Tuvalu Tuvalu ( or ; formerly known as the Ellice Islands) is an island country and microstate in the Polynesian subregion of Oceania in the Pacific Ocean. Its islands are situated about midway between Hawaii and Australia. They lie east-northea ...

and the

Solomon Islands Solomon Islands is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 900 smaller islands in Oceania, to the east of Papua New Guinea and north-west of Vanuatu. It has a land area of , and a population of approx. 700,000. Its ca ...

, the expedition headed north and came upon Wake Island, "a low barren island, judged to be eight leagues in circumference". Since the date – October 2, 1568 – was the eve of the feast of Saint

Francis of Assisi Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone, better known as Saint Francis of Assisi ( it, Francesco d'Assisi; – 3 October 1226), was a mystic Italian Catholic friar, founder of the Franciscans, and one of the most venerated figures in Christiani ...

, the captain named the island "San Francisco". The ships were in need of water and the crew was suffering from

scurvy Scurvy is a disease resulting from a lack of vitamin C (ascorbic acid). Early symptoms of deficiency include weakness, feeling tired and sore arms and legs. Without treatment, decreased red blood cells, gum disease, changes to hair, and bleeding ...

, but after circling the island it was determined that Wake was waterless and had "not a cocoanut nor a

pandanus ''Pandanus'' is a genus of monocots with some 750 accepted species. They are palm-like, dioecious trees and shrubs native to the Old World tropics and subtropics. The greatest number of species are found in Madagascar and Malaysia. Common names ...

" and, in fact, "there was nothing on it but

sea-birds Seabirds (also known as marine birds) are birds that are adapted In biology, adaptation has three related meanings. Firstly, it is the dynamic evolutionary process of natural selection that fits organisms to their environment, enhanc ...

, and sandy places covered with bushes." In 1796, Captain Samuel Wake of the

merchantman A merchant ship, merchant vessel, trading vessel, or merchantman is a watercraft that transports cargo or carries passengers for hire. This is in contrast to pleasure craft, which are used for personal recreation, and naval ships, which are us ...

''Prince William Henry'' also came upon Wake Island, naming the atoll for himself. Soon thereafter the 80-ton

fur trading The fur trade is a worldwide industry dealing in the acquisition and sale of animal fur. Since the establishment of a world fur market in the early modern period, furs of boreal, polar and cold temperate mammalian animals have been the mo ...

merchant

brig A brig is a type of sailing vessel defined by its rig: two masts which are both square-rigged. Brigs originated in the second half of the 18th century and were a common type of smaller merchant vessel or warship from then until the latter part ...

''Halcyon'' arrived at Wake and Master Charles William Barkley, unaware of Captain Wake's visit and other prior European contact, named the atoll Halcyon Island in honor of his ship. In 1823, Captain Edward Gardner, while in command of the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by Kingdom of England, English and Kingdom of Scotland, Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were foug ...

whaling ship A whaler or whaling ship is a specialized vessel, designed or adapted for whaling: the catching or processing of whales. Terminology The term ''whaler'' is mostly historic. A handful of nations continue with industrial whaling, and one, Jap ...

HMS ''Bellona'', visited an island at , which he judged to be long. The island was "covered with wood, having a very green and rural appearance". This report is considered to be another sighting of Wake Island.

United States Exploring Expedition

On December 20, 1841, the

United States Exploring Expedition The United States Exploring Expedition of 1838–1842 was an exploring and surveying expedition of the Pacific Ocean and surrounding lands conducted by the United States. The original appointed commanding officer was Commodore Thomas ap Catesb ...

, commanded by US Navy Lieutenant

Charles Wilkes Charles Wilkes (April 3, 1798 – February 8, 1877) was an American naval officer, ship's captain, and explorer. He led the United States Exploring Expedition (1838–1842). During the American Civil War (1861–1865), he commanded ' during the ...

, arrived at Wake on and sent several boats to survey the island. Wilkes described the atoll as "a low coral one, of triangular form and eight feet above the surface. It has a large lagoon in the centre, which was well filled with fish of a variety of species among these were some fine mullet." He also noted that Wake had no

fresh water Fresh water or freshwater is any naturally occurring liquid or frozen water containing low concentrations of dissolved salts and other total dissolved solids. Although the term specifically excludes seawater and brackish water, it does incl ...

but was covered with shrubs, "the most abundant of which was the

tournefortia ''Tournefortia'', commonly known as soldierbush, is a genus of flowering plants in the borage family, Boraginaceae. It was first published under the name ''Pittonia'' by Charles Plumier in 1703, in honour of Joseph Pitton de Tournefort. Later ...

." The expedition's naturalist,

Titian Peale Titian Ramsay Peale (November 2, 1799 – March 13, 1885) was an American artist, naturalist, and explorer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was a scientific illustrator whose paintings and drawings of wildlife are known for their beauty and ...

, noted that "the only remarkable part in the formation of this island is the enormous blocks of coral which have been thrown up by the violence of the sea." Peale collected an egg from a short-tailed albatross and added other specimens, including a

, to the natural history collections of the expedition. Wilkes also reported that "from appearances, the island must be at times submerged, or the sea makes a complete breach over it."

Wreck and salvage of ''Libelle''

Wake Island first received international attention with the wreck of the

barque A barque, barc, or bark is a type of sailing vessel with three or more masts having the fore- and mainmasts rigged square and only the mizzen (the aftmost mast) rigged fore and aft. Sometimes, the mizzen is only partly fore-and-aft rigged, b ...

. On the night of March 4, 1866, the 650-ton iron-hulled ''Libelle'', of

Bremen Bremen (Low German also: ''Breem'' or ''Bräm''), officially the City Municipality of Bremen (german: Stadtgemeinde Bremen, ), is the capital of the Germany, German States of Germany, state Bremen (state), Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (''Freie H ...

, struck the eastern reef of Wake Island during a

gale A gale is a strong wind; the word is typically used as a descriptor in nautical contexts. The U.S. National Weather Service defines a gale as sustained surface winds moving at a speed of between 34 and 47 knots (, or ).mercury (quicksilver). After three days of searching and digging on the island for water, the crew was able to recover a water tank from the wrecked ship. Valuable cargo was also recovered and buried on the island, including some of the 1,000 flasks of mercury, as well as coins and precious stones valued at $93,943. After three weeks with a dwindling water supply and no sign of rescue, the passengers and crew decided to leave Wake and attempt to sail to

(the center of the then

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: ** Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Ca ...

colony of the Mariana Islands) on the two remaining boats from ''Libelle''. The 22 passengers and some of the crew sailed in the

longboat A longboat is a type of ship's boat that was in use from ''circa'' 1500 or before. Though the Royal Navy replaced longboats with launches from 1780, examples can be found in merchant ships after that date. The longboat was usually the largest boa ...

under the command of First Mate Rudolf Kausch and the remainder of the crew sailed with Captain Tobias in the gig. On April 8, 1866, after 13 days of frequent

squall A squall is a sudden, sharp increase in wind speed lasting minutes, as opposed to a wind gust, which lasts for only seconds. They are usually associated with active weather, such as rain showers, thunderstorms, or heavy snow. Squalls refer to t ...

s, short rations and tropical sun, the longboat reached Guam. Unfortunately, the gig, commanded by the captain, was lost at sea."The wreck of the Libelle and other early European visitors to Wake Island", ''Spennemann, D. H. R.'', Micronesian Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences, 4:108–123, 2005 The Spanish governor of the Mariana Islands, Francisco Moscoso y Lara, welcomed and provided aid to the ''Libelle'' shipwreck survivors on Guam. He also ordered the

schooner A schooner () is a type of sailing vessel defined by its rig: fore-and-aft rigged on all of two or more masts and, in the case of a two-masted schooner, the foremast generally being shorter than the mainmast. A common variant, the topsail schoo ...

''Ana'', owned and commanded by his son-in-law George H. Johnston, to be dispatched with first mate Kausch to search for the missing gig and then sail on to Wake Island to confirm the

shipwreck A shipwreck is the wreckage of a ship that is located either beached on land or sunken to the bottom of a body of water. Shipwrecking may be intentional or unintentional. Angela Croome reported in January 1999 that there were approximately ...

story and recover the buried

treasure Treasure (from la, thesaurus from Greek language ''thēsauros'', "treasure store") is a concentration of wealth — often originating from ancient history — that is considered lost and/or forgotten until rediscovered. Some jurisdictions leg ...

. ''Ana'' departed Guam on April 10 and, after two days at Wake Island, found and salvaged the buried coins and precious stones as well as a small quantity of the quicksilver.

Wreck of ''Dashing Wave''

On July 29, 1870, the British tea

clipper A clipper was a type of mid-19th-century merchant sailing vessel, designed for speed. Clippers were generally narrow for their length, small by later 19th century standards, could carry limited bulk freight, and had a large total sail area. "Cl ...

''Dashing Wave'', under the command of Captain Henry Vandervord, sailed out of Foochoo, China, en route to Sydney. On August 31 "the weather was very thick, and it was blowing a heavy gale from the eastward, attended with violent

s, and a tremendous sea." At 10:30 p.m. breakers were seen and the ship struck the reef at Wake Island. Overnight the vessel began to break up and at 10:00 a.m. the crew succeeded in launching the longboat over the

leeward side Windward () and leeward () are terms used to describe the direction of the wind. Windward is ''upwind'' from the point of reference, i.e. towards the direction from which the wind is coming; leeward is ''downwind'' from the point of reference ...

. In the chaos of the evacuation, the captain secured a chart and nautical instruments, but no compass. The crew loaded a case of wine, some bread and two buckets, but no drinking water. Since Wake Island appeared to have neither food nor water, the captain and his 12-man crew quickly departed, crafting a makeshift sail by attaching a blanket to an oar. With no water, each man was allotted a glass of wine per day until a heavy rain shower came on the sixth day. After 31 days of hardship, drifting westward in the longboat, they reached Kosrae (Strong's Island) in the

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 ...

. Captain Vandervord attributed the loss of ''Dashing Wave'' to the erroneous manner in which Wake Island "is laid down in the charts. It is very low, and not easily seen even on a clear night."

American possession

With the annexation of Hawaii in 1898 and the acquisition of

and the

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

resulting from the conclusion of the

Spanish–American War , partof = the Philippine Revolution, the decolonization of the Americas, and the Cuban War of Independence , image = Collage infobox for Spanish-American War.jpg , image_size = 300px , caption = (cl ...

that same year, the United States began to consider unclaimed and uninhabited Wake Island, located approximately halfway between

and

Manila Manila ( , ; fil, Maynila, ), officially the City of Manila ( fil, Lungsod ng Maynila, ), is the capital city, capital of the Philippines, and its second-most populous city. It is Cities of the Philippines#Independent cities, highly urbanize ...

, as a good location for a telegraph cable station and

coaling station Fuelling stations, also known as coaling stations, are repositories of fuel (initially coal and later oil) that have been located to service commercial and naval vessels. Today, the term "coaling station" can also refer to coal storage and feedi ...

for refueling warships of the rapidly expanding

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 ...

and passing merchant and passenger steamships. On July 4, 1898,

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...

Brigadier General

Francis V. Greene Francis Vinton Greene (June 27, 1850 – May 13, 1921) was a United States Army officer who fought in the Spanish–American War. He came from the Greene family of Rhode Island, noted for its long line of participants in American military history ...

of the 2nd Brigade, Philippine Expeditionary Force, of the Eighth Army Corps, stopped at Wake Island and raised the United States flag while en route to the Philippines on the steamship liner SS ''China''. Commander Taussig of the USS Bennington claims Wake Island for the United States of America

Commander Taussig of the USS Bennington claims Wake Island for the United States of America

On January 17, 1899, under orders from President

William McKinley William McKinley (January 29, 1843September 14, 1901) was the 25th president of the United States, serving from 1897 until his assassination in 1901. As a politician he led a realignment that made his Republican Party largely dominant in t ...

, Commander

Edward D. Taussig Edward David Taussig (November 20, 1847 January 29, 1921) was a decorated Rear Admiral in the United States Navy. He is best remembered for being the officer to claim Wake Island after the Spanish–American War, as well as accepting the physical r ...

of landed on Wake and formally took possession of the island for the United States. After a

21-gun salute A 21-gun salute is the most commonly recognized of the customary gun salutes that are performed by the firing of cannons or artillery as a military honor. As naval customs evolved, 21 guns came to be fired for heads of state, or in exceptiona ...

, the flag was raised and a brass plate was affixed to the flagstaff with the following inscription: Although the proposed Wake Island route for the submarine cable would have been shorter by , the Midway Islands and not Wake Island were chosen as the location for the telegraph cable station between

and Guam. Rear Admiral Royal Bird Bradford, chief of the U.S. Navy's Bureau of Equipment, stated before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce on January 17, 1902, that "Wake Island seems at times to be swept by the sea. It is only a few feet above the level of the ocean, and if a cable station were established there very expensive works would be required; besides it has no harbor, while the Midway Islands are perfectly habitable and have a fair harbor for vessels of draught." On June 23, 1902, , commanded by Captain Alfred Croskey and bound for

, spotted a ship's boat on the beach as it passed closely by Wake Island. Soon thereafter the boat was launched by Japanese on the island and sailed out to meet the transport. The Japanese told Captain Croskey that they had been put on the island by a

from

Yokohama is the second-largest city in Japan by population and the most populous municipality of Japan. It is the capital city and the most populous city in Kanagawa Prefecture, with a 2020 population of 3.8 million. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of ...

in Japan and that they were gathering

guano Guano (Spanish from qu, wanu) is the accumulated excrement of Seabird, seabirds or bats. As a manure, guano is a highly effective fertilizer due to the high content of nitrogen, phosphate, and potassium, all key nutrients essential for plant ...

and drying fish. The captain suspected that they were also engaged in

pearl hunting Pearl hunting, also known as pearling, is the activity of recovering pearls from wild molluscs, usually oysters or mussels, in the sea or freshwater. Pearl hunting was prevalent in the Persian Gulf region and Japan for thousands of years. On th ...

. The Japanese revealed that one of their parties needed medical attention and the captain determined from their descriptions of the symptoms that the illness was most likely

beriberi Thiamine deficiency is a medical condition of low levels of thiamine (Vitamin B1). A severe and chronic form is known as beriberi. The two main types in adults are wet beriberi and dry beriberi. Wet beriberi affects the cardiovascular system, r ...

. They informed Captain Croskey that they did not need any provisions or water and that they were expecting the Japanese schooner to return in a month or so. The Japanese declined an offer to be taken on the transport to Manila and were given some medical supplies for the sick man, some tobacco and a few incidentals. After USAT ''Buford'' reached Manila, Captain Croskey reported on the presence of Japanese at Wake Island. He also learned that USAT Sheridan had a similar encounter at Wake with the Japanese. The incident was brought to the attention of

Assistant Secretary of the Navy Assistant Secretary of the Navy (ASN) is the title given to certain civilian senior officials in the United States Department of the Navy. From 1861 to 1954, the Assistant Secretary of the Navy was the second-highest civilian office in the Depa ...

Charles Darling, who at once informed the

State Department The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs of other nat ...

and suggested that an explanation from the

Japanese Government The Government of Japan consists of legislative, executive and judiciary branches and is based on popular sovereignty. The Government runs under the framework established by the Constitution of Japan, adopted in 1947. It is a unitary stat ...

was needed. In August 1902, Japanese

Minister Minister may refer to: * Minister (Christianity), a Christian cleric ** Minister (Catholic Church) * Minister (government), a member of government who heads a ministry (government department) ** Minister without portfolio, a member of government w ...

Takahira Kogorō provided a diplomatic note stating that the Japanese Government had "no claim whatever to make on the sovereignty of the island, but that if any subjects are found on the island the Imperial Government expects that they should be properly protected as long as they are engaged in peaceful occupations." Wake Island was now clearly a

territory of the United States A territory is an area of land, sea, or space, particularly belonging or connected to a country, person, or animal. In international politics, a territory is usually either the total area from which a state may extract power resources or a ...

, but during this period the island was only occasionally visited by passing American ships. One notable visit occurred in December 1906, when U.S. Army General

John J. Pershing General of the Armies John Joseph Pershing (September 13, 1860 – July 15, 1948), nicknamed "Black Jack", was a senior United States Army officer. He served most famously as the commander of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) on the Wes ...

, later famous as the commander of the

American Expeditionary Forces The American Expeditionary Forces (A. E. F.) was a formation of the United States Army on the Western Front of World War I. The A. E. F. was established on July 5, 1917, in France under the command of General John J. Pershing. It fought alo ...

in western Europe during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

, stopped at Wake on and hoisted a 45-star U.S. flag that was improvised out of

sail A sail is a tensile structure—which is made from fabric or other membrane materials—that uses wind power to propel sailing craft, including sailing ships, sailboats, windsurfers, ice boats, and even sail-powered land vehicles. Sails ma ...

canvas Canvas is an extremely durable plain-woven fabric used for making sails, tents, marquees, backpacks, shelters, as a support for oil painting and for other items for which sturdiness is required, as well as in such fashion objects as handb ...

Feather collecting

Poacher's workshop, Peale Island, July 27, 1923

With limited fresh water resources, no harbor and no plans for development, Wake Island remained a remote uninhabited Pacific island in the early 20th century. It did, however, have a large

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 envir ...

population that attracted Japanese feather collecting. The global demand for feathers and

plumage Plumage ( "feather") is a layer of feathers that covers a bird and the pattern, colour, and arrangement of those feathers. The pattern and colours of plumage differ between species and subspecies and may vary with age classes. Within species, ...

was driven by the

millinery Hat-making or millinery is the design, manufacture and sale of hats and other headwear. A person engaged in this trade is called a milliner or hatter. Historically, milliners, typically women shopkeepers, produced or imported an inventory of g ...

industry and popular European fashion designs for hats, while other demand came from

pillow A pillow is a support of the body at rest for comfort, therapy, or decoration. Pillows are used in different variations by many species, including humans. Some types of pillows include throw pillows, body pillows, decorative pillows, and man ...

and

bedspread Bedding, also known as bedclothes or bed linen, is the materials laid above the mattress of a bed for hygiene, warmth, protection of the mattress, and decorative effect. Bedding is the removable and washable portion of a human sleeping environm ...

manufacturers. Japanese poachers set up camps to harvest feathers on many remote islands in the Central Pacific. The feather trade was primarily focused on Laysan albatross, black-footed albatross,

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 boob ...

lesser frigatebird The lesser frigatebird (''Fregata ariel'') is a seabird of the frigatebird family Fregatidae. At around 75 cm (30 in) in length, it is the smallest species of frigatebird. It occurs over tropical and subtropical waters across the India ...

great frigatebird The great frigatebird (''Fregata minor'') is a large seabird in the frigatebird family. There are major nesting populations in the tropical Pacific (including the Galapagos Islands) and Indian Oceans, as well as a tiny population in the South ...

and other species of tern. On February 6, 1904, Rear Admiral Robley D. Evans arrived at Wake Island on and observed Japanese collecting feathers and catching sharks for their fins. Abandoned feather poaching camps were seen by the crew of the

submarine tender A submarine tender is a type of depot ship that supplies and supports submarines. Development Submarines are small compared to most oceangoing vessels, and generally do not have the ability to carry large amounts of food, fuel, torpedoes, and ...

in 1922 and in 1923. Although feather collecting and plumage exploitation had been outlawed in the territorial United States, there is no record of any enforcement actions at Wake Island.

Japanese castaways

In January 1908, the Japanese ship ''Toyoshima Maru'', en route from Tateyama, Japan, to the

South Pacific 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 ...

, encountered a heavy storm that disabled the ship and swept the captain and five of the crew overboard. The 36 remaining crew members managed to make landfall on Wake Island, where they endured five months of great hardship, disease and

starvation Starvation is a severe deficiency in caloric energy intake, below the level needed to maintain an organism's life. It is the most extreme form of malnutrition. In humans, prolonged starvation can cause permanent organ damage and eventually, dea ...

. In May 1908, the

Brazilian Navy ) , colors= Blue and white , colors_label= Colors , march= " Cisne Branco" ( en, "White Swan") (same name as training ship '' Cisne Branco'' , mascot= , equipment= 1 multipurpose aircraft carrier7 submarines6 frigates2 corvettes4 amphibious ...

training ship ''Benjamin Constant'', while on a voyage around the world, passed by the island and spotted a tattered red distress flag. Unable to land a boat, the crew executed a challenging three-day rescue operation using

rope A rope is a group of yarns, plies, fibres, or strands that are twisted or braided together into a larger and stronger form. Ropes have tensile strength and so can be used for dragging and lifting. Rope is thicker and stronger than similarly ...

and cable to bring on board the 20 survivors and transport them to

USS ''Beaver'' strategic survey

In his 1921 book ''Sea-Power in the Pacific: A Study of the American-Japanese Naval Problem'', Hector C. Bywater recommended establishing a well-defended fueling station at Wake Island to provide coal and oil for United States Navy ships engaged in future operations against Japan. On June 19, 1922, the

landed an investigating party to determine the practicality and feasibility of establishing a naval fueling station on Wake Island. Lt. Cmdr. Sherwood Picking reported that from "a strategic point of view, Wake Island could not be better located, dividing as it does with Midway, the passage from Honolulu to Guam into almost exact thirds." He observed that the boat channel was choked with

coral heads Corals are marine invertebrates within the class Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact colonies of many identical individual polyps. Coral species include the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and secre ...

and that the lagoon was very shallow and not over in depth, and therefore Wake would not be able to serve as a base for surface vessels. Picking suggested clearing the channel to the lagoon for "loaded motor sailing launches" so that parties on shore could receive supplies from passing ships and he strongly recommended that Wake be used as a base for aircraft. Picking stated that "If the long heralded trans-Pacific flight ever takes place, Wake Island should certainly be occupied and used as an intermediate resting and fueling port."

Tanager Expedition

In 1923, a joint expedition by the then Bureau of the Biological Survey (in the

U.S. Department of Agriculture The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is the federal executive department responsible for developing and executing federal laws related to farming, forestry, rural economic development, and food. It aims to meet the needs of com ...

), the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum and the

was organized to conduct a thorough biological reconnaissance of the

Northwestern Hawaiian Islands The Northwestern Hawaiian Islands or Leeward Hawaiian Islands are a series of islands and atolls in the Hawaiian island chain located northwest (in some cases, far to the northwest) of the islands of Kauai and Niihau. Politically, they are all ...

, then administered by the Biological Survey Bureau as the Hawaiian Islands Bird Reservation. On February 1, 1923,

Secretary of Agriculture The United States secretary of agriculture is the head of the United States Department of Agriculture. The position carries similar responsibilities to those of agriculture ministers in other governments. The department includes several organ ...

Henry C. Wallace Henry Cantwell "Harry" Wallace (May 11, 1866 – October 25, 1924) was an American farmer, journalist, and political activist who served as the Secretary of Agriculture from 1921 to 1924 under Republican presidents Warren G. Harding and Calvin ...

contacted Secretary of Navy Edwin Denby to request Navy participation and recommended expanding the expedition to Johnston, Midway and Wake, all islands not administered by the Department of Agriculture. On July 27, 1923, , a

minesweeper A minesweeper is a small warship designed to remove or detonate naval mines. Using various mechanisms intended to counter the threat posed by naval mines, minesweepers keep waterways clear for safe shipping. History The earliest known usage of ...

, brought the Tanager Expedition to Wake Island under the leadership of

ornithologist Ornithology is a branch of zoology that concerns the "methodological study and consequent knowledge of birds with all that relates to them." Several aspects of ornithology differ from related disciplines, due partly to the high visibility and th ...

Alexander Wetmore Frank Alexander Wetmore (June 18, 1886 – December 7, 1978) was an American ornithologist and avian paleontologist. He was the sixth Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. Early life and education The son of a Country Physician, Frank Ale ...

, and a tent camp was established on the eastern end of Wilkes. From July 27 to August 5, the expedition charted the

, made extensive

zoological Zoology ()The pronunciation of zoology as is usually regarded as nonstandard, though it is not uncommon. is the branch of biology that studies the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, and d ...

and

botanical Botany, also called plant science (or plant sciences), plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany ...

observations and gathered specimens for the Bishop Museum, while the naval vessel under the command of Lt. Cmdr.

Samuel Wilder King Samuel Wilder King (December 17, 1886March 24, 1959) was the eleventh Territorial Governor of Hawaii and served from 1953 to 1957. He was appointed to the office after the term of Oren E. Long. Previously, King served in the United States House ...

conducted a sounding survey offshore. Other achievements at Wake included examinations of three abandoned Japanese feather poaching camps, scientific observations of the now extinct Wake Island rail and confirmation that Wake Island is an

, with a group comprising three islands with a central lagoon. Wetmore named the southwest island for

, who had led the original pioneering

to Wake in 1841. The northwest island was named for

, the chief naturalist of that 1841 expedition.

Pan American Airways and the U.S. Navy

Juan Trippe Juan Terry Trippe (June 27, 1899 – April 3, 1981) was an American commercial aviation pioneer, entrepreneur and the founder of Pan American World Airways, one of the iconic airlines of the 20th century. He was involved in the introduction of t ...

, president of the world's then-largest airline,

Pan American Airways Pan American World Airways, originally founded as Pan American Airways and commonly known as Pan Am, was an American airline that was the principal and largest international air carrier and unofficial overseas flag carrier of the United States ...

(PAA), wanted to expand globally by offering passenger air service between the United States and China. To cross the Pacific Ocean his planes would need to island-hop, stopping at various points for refueling and maintenance. He first tried to plot the route on his

globe A globe is a spherical model of Earth, of some other celestial body, or of the celestial sphere. Globes serve purposes similar to maps, but unlike maps, they do not distort the surface that they portray except to scale it down. A model glo ...

but it showed only open sea between Midway and

. Next, he went to the

New York Public Library The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second largest public library in the United States (behind the Library of Congress) ...

to study 19th-century

ship logs and

charts A chart (sometimes known as a graph) is a graphical representation for data visualization, in which "the data is represented by symbols, such as bars in a bar chart, lines in a line chart, or slices in a pie chart". A chart can represent ta ...

and he "discovered" a little-known

named Wake Island. To proceed with his plans at Wake and Midway, Trippe would need to be granted access to each island and approval to construct and operate facilities; however, the islands were not under the jurisdiction of any specific U.S. government entity. Meanwhile, U.S. Navy military planners and the

were increasingly alarmed by 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 for ...

's expansionist attitude and growing belligerence in the Western

Pacific 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 ...

. Following

, the Council of the League of Nations had granted 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 W ...

("Nanyo") to Japan (which had joined the Allied Powers in the

First World War 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 fig ...

) which included the already Japanese-held

islands north of the

equator The equator is a circle of latitude, about in circumference, that divides Earth into the Northern and Southern hemispheres. It is an imaginary line located at 0 degrees latitude, halfway between the North and South poles. The term can al ...

that were part of the former colony of

German New Guinea German New Guinea (german: Deutsch-Neu-Guinea) consisted of the northeastern part of the island of New Guinea and several nearby island groups and was the first part of the German colonial empire. The mainland part of the territory, called , ...

of the German Empire; these include the modern nation/states of

Palau Palau,, officially the Republic of Palau and historically ''Belau'', ''Palaos'' or ''Pelew'', is an island country and microstate in the western Pacific. The nation has approximately 340 islands and connects the western chain of the Ca ...

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 compri ...

Northern Mariana Islands The Northern Mariana Islands, officially the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI; ch, Sankattan Siha Na Islas Mariånas; cal, Commonwealth Téél Falúw kka Efáng llól Marianas), is an unincorporated territory and commonwe ...

and

. In the 1920s and 1930s, Japan restricted access to its

mandated territory 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 ...

and began to develop harbors and airfields throughout

in defiance of the

Washington Naval Treaty The Washington Naval Treaty, also known as the Five-Power Treaty, was a treaty signed during 1922 among the major Allies of World War I, which agreed to prevent an arms race by limiting naval construction. It was negotiated at the Washington ...

of 1922, which prohibited both the United States and Japan from expanding military fortifications in the Pacific islands. Now with Trippe's planned Pan American Airways aviation route passing through Wake and Midway, the U.S. Navy and the State Department saw an opportunity to project American air power across the Pacific under the guise of a

commercial aviation Commercial aviation is the part of civil aviation that involves operating aircraft for remuneration or hire, as opposed to private aviation. Definition Commercial aviation is not a rigorously defined category. All commercial air transport and a ...

enterprise. On October 3, 1934, Trippe wrote to the

Secretary of the Navy The secretary of the Navy (or SECNAV) is a statutory officer () and the head (chief executive officer) of the Department of the Navy, a military department (component organization) within the United States Department of Defense. By law, the se ...

, requesting a five-year lease on Wake Island with an option for four renewals. Given the potential military value of PAA's base development, on November 13, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral William H. Standley ordered a survey of Wake by and on December 29 President

Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...

issued

Executive Order In the United States, an executive order is a directive by the president of the United States that manages operations of the federal government. The legal or constitutional basis for executive orders has multiple sources. Article Two of ...

6935, which placed Wake Island and also Johnston, Sand Island at Midway and

Kingman Reef Kingman Reef is a largely submerged, uninhabited, triangle-shaped reef, geologically an atoll, east-west and north-south, in the North Pacific Ocean, roughly halfway between the Hawaiian Islands and American Samoa. It has an area of 3 he ...

under the control of the Department of the Navy. In an attempt to disguise the Navy's military intentions, Rear Admiral Harry E. Yarnell then designated Wake Island as a bird sanctuary. USS ''Nitro'' arrived at Wake Island on March 8, 1935, and conducted a two-day ground, marine and aerial survey, providing the Navy with strategic observations and complete photographic coverage of the

. Four days later, on March 12, Secretary of the Navy

Claude A. Swanson Claude Augustus Swanson (March 31, 1862July 7, 1939) was an American lawyer and Democratic politician from Virginia. He served as U.S. Representative (1893-1906), Governor of Virginia (1906-1910), and U.S. Senator from Virginia (1910-1933), befo ...

formally granted Pan American Airways permission to construct facilities at Wake Island.

Pan American "Flying Clippers" base

SS North Haven unloading at Wilkes Island, Wake Atoll

To construct bases in the Pacific,

(PAA) chartered the 6,700-ton freighter SS ''North Haven'', which arrived at Wake Island on May 9, 1935, with construction workers and the necessary materials and equipment to start to build Pan American facilities and to clear the lagoon for a flying boat landing area. The atoll's encircling

coral reef A coral reef is an underwater ecosystem characterized by reef-building corals. Reefs are formed of colonies of coral polyps held together by calcium carbonate. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, whose polyps cluster in groups. C ...

prevented the ship from entering and anchoring in the shallow lagoon itself. The only suitable location for ferrying supplies and workers ashore was at nearby Wilkes Island; however, the chief engineer of the expedition, Charles R. Russell, determined that Wilkes was too low and at times flooded and that Peale Island was the best site for the Pan American facilities. To offload the ship, cargo was lightered (barged) from ship to shore, carried across Wilkes and then transferred to another

barge Barge nowadays generally refers to a flat-bottomed inland waterway vessel which does not have its own means of mechanical propulsion. The first modern barges were pulled by tugs, but nowadays most are pushed by pusher boats, or other vessels. ...

and towed across the lagoon to Peale Island. By inspiration, someone had earlier loaded railroad track rails onto ''North Haven'', so the men built a

narrow-gauge railway A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge narrower than standard . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and . Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with tighter curves, smaller structur ...

to make it easier to haul the supplies across Wilkes to the lagoon. The line used a flatbed car pulled by a tractor. On June 12, ''North Haven'' departed for Guam, leaving behind various PAA technicians and a construction crew. Out in the middle of the lagoon,

Bill Mullahey William Justin Mullahey (1909 – April 15, 1981) was an American airline executive who was a long-time employee of Pan American Airways, helping the company expand its presence across the Pacific. He also played a large role in developing tour ...

, a swimmer from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manha ...

, was tasked with blasting hundreds of coral heads from a long, wide, deep landing area for the flying boats. In total some of dynamite were used on the coral heads in the Wake Atoll lagoon. On August 17, the first aircraft landing at Wake Island occurred when a PAA flying boat, on a survey flight of the route between Midway and Wake, landed in the lagoon. The second expedition of ''North Haven'' arrived at Wake Island on February 5, 1936, to complete the construction of the PAA facilities. A five-ton diesel locomotive for the Wilkes Island Railroad was offloaded and the

railway track A railway track (British English and UIC terminology) or railroad track (American English), also known as permanent way or simply track, is the structure on a railway or railroad consisting of the rails, fasteners, railroad ties (sleepers ...

was extended to run from dock to dock. Across the lagoon on Peale workers assembled the Pan American Hotel, a prefabricated structure with 48 rooms and wide

porch A porch (from Old French ''porche'', from Latin ''porticus'' "colonnade", from ''porta'' "passage") is a room or gallery located in front of an entrance of a building. A porch is placed in front of the facade of a building it commands, and form ...

es and

veranda A veranda or verandah is a roofed, open-air gallery or porch, attached to the outside of a building. A veranda is often partly enclosed by a railing and frequently extends across the front and sides of the structure. Although the form ''vera ...

s. The hotel consisted of two wings built out from a central lobby with each room having a bathroom with a hot-water shower. The PAA facilities staff included a group of Chamorro men from

who were employed as kitchen helpers, hotel service attendants and laborers.''Riding the Reef – A Pan American Adventure with Love'', Bert Voortmeyer, Carol Nickisher, Paladwr Press, 2005''Diesel to Run on Wake Island Line'', Popular Science, April 1936, Vol. 128, No. 4, p. 40 The village on Peale was nicknamed "PAAville" and was the first "permanent" human settlement on Wake. PAA Hotel and facilities at Wake Island

By October 1936, Pan American Airways was ready to transport

passenger A passenger (also abbreviated as pax) is a person who travels in a vehicle, but does not bear any responsibility for the tasks required for that vehicle to arrive at its destination or otherwise operate the vehicle, and is not a steward. The ...

s across the Pacific on its small fleet of three

Martin M-130 The Martin M-130 was a commercial flying boat designed and built in 1935 by the Glenn L. Martin Company in Baltimore, Maryland, for Pan American Airways. Three were built: the ''China Clipper'', the '' Philippine Clipper'' and the '' Hawaii Cli ...

"Flying Clippers". On October 11, the ''China Clipper'' landed at Wake on a press flight with ten journalists on board. A week later, on October 18, PAA President

and a group of VIP passengers arrived at Wake on the '' Philippine Clipper'' (NC14715). On October 25, the '' Hawaii Clipper'' (NC14714) landed at Wake with the first paying airline passengers ever to cross the Pacific. In 1937, Wake Island became a regular stop for PAA's international trans-Pacific passenger and

airmail Airmail (or air mail) is a mail transport service branded and sold on the basis of at least one leg of its journey being by air. Airmail items typically arrive more quickly than surface mail, and usually cost more to send. Airmail may be th ...

service, with two scheduled flights per week, one westbound from Midway and one eastbound from Guam. Wake Island is credited with being one of the early successes of

hydroponics Hydroponics is a type of horticulture and a subset of hydroculture which involves growing plants, usually crops or medicinal plants, without soil, by using water-based mineral nutrient solutions in aqueous solvents. Terrestrial or aquatic plan ...

, which enabled Pan American Airways to grow vegetables for its passengers, as it was very expensive to airlift in fresh vegetables and the island lacked natural soil. Pan Am remained in operation up to the day of the first Japanese air raid in December 1941, forcing the U.S. into

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 World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

Military buildup

On February 14, 1941, President

issued

8682 to create naval defense areas in the central Pacific territories. The proclamation established "Wake Island Naval Defensive Sea Area", which encompassed the territorial waters between the extreme high-water marks and the three-mile marine boundaries surrounding Wake. "Wake Island Naval Airspace Reservation" was also established to restrict access to the airspace over the naval defense sea area. Only U.S. government ships and aircraft were permitted to enter the naval defense areas at Wake Island unless authorized by the

. Just earlier, in January 1941, the

began construction of a military base on the atoll. On August 19, the first permanent military garrison, elements of the U.S. Marine Corps' First

Marine Defense Battalion Marine Defense Battalions were United States Marine Corps battalions charged with coastal and air defense of advanced naval bases during World War II. They maintained large anti-ship guns, anti-aircraft guns, searchlights, and small arms to ...

, totaling 449 officers and men, were stationed on the island, commanded by Navy Cmdr. Winfield Scott Cunningham. Also on the island were 68

U.S. Naval 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 of ...

personnel and about 1,221 civilian workers from the American firm Morrison-Knudsen Corp.

World War II

Battle of Wake Island

On December 8, 1941 (December 7 in Hawaii, the day of the

), at least 27 Japanese Mitsubishi G3M "Nell" medium bombers flown from bases on

Kwajalein Kwajalein Atoll (; Marshallese language, Marshallese: ) is part of the Marshall Islands, Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI). The southernmost and largest island in the atoll is named Kwajalein Island, which its majority English-speaking res ...

in the

attacked Wake Island, destroying eight of the 12

Grumman F4F Wildcat The Grumman F4F Wildcat is an American carrier-based fighter aircraft that entered service in 1940 with the United States Navy, and the British Royal Navy where it was initially known as the Martlet. First used by the British in the North Atla ...

fighter aircraft belonging to USMC Fighter Squadron 211 on the ground. The Marine garrison's defensive emplacements were left intact by the raid, which primarily targeted the aircraft. The garrison – supplemented by civilian construction workers employed by Morrison-Knudsen Corp. – repelled several Japanese landing attempts. An American journalist reported that after the initial Japanese amphibious assault was beaten back with heavy losses on December 11, the American commander was asked by his superiors if he needed anything. Popular legend has it that Major James Devereux sent back the message, "Send us more Japs!" – a reply that became famous. After the war, when Major Devereux learned that he had been credited with sending that message, he pointed out that he had not been the commander on Wake Island and denied sending the message. "As far as I know, it wasn't sent at all. None of us was that much of a damn fool. We already had more Japs than we could handle." In reality, Commander

Winfield S. Cunningham Winfield Scott Cunningham (February 16, 1900 – March 3, 1986) was the Officer in Charge, Naval Activities, Wake Island when the tiny island was attacked by the Japanese on December 8, 1941. Cunningham commanded the defense of the island again ...

, USN was in charge of Wake Island, not Devereux. Cunningham ordered that coded messages be sent during operations, and a junior officer had added "send us" and "more Japs" to the beginning and end of a message to confuse Japanese code breakers. This was put together at Pearl Harbor and passed on as part of the message. The U.S. Navy attempted to provide support from Hawaii but had suffered great losses at Pearl Harbor. The relief fleet they managed to organize was delayed by bad weather. The isolated U.S. garrison was overwhelmed by a reinforced and greatly superior Japanese invasion force on December 23. American casualties numbered 52 military personnel (Navy and Marine) and approximately 70 civilians killed. Japanese losses exceeded 700 dead, with some estimates ranging as high as 1,000. Wake's defenders sank two Japanese fast transports (''P32'' and ''P33'') and one submarine and shot down 24 Japanese aircraft. The relief fleet, en route, on hearing of the island's loss, turned back. In the aftermath of the battle, most of the captured civilians and military personnel were sent to POW camps in Asia, although some of the civilian laborers were enslaved by the Japanese and tasked with improving the island's defenses.

Japanese occupation and surrender

The island's Japanese garrison was composed of the IJN 65th Guard Unit (2,000 men), Japan Navy Captain

Shigematsu Sakaibara was an admiral in the Imperial Japanese Navy, the Japanese garrison commander on Wake Island during World War II, and a convicted war criminal. He was responsible for ordering the Wake Island massacre, in which 98 American civilians were murdere ...

and the

IJA IJA may refer to: * Imperial Japanese Army * ''International Journal of Astrobiology'' * International Jugglers' Association * ''International Journal of Audiology'' * International Juridical Association (1931–1942) {{disambiguation ...

units which became 13th Independent Mixed Regiment (1,939 men) under command of Col. Shigeji Chikamori. Fearing an imminent invasion, the Japanese reinforced Wake Island with more formidable defenses. The American captives were ordered to build a series of bunkers and fortifications on Wake. The Japanese brought in an naval gun which is often incorrectly reported as having been captured in Singapore. The U.S. Navy established a submarine blockade instead of an amphibious invasion of Wake Island. The Japanese-occupied island (called Ōtorishima (大鳥島) or ''Big Bird Island'' by them for its birdlike shape) was bombed several times by American aircraft; one of these raids was the first mission for future United States President George H. W. Bush. Wake island WWII Civilian memorial

After a successful American air raid by Task Force 14 on October 5, 1943, Sakaibara ordered the execution of all of the 98 captured Americans who remained on the island. They were taken to the northern end of the island, blindfolded and machine-gunned. One prisoner escaped, carving the message "''98 US PW 5-10-43''" on a large coral rock near where the victims had been hastily buried in a mass grave. This unknown American was soon recaptured and beheaded. Since the 1943 air raids, the garrison had been almost cut off from supplies and was reduced to the point of starvation. While the islands'

colony had received some protection as a source of eggs, the Wake Island rail was hunted to extinction by the starving soldiers. Ultimately about three-quarters of the Japanese garrison perished, and the rest survived only by eating tern eggs, the

s introduced by prehistoric voyagers, and what scant amount of vegetables they could grow in makeshift gardens among the coral rubble. On September 4, 1945, the Japanese garrison surrendered to a detachment of United States Marines under the command of Brigadier General

Lawson H. M. Sanderson Lawson Harry McPhearson Sanderson (July 22, 1895 – June 11, 1973) was an aviation pioneer of the United States Marine Corps with the rank of Major general (United States), major general. He is most noted for his effort in development of the Div ...

. The garrison, having previously received news that Imperial Japan's defeat was imminent, exhumed the mass grave. The bones were moved to the U.S. cemetery that had been established on Peacock Point after the invasion. Wooden crosses were erected in preparation for the expected arrival of U.S. forces. During the initial interrogations, the Japanese claimed that the remaining 98 Americans on the island were mostly killed by an American bombing raid, although some escaped and fought to the death after being cornered on the beach at the north end of Wake Island. Several Japanese officers in American custody committed suicide over the incident, leaving written statements that incriminated Sakaibara. Sakaibara and his subordinate, lieutenant commander Tachibana, were later sentenced to death after conviction for this and other war crimes. Sakaibara was executed by hanging in Guam on June 18, 1947, while Tachibana's sentence was commuted to life in prison. The remains of the murdered civilians were exhumed and reburied at Honolulu's National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at section G, commonly known as Punchbowl Crater.

Post-World War II military and commercial airfield

Original Drifter's Reef bar, Wake Island

With the end of hostilities with Japan and the increase in international air travel driven in part by wartime advances in

aeronautics Aeronautics is the science or art involved with the study, design, and manufacturing of air flight–capable machines, and the techniques of operating aircraft and rockets within the atmosphere. The British Royal Aeronautical Society identif ...

, Wake Island became a critical mid-Pacific base for the servicing and refueling of military and commercial aircraft. The United States Navy resumed control of the island, and in October 1945 400

Seabee United States Naval Construction Battalions, better known as the Navy Seabees, form the U.S. Naval Construction Force (NCF). The Seabee nickname is a heterograph of the initial letters "CB" from the words "Construction Battalion". Depending upon ...

s from the 85th Naval Construction Battalion arrived at Wake to clear the island of the effects of the war and to build basic facilities for a Naval Air Base. The base was completed in March 1946 and on September 24, regular commercial passenger service was resumed by

(

Pan Am Pan American World Airways, originally founded as Pan American Airways and commonly known as Pan Am, was an American airline that was the principal and largest international air carrier and unofficial overseas flag carrier of the United State ...

). The era of the flying boats was nearly over, so Pan Am switched to longer-range, faster and more profitable airplanes that could land on Wake's new

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 ...

. Other airlines that established transpacific routes through Wake included

British Overseas Airways Corporation British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) was the United Kingdom, British state-owned airline created in 1939 by the merger of Imperial Airways and British Airways Ltd. It continued operating overseas services throughout World War II. ...

(BOAC),

Japan Airlines , also known as JAL (''Jaru'') or , is an international airline and Japan's flag carrier and largest airline as of 2021 and 2022, headquartered in Shinagawa, Tokyo. Its main hubs are Tokyo's Narita International Airport and Haneda Airport, ...

Philippine Airlines Philippine Airlines (PAL), a trade name of PAL Holdings, Inc. ( PSEPAL (Philippine Air Lines until 1970), is the flag carrier airline of the Philippines. Headquartered at the PNB Financial Center in Pasay, the airline was founded in 1941 and ...

and Transocean Airlines. Due to the substantial increase in the number of commercial flights, on July 1, 1947, the Navy transferred administration, operations and maintenance of the facilities at Wake to the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA). In 1949, the CAA upgraded the runway by paving over the coral surface and extending its length to 7,000 feet.

Korean War

President Truman pinning medal on General MacArthur on Wake Island

In June 1950, the

Korean War {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Korean War , partof = the Cold War and the Korean conflict , image = Korean War Montage 2.png , image_size = 300px , caption = Clockwise from top: ...

began with the United States leading United Nations forces against a North Korean invasion of

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...

. In July, the

Korean Airlift The Korean Airlift was a military operation during the Korean War by the United States Air Force and other air forces participating in the United Nations action. Begun in 1950 under the command of Major General William H. Tunner, it provided air ...

was started and the

Military Air Transport Service The Military Air Transport Service (MATS) is an inactive Department of Defense Unified Command. Activated on 1 June 1948, MATS was a consolidation of the United States Navy's Naval Air Transport Service (NATS) and the United States Air Force ...

(MATS) used the airfield and facilities at Wake as a key mid-Pacific refueling stop for its mission of transporting men and supplies to the Korean front. By September, 120 military aircraft were landing at Wake per day. On October 15, U.S. President Harry S. Truman and General MacArthur met at the

Wake Island Conference On October 15, 1950, U.S. President Harry S. Truman and General Douglas MacArthur met on Wake Island to confer about the progress of the Korean War. Truman decided he would meet MacArthur at Wake Island, "so that General MacArthur would not have ...

to discuss progress and war strategy for the

Korean Peninsula Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic ...

. They chose to meet at Wake Island because of its close proximity to

Korea Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republi ...

so that MacArthur would not have to be away from the troops in the field for long.

Missile Impact Location System

From 1958 through 1960 the United States installed the Missile Impact Location System (MILS) in the Navy managed Pacific Missile Range, later the Air Force managed Western Range, to localize the splash downs of test missile nose cones. MILS was developed and installed by the same entities that had completed the first phase of the Atlantic and U.S. West Coast SOSUS systems. A MILS installation, consisting of both a target array for precision location and a broad ocean area system for good positions outside the target area, was installed at Wake as part of the system supporting

Intercontinental Ballistic Missile An intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) is a ballistic missile with a range greater than , primarily designed for nuclear weapons delivery (delivering one or more thermonuclear warheads). Conventional, chemical, and biological weapons ...

(ICBM) tests. Other Pacific MILS shore terminals were at the

Marine Corps Air Station Kaneohe Bay Marine Corps Air Station Kaneohe Bay or MCAS Kaneohe Bay is a United States Marine Corps (USMC) airfield located within the Marine Corps Base Hawaii complex, formerly known as Marine Corps Air Facility (MCAF) Kaneohe Bay or Naval Air Station (NAS ...

supporting

Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile An intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) is a ballistic missile with a range of 3,000–5,500 km (1,864–3,418 miles), between a medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) and an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). Classifying ...

(IRBM) tests with impact areas northeast of Hawaii and the other ICBM test support systems at

Midway Island Midway Atoll (colloquial: Midway Islands; haw, Kauihelani, translation=the backbone of heaven; haw, Pihemanu, translation=the loud din of birds, label=none) is a atoll in the North Pacific Ocean. Midway Atoll is an insular area of the Unit ...

and

Eniwetok Enewetak Atoll (; also spelled Eniwetok Atoll or sometimes Eniewetok; mh, Ānewetak, , or , ; known to the Japanese as Brown Atoll or Brown Island; ja, ブラウン環礁) is a large coral atoll of 40 islands in the Pacific Ocean and with ...

Tanker shipwreck and oil spill

On September 6, 1967,

Standard Oil of California Standard may refer to: Symbols * Colours, standards and guidons, kinds of military signs * Standard (emblem), a type of a large symbol or emblem used for identification Norms, conventions or requirements * Standard (metrology), an object th ...

's 18,000-ton

tanker Tanker may refer to: Transportation * Tanker, a tank crewman (US) * Tanker (ship), a ship designed to carry bulk liquids ** Chemical tanker, a type of tanker designed to transport chemicals in bulk ** Oil tanker, also known as a petroleum ta ...

SS ''R.C. Stoner'' was driven onto the reef at Wake Island by a strong southwesterly wind after the ship failed to moor to the two

buoy A buoy () is a floating device that can have many purposes. It can be anchored (stationary) or allowed to drift with ocean currents. Types Navigational buoys * Race course marker buoys are used for buoy racing, the most prevalent form of ya ...

s near the harbor entrance. An estimated six million gallons of refined

fuel oil Fuel oil is any of various fractions obtained from the distillation of petroleum (crude oil). Such oils include distillates (the lighter fractions) and residues (the heavier fractions). Fuel oils include heavy fuel oil, marine fuel oil (MFO), bu ...

– including 5.7 million gallons of

aviation fuel Aviation fuels are petroleum-based fuels, or petroleum and synthetic fuel blends, used to power aircraft. They have more stringent requirements than fuels used for ground use, such as heating and road transport, and contain additives to enhance ...

, 168,000 gallons of diesel oil and 138,600 gallons of bunker C fuel – spilled into the small boat harbor and along the southwestern coast of Wake Island to Peacock Point. Large numbers of fish were killed by the oil spill, and personnel from the FAA and crewmen from the ship cleared the area closest to the spill of dead fish. The U.S. Navy

salvage Salvage may refer to: * Marine salvage, the process of rescuing a ship, its cargo and sometimes the crew from peril * Water salvage, rescuing people from floods. * Salvage tug, a type of tugboat used to rescue or salvage ships which are in dis ...

team Harbor Clearance Unit Two and Pacific Fleet Salvage Officer Cmdr. John B. Orem flew to Wake to assess the situation, and by September 13 the Navy tugs and , salvage ships and , tanker , and , arrived from

and

Subic Bay Subic Bay is a bay on the west coast of the island of Luzon in the Philippines, about northwest of Manila Bay. An extension of the South China Sea, its shores were formerly the site of a major United States Navy facility, U.S. Naval Base Sub ...

in the

, to assist in the cleanup and removal of the vessel. At the boat harbor the salvage team pumped and skimmed oil, which they burned each evening in nearby pits. Recovery by the Navy salvage team of the ''R.C. Stoner'' and its remaining cargo, however, was hampered by strong winds and heavy seas. On September 16, Super Typhoon Sarah made landfall on Wake Island at peak intensity with winds up to 145- knots, causing widespread damage. The intensity of the storm had the beneficial effect of greatly accelerating the cleanup effort by clearing the harbor and scouring the coast. Oil did remain, however, embedded in the reef's flat crevices and impregnated in the coral. The storm also had broken the wrecked vessel into three sections and, although delayed by rough seas and harassment by

blacktip reef shark The blacktip reef shark (''Carcharhinus melanopterus'') is a species of requiem shark, in the family Carcharhinidae, which can be easily identified by the prominent black tips on its fins (especially on the first dorsal fin and its caudal fin). ...

s, the salvage team used explosives to flatten and sink the remaining portions of the ship that were still above water.

U.S. Air Force assumes control

In the early 1970s, higher-efficiency jet aircraft with longer-range capabilities lessened the use of Wake Island Airfield as a refueling stop, and the number of commercial flights landing at Wake declined sharply.

had replaced many of its

Boeing 707 The Boeing 707 is an American, long-range, narrow-body airliner, the first jetliner developed and produced by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. Developed from the Boeing 367-80 prototype first flown in 1954, the initial first flew on December ...

s with more efficient

747 747 may refer to: * 747 (number), a number * AD 747, a year of the Julian calendar * 747 BC, a year in the 8th century BC * Boeing 747, a large commercial jet airliner Music and film * 747s (band), an indie band * ''747'' (album), by country musi ...

s, thus eliminating the need to continue weekly stops at Wake. Other airlines began to eliminate their scheduled flights into Wake. In June 1972 the last scheduled Pan Am passenger flight landed at Wake, and in July Pan Am's last cargo flight departed the island, marking the end of the heyday of Wake Island's commercial aviation history. During this same time period the U.S. military had transitioned to longer-range

C-5A The Lockheed C-5 Galaxy is a large military transport aircraft designed and built by Lockheed, and now maintained and upgraded by its successor, Lockheed Martin. It provides the United States Air Force (USAF) with a heavy intercontinental-ra ...

and

C-141 The Lockheed C-141 Starlifter is a retired military strategic airlifter that served with the Military Air Transport Service (MATS), its successor organization the Military Airlift Command (MAC), and finally the Air Mobility Command (AMC) of t ...

aircraft, leaving the

C-130 The Lockheed C-130 Hercules is an American four-engine turboprop military transport aircraft designed and built by Lockheed (now Lockheed Martin). Capable of using unprepared runways for takeoffs and landings, the C-130 was originally des ...

as the only aircraft that would continue to regularly use the island's airfield. The steady decrease in air traffic control activities at Wake Island was apparent and was expected to continue. On June 24, 1972, responsibility for the civil administration of Wake Island was transferred from the FAA to the

under an agreement between the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of the Air Force. In July, the FAA turned over administration of the island to the

Military Airlift Command The Military Airlift Command (MAC) is an inactive United States Air Force major command (MAJCOM) that was headquartered at Scott Air Force Base, Illinois. Established on 1 January 1966, MAC was the primary strategic airlift organization of the ...

(MAC), although legal ownership stayed with the

Department of the Interior The United States Department of the Interior (DOI) is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government headquartered at the Main Interior Building, located at 1849 C Street NW in Washington, D.C. It is responsible for the m ...

, and the FAA continued to maintain the air navigation facilities and provide

air traffic control Air traffic control (ATC) is a service provided by ground-based air traffic controllers who direct aircraft on the ground and through a given section of controlled airspace, and can provide advisory services to aircraft in non-controlled airsp ...

services. On December 27, the Chief of Staff of the Air Force (CSAF) General

John D. Ryan John or Johnny Ryan may refer to: Business *John Ryan (businessman) (born 1950), pioneer of cosmetic surgery and chairman of Doncaster Rovers *John D. Ryan (industrialist) (1864–1933), American copper mining magnate *John Ryan (printer) (1761� ...

directed MAC to phase out en-route support activity at Wake Island effective June 30, 1973. On July 1, 1973, all FAA activities ended and the U.S. Air Force under

Pacific Air Forces Pacific Air Forces (PACAF) is a Major Command (MAJCOM) of the United States Air Force and is also the air component command of the United States Indo-Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM). PACAF is headquartered at Joint Base Pearl Harbor–Hickam ( ...

(PACAF), Detachment 4,

15th Air Base Wing 15 (fifteen) is the natural number following 14 and preceding 16. Mathematics 15 is: * A composite number, and the sixth semiprime; its proper divisors being , and . * A deficient number, a smooth number, a lucky number, a pernicious num ...

assumed control of Wake Island. In 1973, Wake Island was selected as a launch site for the testing of defensive systems against

intercontinental ballistic missile An intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) is a ballistic missile with a range greater than , primarily designed for nuclear weapons delivery (delivering one or more thermonuclear warheads). Conventional, chemical, and biological weapons ...

s under the U.S. Army's ''Project Have Mill''. Air Force personnel on Wake and the

Air Force Systems Command The Air Force Systems Command (AFSC) is an inactive United States Air Force Major Command. It was established in April 1951, being split off from Air Materiel Command. The mission of AFSC was Research and Development for new weapons systems. Ove ...

(AFSC)

Space and Missile Systems Organization Space Systems Command (SSC) is the United States Space Force's space development, acquisition, launch, and logistics field command. It is headquartered at Los Angeles Air Force Base, California and manages the United States' space launch ran ...

(SAMSO) provided support to the Army's Advanced Ballistic Missile Defense Agency (ABMDA). A missile launch complex was activated on Wake and, from February 13 to June 22, 1974, seven Athena H missiles were launched from the island to the Roi-Namur Test Range at

Kwajalein Atoll Kwajalein Atoll (; Marshallese: ) is part of the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI). The southernmost and largest island in the atoll is named Kwajalein Island, which its majority English-speaking residents (about 1,000 mostly U.S. civili ...

Vietnam War refugees and ''Operation New Life''

In the spring of 1975, the population of Wake Island consisted of 251 military, government and civilian contract personnel, whose primary mission was to maintain the airfield as a Mid-Pacific emergency runway. With the imminent

fall of Saigon The Fall of Saigon, also known as the Liberation of Saigon by North Vietnamese or Liberation of the South by the Vietnamese government, and known as Black April by anti-communist overseas Vietnamese was the capture of Saigon, the capital of Sou ...

to North Vietnamese forces, President

Gerald Ford Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr. ( ; born Leslie Lynch King Jr.; July 14, 1913December 26, 2006) was an American politician who served as the 38th president of the United States from 1974 to 1977. He was the only president never to have been elected ...

ordered American forces to support '' Operation New Life'', the evacuation of

refugee A refugee, conventionally speaking, is a displaced person who has crossed national borders and who cannot or is unwilling to return home due to well-founded fear of persecution.

s from

Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making it ...

. The original plans included the Philippines'

and

as refugee processing centers, but due to the high number of Vietnamese seeking evacuation, Wake Island was selected as an additional location. In March 1975, Island Commander Major Bruce R. Hoon was contacted by

(PACAF) and ordered to prepare Wake for its new mission as a refugee processing center where Vietnamese evacuees could be medically screened, interviewed and transported to the United States or other resettlement countries. A 60-man civil engineering team was brought in to reopen boarded-up buildings and housing, two complete

MASH #REDIRECT Mash {{redirect category shell, {{R from ambiguous page{{R from other capitalisation{{R unprintworthy ...

units arrived to set up

field hospital A field hospital is a temporary hospital or mobile medical unit that takes care of casualties on-site before they can be safely transported to more permanent facilities. This term was initially used in military medicine (such as the Mobile A ...

s and three Army field kitchens were deployed. A 60-man

United States Air Force Security Police The United States Air Force Security Forces (SF) are the ground combat force and military police service of the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Space Force. USAF Security Forces (SF) were formerly known as Military Police (MP), Air Police (AP), and Se ...

team, processing agents from the

U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service The United States Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) was an agency of the U.S. Department of Labor from 1933 to 1940 and the U.S. Department of Justice from 1940 to 2003. Referred to by some as former INS and by others as legacy INS, ...

and various other administrative and support personnel were also on Wake.

Potable water Drinking water is water that is used in drink or food preparation; potable water is water that is safe to be used as drinking water. The amount of drinking water required to maintain good health varies, and depends on physical activity level, ...

, food, medical supplies, clothing and other supplies were shipped in. On April 26, 1975, the first

military transport aircraft A military transport aircraft, military cargo aircraft or airlifter is a military-owned transport aircraft used to support military operations by airlifting troops and military equipment. Transport aircraft are crucial to maintaining supply ...

carrying refugees arrived. The airlift to Wake continued at a rate of one C-141 every hour and 45 minutes, each aircraft with 283 refugees on board. At the peak of the mission, 8,700 Vietnamese refugees were on Wake. When the airlift ended on August 2, a total of about 15,000 refugees had been processed through Wake Island as part of ''Operation New Life''.

Bikini Islanders resettlement

On March 20, 1978, Undersecretary James A. Joseph of the

reported that

radiation In physics, radiation is the emission or transmission of energy in the form of waves or particles through space or through a material medium. This includes: * ''electromagnetic radiation'', such as radio waves, microwaves, infrared, vi ...

levels from ''

Operation Crossroads Operation Crossroads was a pair of nuclear weapon tests conducted by the United States at Bikini Atoll in mid-1946. They were the first nuclear weapon tests since Trinity in July 1945, and the first detonations of nuclear devices since the ...

'' and other atomic tests conducted in the 1940s and 1950s on

Bikini Atoll Bikini Atoll ( or ; Marshallese: , , meaning "coconut place"), sometimes known as Eschscholtz Atoll between the 1800s and 1946 is a coral reef in the Marshall Islands consisting of 23 islands surrounding a central lagoon. After the Sec ...

were still too high and those island natives that returned to Bikini would once again have to be relocated. In September 1979 a delegation from the Bikini/ Kili Council came to Wake Island to assess the island's potential as a possible resettlement site. The delegation also traveled to Hawaii (

Molokai Molokai , or Molokai (), is the fifth most populated of the eight major islands that make up the Hawaiian Islands archipelago in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. It is 38 by 10 miles (61 by 16 km) at its greatest length and width with a us ...

and

Hilo Hilo () is a census-designated place (CDP) and the largest settlement in Hawaii County, Hawaii, United States, which encompasses the Island of Hawaii. The population was 44,186 according to the 2020 census. It is the fourth-largest settlement i ...

Palmyra Atoll Palmyra Atoll (), also referred to as Palmyra Island, is one of the Northern Line Islands (southeast of Kingman Reef and north of Kiribati). It is located almost due south of the Hawaiian Islands, roughly one-third of the way between Hawaii an ...

and various atolls in the

including Mili,

Knox Knox may refer to: Places United States * Fort Knox, a United States Army post in Kentucky ** United States Bullion Depository, a high security storage facility commonly called Fort Knox * Fort Knox (Maine), a fort located on the Penobscot River i ...

Jaluit Jaluit Atoll ( Marshallese: , , or , ) is a large coral atoll of 91 islands in the Pacific Ocean and forms a legislative district of the Ralik Chain of the Marshall Islands. Its total land area is , and it encloses a lagoon with an area of . M ...

Ailinglaplap Ailinglaplap or Ailinglapalap ( Marshallese: , ) is a coral atoll of 56 islands in the Pacific Ocean, and forms a legislative district of the Ralik Chain in the Marshall Islands. It is located northwest of Jaluit Atoll. Its total land area is on ...

Erikub Erikub Atoll ( Marshallese: , ) is an uninhabited coral atoll of fourteen islands in the Pacific Ocean, located in the Ratak Chain of the Marshall Islands. Its total land area is only , but it encloses a lagoon with an area of . It is located sli ...

and Likiep but the group agreed that they were only interested in resettlement on Wake Island due to the presence of the U.S. military and the island's proximity to Bikini Atoll. Unfortunately for the Bikini Islanders, the

U.S. Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD or DOD) is an executive branch department of the federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government directly related to national secu ...

responded that "any such resettlement is out of the question."

Commemorative and memorial visits

In April 1981, a party of 19 Japanese, including 16 former Japanese soldiers who were at Wake during World War II, visited the island to pay respects for their war dead at the Japanese

Shinto Shrine A is a structure whose main purpose is to house ("enshrine") one or more '' kami'', the deities of the Shinto religion. Overview Structurally, a Shinto shrine typically comprises several buildings. The '' honden''Also called (本殿, mean ...

. In the early 1980s, the

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an List of federal agencies in the United States, agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government within the United States Department of the Interior, U.S. Department of ...

conducted an evaluation of Wake Island to determine if the

(WWII) cultural resources remaining on Wake, Wilkes and Peale were of national historical significance. As a result of this survey, Wake Island was designated as a

National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...

(NHL) on September 16, 1985, helping to preserve sites and artifacts on the atoll associated with WWII in the Pacific and the transpacific aviation era prior to the war. As a National Historic Landmark, Wake Island was also included in the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artist ...

On November 3 and 4, 1985, a group of 167 former American

prisoners of war A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held Captivity, captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold priso ...

(POWs) visited Wake with their wives and children. This was the first such visit by a group of former Wake Island POWs and their families. On November 24, 1985, a

Pan American Airlines Pan American World Airways, originally founded as Pan American Airways and commonly known as Pan Am, was an American airline that was the principal and largest international air carrier and unofficial overseas flag carrier of the United States ...

(Pan Am)

Boeing 747 The Boeing 747 is a large, long-range wide-body airliner designed and manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes in the United States between 1968 and 2022. After introducing the 707 in October 1958, Pan Am wanted a jet times its size, ...

, renamed ''China Clipper II'', came through Wake Island on a flight across the

to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the inauguration of Pan American

China Clipper ''China Clipper'' (NC14716) was the first of three Martin M-130 four-engine flying boats built for Pan American Airways and was used to inaugurate the first commercial transpacific airmail service from San Francisco to Manila on November 22, ...

Service to the

Orient The Orient is a term for the East in relation to Europe, traditionally comprising anything belonging to the Eastern world. It is the antonym of '' Occident'', the Western World. In English, it is largely a metonym for, and coterminous with, the ...

. Author

James A. Michener James Albert Michener ( or ; February 3, 1907 – October 16, 1997) was an American writer. He wrote more than 40 books, most of which were long, fictional family sagas covering the lives of many generations in particular geographic locales and ...

and Lars Lindbergh, grandson of aviator

Charles Lindbergh Charles Augustus Lindbergh (February 4, 1902 – August 26, 1974) was an American aviator, military officer, author, inventor, and activist. On May 20–21, 1927, Lindbergh made the first nonstop flight from New York City to Paris, a distance o ...

, were among the dignitaries on board the aircraft.

Army missile tests

Subsequently, the island has been used for strategic defense and operations during and after the Cold War, with Wake Island serving as a launch platform for military rockets involved in testing missile defense systems and

atmospheric re-entry Atmospheric entry is the movement of an object from outer space into and through the gases of an atmosphere of a planet, dwarf planet, or natural satellite. There are two main types of atmospheric entry: ''uncontrolled entry'', such as the entr ...

trials as part of the

Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site The Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site, commonly referred to as the Reagan Test Site (formerly Kwajalein Missile Range), is a missile test range in Marshall Islands (Pacific Ocean). It covers about and includes rocket launch s ...

. Wake's location allows for a safe launch and trajectory over the unpopulated ocean with open space for intercepts. In 1987, Wake Island was selected as a missile launch site for a

Strategic Defense Initiative The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), derisively nicknamed the "''Star Wars'' program", was a proposed missile defense system intended to protect the United States from attack by ballistic strategic nuclear weapons (intercontinental ballist ...

(SDI) program named ''Project Starlab/Starbird''. In 1989, the U.S. Army Strategic Defense Command (USASDC) constructed two launch pads on Peacock Point, as well as nearby support facilities, for the eight-ton, , multi-stage Starbird test missiles. The program involved using electro-optical and laser systems, mounted on the Starlab platform in the payload bay of an orbiting

Space Shuttle The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program na ...

, to acquire, track and target Starbird missiles launched from Cape Canaveral and Wake. After being impacted by mission scheduling delays caused by the explosion of the Space Shuttle ''Challenger'', the program was canceled in late September 1990 to protect funding for another U.S. Army space-based missile defense program known as ''

Brilliant Pebbles Brilliant Pebbles was a ballistic missile defense (BMD) system proposed by Lowell Wood and Edward Teller of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in 1987, near the end of the Cold War. The system would consist of thousands of small ...

''. Although no Starbird missiles were ever launched from Wake Island, the Starbird launch facilities at Wake were modified to support rocket launches for the ''Brilliant Pebbles'' program with the first launch occurring on January 29, 1992. On October 16, a

Castor-Orbus The Castor-Orbus was a Castor 4 sounding rocket (research rocket designed to take measurements and perform scientific experiments during its flight) that was developed in 1992 by the Orbital Sciences Corporation (OSC) (United States). Launched ...

rocket was destroyed by ground controllers seven minutes after its launch from Wake. The program was canceled in 1993. Missile testing activities continued with the

Lightweight Exo-Atmospheric Projectile The Lightweight Exo-atmospheric Projectile (LEAP) is a lightweight miniaturized kinetic kill vehicle designed to destroy incoming ballistic missiles both inside or outside the Earth's atmosphere.Paul Baker, Buster Kelley, Anne Avetissian, ''Ligh ...

(LEAP) Test Program, another U.S. Army strategic defense project that included the launching of two

Aerojet Aerojet was an American rocket and missile propulsion manufacturer based primarily in Rancho Cordova, California, with divisions in Redmond, Washington, Orange and Gainesville in Virginia, and Camden, Arkansas. Aerojet was owned by GenCorp ...

Super Chief HPB rockets from Wake Island. The first launch, on January 28, 1993, reached

apogee An apsis (; ) is the farthest or nearest point in the orbit of a planetary body about its primary body. For example, the apsides of the Earth are called the aphelion and perihelion. General description There are two apsides in any el ...

at and was a success. The second launch, on February 11, reached apogee at and was deemed a failure. Due to the U.S. Army's continued use of the atoll for various missile testing programs, on October 1, 1994, the U.S. Army Space and Strategic Defense Command (USASSDC) assumed administrative command of Wake Island under a caretaker permit from the U.S. Air Force. The USASSDC had been operating on Wake since 1988 when construction of Starbird launch and support facilities was started. Now under U.S Army control, the island, which is located north of

, became a rocket launch site for the

Kwajalein Missile Range The Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site, commonly referred to as the Reagan Test Site (formerly Kwajalein Missile Range), is a missile test range in Marshall Islands (Pacific Ocean). It covers about and includes rocket launch s ...

known as the Wake Island Launch Center. In July 1995, various units of the U.S. military established a camp on Wake Island to provide housing, food, medical care and social activities for Chinese

illegal immigrants Illegal immigration is the migration of people into a country in violation of the immigration laws of that country or the continued residence without the legal right to live in that country. Illegal immigration tends to be financially upwar ...

as part of ''Operation Prompt Return'' (also known as ''Joint Task Force Prompt Return''). The Chinese immigrants were discovered on July 3 on board the ''M/V Jung Sheng Number 8'' when the 160-foot-long vessel was interdicted by the U.S. Coast Guard south of Hawaii. The ''Jung Sheng'' had left

Canton Canton may refer to: Administrative division terminology * Canton (administrative division), territorial/administrative division in some countries, notably Switzerland * Township (Canada), known as ''canton'' in Canadian French Arts and ent ...

, China en route to the United States on June 2 with 147 Chinese

Illegal Immigrants Illegal immigration is the migration of people into a country in violation of the immigration laws of that country or the continued residence without the legal right to live in that country. Illegal immigration tends to be financially upwar ...

, including 18 "enforcers", and 11 crew on board. On July 29, the Chinese were transported to Wake Island where they were cared for by U.S. military personnel and on August 7, they were safely repatriated to China by commercial air charter. From October 10 to November 21, 1996, military units assigned to ''Operation Marathon Pacific'' used facilities at Wake Island as a staging area for the repatriation of another group of more than 113 Chinese illegal immigrants who had been interdicted in the Atlantic Ocean near

Bermuda ) , anthem = " God Save the King" , song_type = National song , song = "Hail to Bermuda" , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , mapsize2 = , map_caption2 = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = , ...

aboard the human smuggling vessel, the ''Xing Da''.

U.S. Air Force regains control

On October 1, 2002, administrative control and support of Wake Island was transferred from the U.S. Army to the U.S. Air Force's 15th Wing, an aviation unit of

based at

Hickam Air Force Base Hickam Air Force Base is a United States Air Force installation, named in honor of aviation pioneer Lieutenant Colonel Horace Meek Hickam. The installation merged in 2010 with Naval Station Pearl Harbor to become part of the newly formed Joint ...

in Hawaii. The 15th Wing had previously been in control of Wake from July 1, 1973, to September 30, 1994. Although the Air Force was once again in control, the

Missile Defense Agency The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) is the section of the United States government's Department of Defense responsible for developing a layered defense against ballistic missiles. It had its origins in the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) whi ...

would continue to operate the Wake Island Launch Center and the U.S. Army's

would continue to maintain and operate the launch facilities and also provide instrumentation, communications, flight and ground safety, security, and other support. On January 6, 2009, President George W. Bush issued

8836, establishing

to preserve the marine environments around Wake,

Baker A baker is a tradesperson who bakes and sometimes sells breads and other products made of flour by using an oven or other concentrated heat source. The place where a baker works is called a bakery. History Ancient history Since grains ...

, Howland, and

Jarvis Island Jarvis Island (; formerly known as Bunker Island or Bunker's Shoal) is an uninhabited coral island located in the South Pacific Ocean, about halfway between Hawaii and the Cook Islands. It is an unincorporated, unorganized territory of the Uni ...

Johnston Atoll Johnston Atoll is an unincorporated territory of the United States, currently administered by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). Johnston Atoll is a National Wildlife Refuge and part of the Pacific Remote Islands Marine Nation ...

, and

. The proclamation assigned management of the nearby waters and submerged and emergent lands of the islands to the

and management of fishery-related activities in waters beyond 12 nautical miles from the islands' mean low water line to the

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (abbreviated as NOAA ) is an United States scientific and regulatory agency within the United States Department of Commerce that forecasts weather, monitors oceanic and atmospheric conditi ...

(NOAA). On January 16, Secretary of the Interior

Dirk Kempthorne Dirk Arthur Kempthorne (born October 29, 1951) is an American politician who served as the 49th United States Secretary of the Interior from 2006 to 2009 under President George W. Bush. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a ...

issued Order Number 3284 which stated that the area at Wake Island assigned to the Department of Interior by Executive Order 8836 will be managed as a

National Wildlife Refuge National Wildlife Refuge System is a designation for certain protected areas of the United States managed by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. The National Wildlife Refuge System is the system of public lands and waters set aside to ...

. Management of the emergent lands at Wake Island by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, however, will not begin until the existing management agreement between the

Secretary of the Air Force A secretary, administrative professional, administrative assistant, executive assistant, administrative officer, administrative support specialist, clerk, military assistant, management assistant, office secretary, or personal assistant is a ...

and the Secretary of the Interior is terminated. Campaign Fierce Sentry FTO-02 E2 Insignia

The 611th Air Support Group (ASG), a U.S. Air Force unit based at

Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson A joint or articulation (or articular surface) is the connection made between bones, ossicles, or other hard structures in the body which link an animal's skeletal system into a functional whole.Saladin, Ken. Anatomy & Physiology. 7th ed. McGraw- ...

Anchorage, Alaska Anchorage () is the largest city in the U.S. state of Alaska by population. With a population of 291,247 in 2020, it contains nearly 40% of the state's population. The Anchorage metropolitan area, which includes Anchorage and the neighboring ...

took over control of Wake Island from the 15th Wing On October 1, 2010. The 611th ASG was already providing support and management to various geographically remote Air Force sites within Alaska and the addition of Wake Island provided the unit with more opportunities for outdoor projects during the winter months when projects in Alaska are very limited. The 611th ASG, a unit of the

11th Air Force The Eleventh Air Force (11 AF) is a Numbered Air Force of the United States Air Force Pacific Air Forces (PACAF). It is headquartered at Joint Base Elmendorf–Richardson, Alaska.This unit is not related to the Eleventh Air Force headquarte ...

, was renamed the

(PACAF) Regional Support Center. On September 27, 2014, President

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, Obama was the first Af ...

issued

9173 to expand the area of the

out to the full 200 nautical miles U.S. exclusive economic zone (EEZ) boundary for each island. By this proclamation, the area of the monument at Wake Island was increased from 15,085 sq mi (39,069 km²) to 167,336 sq mi (433,398 km²). THAAD missile launch on Wake Island

On November 1, 2015, a complex $230 million U.S. military missile defense system test event, called ''Campaign Fierce Sentry'' Flight Test Operational-02 Event 2 (FTO-02 E2), was conducted at Wake Island and the surrounding ocean areas. The test involved a

Terminal High Altitude Area Defense Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), formerly Theater High Altitude Area Defense, is an American anti-ballistic missile defense system designed to shoot down short-, medium-, and intermediate-range ballistic missiles in their termi ...

(THAAD) system built by Lockheed Martin, two AN/TPY-2 radar systems built by

Raytheon Raytheon Technologies Corporation is an American multinational aerospace and defense conglomerate headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. It is one of the largest aerospace and defense manufacturers in the world by revenue and market capitaliz ...

, Lockheed's Command, Control, Battle Management, and Communications system, and

guided missile destroyer A guided-missile destroyer (DDG) is a destroyer whose primary armament is guided missiles so they can provide anti-aircraft warfare screening for the fleet. The NATO standard designation for these vessels is DDG, while destroyers who have a pri ...

with its

AN/SPY-1 The AN/SPY-1 is a United States Navy 3D radar system manufactured by Lockheed Martin. The array is a passive electronically scanned system and a key component of the Aegis Combat System. The system is computer controlled and uses four compleme ...

radar. The objective was to test the ability of the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense and THAAD Weapon Systems to defeat a raid of three near-simultaneous air and missile targets, consisting of one

medium-range ballistic missile A medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) is a type of ballistic missile with medium range, this last classification depending on the standards of certain organizations. Within the U.S. Department of Defense, a medium-range missile is defined b ...

, one

short-range ballistic missile A short-range ballistic missile (SRBM) is a ballistic missile with a range of about or less. In past and potential regional conflicts, these missiles have been and would be used because of the short distances between some countries and their rela ...

and one

cruise missile A cruise missile is a guided missile used against terrestrial or naval targets that remains in the atmosphere and flies the major portion of its flight path at approximately constant speed. Cruise missiles are designed to deliver a large warhea ...

target. During the test, a THAAD system on Wake Island detected and destroyed a short-range target simulating a short-range ballistic missile that was launched by a C-17 transport plane. At the same time, the THAAD system and the destroyer both launched missiles to intercept a medium-range ballistic missile, launched by a second C-17.

Demographics

Wake Island has no permanent inhabitants and access is restricted. However, as of 2017, there are approximately 100 Air Force personnel and American and Thai contractor residents at any given time. As of 2011, the

billet A billet is a living-quarters to which a soldier is assigned to sleep. Historically, a billet was a private dwelling that was required to accept the soldier. Soldiers are generally billeted in barracks or garrisons when not on combat duty, alt ...

ing at the airfield supports 198 beds.

Government

On June 24, 1972, the United States Air Force assumed responsibility for the civil administration of Wake Island pursuant to an agreement between the Department of the Interior and the Department of the Air Force. The civil administration authority at Wake Island has been delegated by the Secretary of the Air Force to the General Counsel of the Air Force under U.S. federal law known as the ''Wake Island Code''. The general counsel provides civil, legal and

judicial authority The judiciary (also known as the judicial system, judicature, judicial branch, judiciative branch, and court or judiciary system) is the system of courts that adjudication, adjudicates legal disputes/disagreements and interprets, defends, and app ...

and can appoint one or more judges to serve on the Wake Island Court and the Wake Island Court of Appeals. Certain authorities have been re-delegated by the general counsel to the Commander, Wake Island, a position currently held by Commander, Detachment 1, Pacific Air Forces Regional Support Center. The commander may issue permits or registrations, appoint peace officers, impose

quarantine A quarantine is a restriction on the movement of people, animals and goods which is intended to prevent the spread of disease or pests. It is often used in connection to disease and illness, preventing the movement of those who may have been ...

s, issue

traffic regulations Traffic comprises pedestrians, vehicles, ridden or herded animals, trains, and other conveyances that use public ways (roads) for travel and transportation. Traffic laws govern and regulate traffic, while rules of the road include traffic l ...

, commission notaries public, direct

evacuations Evacuation or Evacuate may refer to: * Casualty evacuation (CASEVAC), patient evacuation in combat situations * Casualty movement, the procedure for moving a casualty from its initial location to an ambulance * Emergency evacuation, removal of pers ...

and inspections and carry out other duties, powers, and functions as the agent of the general counsel on Wake. Since Wake Island is an active Air Force airfield, the commander is also the senior officer in charge of all activities on the island.

Transportation

Aviation

Air transportation facilities at Wake are operated by the

at Wake Island Airfield in support of trans-Pacific military operations, western Pacific military contingency operations and missile launch activities. The runway on Wake is also available to provide services for military and commercial in-flight emergencies. Although there is only one flight scheduled every other week to transport passengers and cargo to Wake, approximately 600 aircraft per year use Wake Island Airfield.

Ports

Although Wake Island is supplied by sea-going barges and ships, the island's only harbor between Wilkes and Wake is too narrow and shallow for sea-going vessels to enter. The Base Operations Support (BOS) contractor maintains three small landing barges for transferring material from ships moored offshore to the dockyard in the harbor. Off-load hydrants are also used to pump gasoline and

JP-5 Jet fuel or aviation turbine fuel (ATF, also abbreviated avtur) is a type of aviation fuel designed for use in aircraft powered by gas-turbine engines. It is colorless to straw-colored in appearance. The most commonly used fuels for commercial av ...

fuels to the storage tanks on Wilkes. The landing barges and recreational offshore sportfishing boats are docked in the

marina A marina (from Spanish language, Spanish , Portuguese language, Portuguese and Italian language, Italian : ''marina'', "coast" or "shore") is a Dock (maritime), dock or basin with moorings and supplies for yachts and small boats. A marina dif ...

.''Integrated Flight Tests at Wake Atoll Proposed Environmental Assessment'', Missile Defense Agency, US Army Space and Missile Defense Command/Army Forces Strategic Command and Teledyne Brown Engineering, Inc., February 2015

Roads

Transportation on Wake Island is provided by contractors or government-owned vehicles. The primary road is a two-lane paved road extending the length of Wake Island to the causeway between Wake Island and Wilkes Island. The causeway was rehabilitated in 2003 and is capable of supporting heavy equipment. A bridge connecting Wake and Peale Islands burned down in December 2002. A combination of paved and coral gravel roads serves the marina area. Paved access to Wilkes Island ends at the petroleum tank farm, where a road constructed of crushed coral provides access to the western point of Wilkes Island. A portion of the road, near the unfinished WWII submarine channel, is flooded nearly every year by high seas. The launch sites are accessed from the main paved road on Wake Island by paved and coral roads. Generally, the road network is suitable for low-speed, light-duty use only. Wake Island's paved roadway network has been adequately maintained to move materials, services, and personnel from the airfield on the southern end to the personnel support area on the northern end. Modes of transportation include walking, bicycles, light utility carts, automobiles, vans and larger trucks and equipment.

Territorial claim by the Marshall Islands

The Republic of the Marshall Islands has claimed Wake Island, which it calls Ānen Kio (new orthography) or Enen-kio (old orthography). In 1973, Marshallese lawmakers meeting in Saipan at the Congress of Micronesia, the legislative body for 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 ...

, asserted that "Enen-kio is and always has been the property of the people of the Marshall Islands". Their claim was based on oral legends and songs, passed down through generations, describing ancient Marshallese voyages to Wake to gather food and a sacred bird's wing bone used in traditional tattooing ceremonies. In 1990, legislation in the U.S. Congress proposed including Wake Island within the boundaries of the U.S. territory of

. In response, Marshallese President Amata Kabua reasserted his nation's claim to Wake, declaring that Enen-kio was a site of great importance to the traditional chiefly rituals of the Marshall Islands. The self-declared

Kingdom of EnenKio The Kingdom of EnenKio is a claimed micronation near the Marshall Islands run by Robert Moore. Background The Republic of the Marshall Islands has claimed Wake Island, which it calls "Ānen Kio" ("Enen-Kio" in older Marshallese orthography ...

has also claimed Wake Island as a separate sovereign nation and has issued passports. The Kingdom of EnenKio is not recognized in any international forum as a sovereign state, nor does any internationally recognized state recognize it. The Kingdom of EnenKio is characterized as a scam by anti-fraud website Quatloos!. In 2000, Robert Moore, who claimed to be the head of state, was prevented by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission from fraudulently issuing bonds for the non-existent nation. On April 23, 1998, the Marshall Islands government notified all countries with which it has diplomatic ties that the claims of the Kingdom of EnenKio are fraudulent.

References

External links

Wake Atoll National Wildlife Refuge

nbsp;– Pacific Wreck Database * *

AirNav – Wake Island Airfield
nbsp;– Airport details, facilities and navigational aids

nbsp;– United States Marine Corps historical monograph

nbsp;– Marines in World War II

nbsp;– Logistics, flight schedules, facilities (''archived – snapshot at December 8, 2016'')
Photographic history of the 1975 Vietnamese refugee camp on Wake Island

Australia-Oceania: Wake Island
�
CIA: Library – Publications – The World Factbook
{{Authority control Geography of Micronesia Islands of Oceania International territorial disputes of the United States Pacific Ocean atolls of the United States Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument Protected areas established in 2009 Territorial disputes of the Marshall Islands United States Minor Outlying Islands World War II on the National Register of Historic Places National Historic Landmarks of the United States by insular area Seabees Pacific islands of the United States Important Bird Areas of United States Minor Outlying Islands Important Bird Areas of Oceania Seabird colonies

Etymology

Geography

Climate

Typhoons

Ecology

History

Prehistory

Early European contact

United States Exploring Expedition

Wreck and salvage of ''Libelle''

Wreck of ''Dashing Wave''

American possession

Feather collecting

Japanese castaways

USS ''Beaver'' strategic survey

Tanager Expedition

Pan American Airways and the U.S. Navy

Pan American "Flying Clippers" base

Military buildup

World War II

Battle of Wake Island

Japanese occupation and surrender

Post-World War II military and commercial airfield

Korean War

Missile Impact Location System

Tanker shipwreck and oil spill

U.S. Air Force assumes control

Vietnam War refugees and ''Operation New Life''

Bikini Islanders resettlement

Commemorative and memorial visits

Army missile tests

U.S. Air Force regains control

Demographics

Government

Transportation

Aviation

Ports

Roads

Territorial claim by the Marshall Islands

References

Further reading

External links