Louis Tromelin
Louis-François-Marie-Nicolas Le Goarant de Tromelin, was a nineteenth-century French Naval admiral, sent to the Pacific Ocean on political and military missions, and credited with the discovery of Phoenix Island in the Phoenix group and Fais Island in the Carolines.
Naval service
Tromelin joined the French Navy in 1800, and served on various ships during the Napoleonic Wars, before gaining command of the corvette Bayonnaise in 1826 and on 21 December sailed from Toulon for South America, via the Hawaiian Islands, where he was to report on the political situation and ease the plight of French missionaries. He visited various islands of the Pacific en route, and returned to Toulon 19 March 1829.Attaining the rank of rear admiral, Tromelin returned to the Pacific in 1846 as commander of the French naval forces in the Pacific. In August 1849 he occupied the fort of Honolulu.