Midway Atoll
Midway Atoll is a atoll in the North Pacific Ocean. Midway Atoll is an insular area of the United States and is an unorganized and unincorporated territory. The largest island is Sand Island, which has housing and an airstrip. Immediately east of Sand Island, across the narrow Brooks Channel, is Eastern Island, which is uninhabited and no longer has any facilities. Forming a rough, incomplete circle around the two main islands and creating Midway Lagoon is Spit Island, a narrow reef.
Roughly equidistant between North America and Asia, Midway is the only island in the Hawaiian Archipelago that is not part of the state of Hawaii. Unlike the other Hawaiian islands, Midway observes Samoa Time, which is one hour behind the time in the Hawaii–Aleutian Time Zone used in Hawaii. For statistical purposes, Midway is grouped as one of the United States Minor Outlying Islands. The Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge, encompassing of land and water in the surrounding area, is administered by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. The refuge and surrounding area are part of the larger Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument.
From 1941 until 1993, the atoll was the home of Naval Air Facility Midway Island, which played a crucial role in the Battle of Midway, June 4–6, 1942. Aircraft based at the then-named Henderson Field on Eastern Island joined with United States Navy ships and planes in an attack on a Japanese battle group that sank four carriers and one heavy cruiser and defended the atoll from invasion. The battle was a critical Allied victory and a significant turning point of the Pacific campaign of World War II.
About 50 people live on Sand Island: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service staff and contract workers. Visiting the atoll is possible only for business reasons, which includes permanent and temporary staff, contractors, and volunteers, as the tourism program has been suspended due to budget cutbacks. In 2012, the last year that the visitor program was in operation, 332 people made the trip to Midway. Tours focused on the unique ecology of Midway and its military history. The economy is derived solely from governmental sources. Nearly all supplies must be brought to the island by ship or plane, although a hydroponic greenhouse and garden supply some fresh fruits and vegetables.
Location
As its name suggests, Midway is roughly equidistant between North America and Asia and lies almost halfway around the world longitudinally from Greenwich, England. It is near the northwestern end of the Hawaiian archipelago, northwest of Honolulu, Hawaii, and about one-third of the way from Honolulu to Tokyo, Japan. Unlike the rest of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, Midway is not part of the State of Hawaii due to the Hawaiian Organic Act of 1900 that formally annexed Hawaii to the United States as a territory, which defined Hawaii as "the islands acquired by the United States of America under an Act of Congress entitled 'Joint resolution to provide for annexing the Hawaiian Islands to the United States,'" referring to the Newlands Resolution of 1898. While it could be argued that Midway became part of Hawaii when Captain N.C. Brooks of the sealing ship Gambia sighted it in 1859, it was assumed at the time that Midway was independently acquired by the United States when Captain William Reynolds of visited in 1867, and thus not part of the Hawaii Territory.In defining which islands the state of Hawaii would inherit from the Territory, the Hawaii Admission Act of 1959 clarified the question, specifically excluding Midway from the jurisdiction of the state.
Midway Atoll is approximately east of the International Date Line, about west of San Francisco, and east of Tokyo.
Geography and geology
Midway Atoll is part of a chain of volcanic islands, atolls, and seamounts extending from near the Island of Hawaii up to the area of the Aleutian Islands and known as the Hawaiian–Emperor seamount chain, between Pearl and Hermes Atoll and Kure Atoll in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. It consists of a ring-shaped barrier reef nearly in diameter and several sand islets. The two significant pieces of land, Sand Island and Eastern Island, provide a habitat for millions of seabirds. The island sizes are shown in the table above.Midway was formed roughly 28 million years ago when the seabed underneath it was over the same hotspot from which the Island of Hawaii is now being formed. Midway was once a shield volcano, perhaps as large as the island of Lanai. As the volcano piled up, lava flows built the island, its weight depressed the crust, and the island slowly subsided for millions of years, a process known as isostatic adjustment.
As the island subsided, a coral reef around the former volcanic island could maintain itself near sea level by growing upwards. That reef is now over thick sediments and lower Miocene. What remains today is a shallow water atoll about across. Following Kure Atoll, Midway is the 2nd most northerly atoll in the world.
Infrastructure
The atoll has some of roads, of pipelines, one port on Sand Island, and an airfield. Henderson Field airfield at Midway Atoll, with its one active runway has been designated as an emergency diversion airport for aircraft flying under ETOPS rules. Although the FWS closed all airport operations on November22, 2004, public access to the island was restored in March 2008.Eastern Island Airstrip is a disused airfield used by U.S. forces during the Battle of Midway. It is mostly constructed of Marston Mat and was built by the United States Navy Seabees.
Climate
Despite being located at 28°12′N, which is north of the Tropic of Cancer, Midway Atoll has a tropical savanna climate bordering a subtropical climate and a tropical rainforest climate, with very pleasant year-round temperatures. Rainfall is fairly evenly distributed throughout the year, with only one month having an average annual precipitation of less than.History
Midway has no indigenous inhabitants and was uninhabited until the 19th century.19th century
The atoll was sighted on July 5, 1859, by Captain N.C. Brooks, of the sealing ship Gambia. The islands were named the "Middlebrook Islands". Brooks claimed Midway for the United States under the Guano Islands Act of 1856, which authorized Americans to occupy uninhabited islands temporarily to obtain guano. There is no record of any attempt to mine guano on the island. On August28, 1867, Captain William Reynolds of formally took possession of the atoll for the United States; the name changed to "Midway" some time after this. The atoll was the first Pacific island annexed by the United States as the Unincorporated Territory of Midway Island and was administered by the United States Navy.The first attempt at settlement was in 1870 when the Pacific Mail Steamship Company started a project of blasting and dredging a ship channel through the reef to the lagoon using money put up by the United States Congress. The purpose was to establish a mid-ocean coaling station to avoid the high taxes imposed at ports controlled by the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi. The project was a failure, and the evacuated the channel project's workforce in October 1870. The ship ran aground on October 21 at Kure Atoll, stranding 93 men. On November 18, five men set out in a small boat to seek help. On December 19, four of the men perished when the boat was upset in the breakers off of Kauai. The survivor reached the U.S. Consulate in Honolulu on Christmas Eve. Relief ships were dispatched and reached Kure Atoll on January 4, 1871. The survivors of the Saginaw wreck reached Honolulu on January 14, 1871.
Early 20th century
In 1903, workers for the Commercial Pacific Cable Company took up residence on the island as part of the effort to lay a trans-Pacific telegraph cable. To make the island more verdant, these workers introduced many non-native species to the island, including the canary, cycad, Norfolk Island pine, she-oak/Ironwood, coconut, and various deciduous trees; along with some of soil from Oahu and Guam. Ants, cockroaches, termites, centipedes, and countless other organisms were unintentionally introduced to Midway and the soil.On January 20, 1903, the United States Navy opened a radio station in response to complaints from cable company workers about Japanese squatters and poachers. Between 1904 and 1908, President Theodore Roosevelt stationed 21 Marines on the island to end wanton destruction of bird life and keep Midway safe as a U.S. possession, protecting the cable station.
In 1935, operations began for the Martin M-130 flying boats operated by Pan American Airlines. The M-130s island-hopped from San Francisco to the Republic of China, providing the fastest and most luxurious route to the Far East and bringing tourists to Midway until 1941. Only the wealthy could afford the trip, which in the 1930s cost more than three times the annual salary of an average American. With Midway on the route between Honolulu and Wake Island, the flying boats landed in the atoll and pulled up to a float offshore in the lagoon. Tourists transferred to the Pan Am Hotel or the "Gooneyville Lodge", named after the ubiquitous "Gooney birds", in this case Laysan Albatross and Black-footed Albatross.
World War II
The military importance of the location of Midway in the Pacific included its use as a convenient refueling stop on transpacific flights and for Navy ships. Beginning in 1940, as tensions with the Japanese rose, Midway was deemed second only to Pearl Harbor in importance to the protection of the U.S. West Coast. Airstrips, gun emplacements, and a seaplane base quickly materialized on the tiny atoll. The channel was widened, and Naval Air Station Midway was completed. Midway was also an important submarine base.On February 14, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive order 8682 to create naval defense areas in the central Pacific territories. The proclamation established the "Midway Island Naval Defensive Sea Area", which encompassed the territorial waters between the extreme high-water marks and the marine boundaries surrounding Midway. "Midway 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 Midway Atoll unless authorized by the Secretary of the Navy.
Midway's importance to the U.S. was brought into focus on December7, 1941, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Two destroyers bombarded Midway on the same day; this was the first Bombardment of Midway. A Pan-Am flying clipper stopped at Midway and evacuated passengers and Pan-American employees from Wake island, which had also been attacked earlier that day. The clipper was on its usual passenger route to Guam when the attack on Pearl Harbor happened; it then made a return journey going from Wake to Midway, Honolulu, and back to the USA.
A Japanese submarine bombarded Midway on February10, 1942. In total, Midway had been attacked four times between December 7, 1941 and the Japanese submarine attack of February 10, 1942.
Four months later, on June 4, 1942, a major naval battle near Midway resulted in the U.S. Navy inflicting a devastating defeat on the Imperial Japanese Navy. Four Japanese fleet aircraft carriers,,, and, were sunk, along with the loss of hundreds of Japanese aircraft, losses that the Empire of Japan would never be able to replace. The U.S. lost the aircraft carrier, along with a number of its carrier- and land-based aircraft that were either shot down by Japanese forces or bombed on the ground at the airfields. The Battle of Midway was, by most accounts, the beginning of the end of the Imperial Japanese Navy's control of the Pacific Ocean.
Starting in July 1942, a submarine tender was always stationed at the atoll to support submarines patrolling Japanese waters. In 1944, a floating dry dock joined the tender.
After the Battle of Midway, a second airfield was developed on Sand Island. This work necessitated enlarging the island through landfill techniques that, when completed, more than doubled its size.