Tiny, Important Canton Island

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue LXXI, 14 September 1940, Page 2 (Supplement)

Tiny, Important Canton Island

A REPORT from London to San Francisco that the lonely Canton Island in the Pacific had been leased by,the British Government to the Pan-American Airways for a period of 50 years, and' might become a most important strategic defence base for the scheme under consideration by the United States, has occasioned the greatest interest to all the Western States of America. For over 100 years this island in the Phoenix Group has been known to exist, but events of the past four years have given it world importance. Until then it was uninhabited —now it has a permanent settlement and Is a key point on the Clipper route between the U.S.A. and New Zealand. It is a romantic and fascinating story Principal events in the brief recorded history at Canton are: (1) Its shipwreck, from which it derived its name and acquired a legend of transocean navigation in an open boat which rivals that of Captain Bligh of the Bounty. (2) The attempts to make it a commercial asset, first as a source of guano for fertiliser which, in its day, was a success, and later as a coconut plantation, which failed. (3) Its selection as the base of an expedition which made comprehensive observations of an important eclipse of the sun. (4) The amicable solution of a delicate question of sovereignty by Great Britain and the United States. (*•') Its use as an intermediate base for Pan-American Airways' South Pacific route to New Zealand. These facts are contained in a Pan-American treatise on the "subject. "Pan-American Airways had to build from the sand up. Everything needful to support 41 life was brought to Canton Island from the United States, and a colony established, with everything centring around the facilities for servicing and providing flight guards for the Clippers. Captain Wing Found It! "Canton lias natural advantages which make it especially attractive as the 6ite for an ocean air base. Its lagoon is almost completely enclosed, with only a very narrow outlet to the sea, so that the seaplane harbour is well protected and offers a smooth surface for landing and take-off, even when the sea is rough outside. It has more than ample area— the pear-shaped lagoon is nine miles long and three miles wide. The narrow strip of land, completely encircling the water area, is 50 yards to oner third of a mile wide. Coral heads and ridges criss-cross-ing the lagoon presented merely the routine job of blasting to clear necessary runways. "All of this would have been regarded as completely mystifying, and entirely irrelevant by Captain Andrew Johnson Wing, of the whaler Canton, at 1.30 a.Tf]. on March 4, 1854—but Captain Wing was at Canton.at that very moment, and did not know it. He was very busy.. He -} ' ' ■ -

Captain Andrew Wine and 111-fated chip Canton gave it its. name. The wings of Pan-American Airways have given it Importance. On this little atoll, too, -was laid the foundation of British-American co-operation—a. co-opcration which recently has had such important results.

By H. W. Johns

had computed the ship's position, and recorded it as 2 degree 4 minutes south latitude —172 degrees west longitude. The charts indicated that he was at least 90 miles from any known land —and that was all right with Captain Wing, because his vessel was running before a tropical gale, and he wanted no part of any unfamiliar South Sea island. But at 1.30 a.m. there was a crash, followed by the noise of crunching timbers from the larboard quarter. The ship bilged, and rapidly began to go to pieces. Captain Wing discovered Canton. "Apparently he was not the first whaling captain to see the atoll at that," states the treatise. "A naval report dated 1828 refers to an island which was known to New Bedford whalers as Mary Island. There is no doubt it was the atoll now designated as Canton. But a vague reference in a report which he had never seen was worth less than nothing to Captain Wing with his vessel grinding her keel to bits on a coral reef. "The captain called for all hands, and aeked for a volunteer to go ashore with a line. Mate William B. Carrol promptly bid for the dangerous job, got it, and got away with it. Not only did. Captain Wing succeed in putting every " man of his crew of 32 ashore, but he also managed to bring along four boats loaded with water and provisions. Oh Canton they found v no water, and nothing to eat. So they budgeted their supplies and watched the horizon for 24 days. "By March 30 the men decided that they were in a desperate situation. Provisions and water were low, there seemed no prospect of rescue, and the crew of Canton resolved to rescue itself. Their boats were 30ft long, with 6ft beam, 22in above water at gunwales. They used all four in their bid for safety. Immediate objeiive of Captain Wing and the Canton's crew was the Kingsmill Group some 800 miles to the westward. Whalers put in there regularly, and assistance could be relied upon." "Move On!" Day followed upon day without a landfall, and at length Captain Wing was forced to the conclusion that the winds and currc.nts had carried him past the Kingsmill Group. Continuing north-westward, the ship's company was rewarded on tile 45th day by a glimpse of land. They found themselves at Tinian in the Marinas Islands, . and Captain Wing presently was conducted into the presence of the Spanish governor. It was - — : ; H

no warm reception that he got. The governor heard the captain's story, and flatly refused to believe it. He said the crew might take water and coconuts if they liked. In any : event, they must move on. So the ship's company set out again in the . ship's boats. -At least their call at . Tinian gave them a "fix." They knew . exactly where they were, and the cap--I tain's navigation from that point onward enabled them to reach Guam on . May 19, with all four boats and • all ' hands safe. "The ship's company of the 'Canton' : made tho journey from Canton to Guam in their open boats in 49 days, covering 2900 nautical miles. By comparison, Captain Bligh, with those members of his crew who declined to participate in the mutiny on the Bpunty, went from. Tofua, in the Friendly Islands, 3GIS nautical miles to Timor in an open boat 23 feet long in 42 days. Captain Bligh went farther and faster on the open occan in the pages of fiction and on tho silver screen, but Captain Wing put another island on the charts." The island was variously called Mary ■ Island, Mary Balcout's Island, Swallow Island, Balcout Island and Bulcot Island. : The name Canton was used by Captain Richard W. Meade of the U.S.S. Nar- ■ ragansett in his report of 1872-.73 describing a visit to tho island, and this l name became the official one. Thero i was very little interest, however, in the ; barren circle of sand. Guano collectors . went to work on nearby Enderbury in - 1858, but it was not until the 80's that John J. Arundel and Co. of London started similar work on Canton." Another Wreck ■ "In 1884 the guano vessel Howard E. Troup, anchored close to the shore, fell victim to a change in the wind, which put her upon the reef. A steam winch, a hollow metal mast, and some long heavy timbers remain as reminders of that tragedy. The guano collectors left behind them their rude huts, which eventually fell to pieces in wind and weather, leaving only their corrugated roofs to mark the site of the camp. "Then the übiquitous Captain Allen entered into the picture. For his company, the Samoa Shipping and Trading Co., Ltd., Captain Allen seemingly took a lease on every uninhabited South Sea island he could discover on the charts. He visited Canton in 1915, erected a bcacon, and planted hundreds of coconut trees. The idea, of course, was to let the trees get a good start, and then establish a copra industry. But when, he returned for an inspection of his coconut plantation in 1910, all but five or six of the trees had died, 60 that experiment was abandoned.