SOUTH PACIFIC ATOLL A VITAL AIR LINK

Press, Volume XCII, Issue 27796, 22 October 1955, Page 11

SOUTH PACIFIC ATOLL A VITAL AIR LINK

Tiny Canton Island Used Each Day By Airlines

REFUELLING POINT BETWEEN FIJI AND HAWAII

(Specially written for "The Press" by E. T. BEARDSLEY]

Nothing atoH, puns the stewardess as the big airliner dips down through the clear Pacific dawn towards the sea three Hides below. And the passengers, who have been sleeping soundly since leaving Nandi, in Fiji, nearly 2000 miles away, can see far below the outlines of a small island with a white line of surf breaking gently at its edge. The engines are throttled back, the iLips \\nine down and the plane skims over the sea. seeming almost to touch the breakers at the water’s edge. Then, almost imperceptibly, the wheels are down on the gleaming coral runway. Palms and buildings flash past and then, with a final revving of engines, the plane comes to a halt.

Canton Island, the atoll on which we have landed, is a small spot in the vastness of the Pacific, but international air travel has given it a significance hardly in keeping with its size.

It comprises about eight square miles of coral arranged rather in the shape of a pork chop. The strip of land is only about 500 yards wide and encloses a lagoon some eight miles long and three miles wide. Nowhere is it more than a few feet above sea level. Before the days of air travel it had few visitors and no inhabitants, but today it provides a vital stopping place for airliners flying the South Pacific. The airlines which link North America with Australia and New Zealand use the refuelling facilities at the island every day. That the pilots find the tiny island at all is a tribute to the science of air navigation. No planes on regular services have yet missed it: nor are they likely to. An Epic Voyage Canton, the largest island of the Phoenix Group, got its name from a New Bedford whaler of that name which was wrecked on the reef in 1854. The captain, Andrew Wing, and his crew of 32 men, swam through the surf and broken coral heads and later returned to the whaler, which was fast breaking up. The four ship’s boats, each 30ft long and with a beam of 6ft, and some food and water, were salvaged. Wing apparently decided that their chances of being picked up were slight, and a few days later he and his crew set out with the hope of making the Kingsmill Islands, from where they hoped to be rescued. But their navigation was not good enough, for they missed the group entirely and did not sight land until 45 days later with their food and water supplies exhausted. The land was Tinian, in the Marianas, and here King took on fresh water and coconuts. Four days later, he and his bedraggled crew made their final landfall at Guam. This voyage, of 2900 miles, rivals the better-known open boat voyage of Bligh of the Bounty, who sailed from Tofua, in the Tonga, or rriendlv Islands, to Timor, a distance of 3618 miles. At that time. Canton belonged only to the birds—the bosun bird, with its fine red tail feathers, love terns, man-o-war birds ' and boobies—which swooped after the fish teeming in the lagoon. On the land there were only hermit crabs and the small South Sea rats. The land itself had not been formallv annexed by any nation and it was shown on few charts. And for the next 50 years, the island was touched only lightly by history. In the eighties, a British company worked g”°nn there, but little importance was to the island until well after t*-> ti”-n of the century, when a CanAii en . on behalf of the Samoa Shinoine and Tradins Company, took a from the British Government m overv- "mnhab’ted South Pacific is'e he could find. He erected a beacon end planted coconuts on Canton, hut four survived and Allen eventually s°id the le^« z ' to the Gilbert and Ellice Is’-'ndc colony. in the thirties. Canton rose from obsouritv to become the centre of world news. Airline companies, survevine routes across the South Pacific saw that the laeoon could be made safe for flvinv-boats and that the coral and hard sandbanks would provide excellent runways for land nlanes. Sovereignty of the island was disputed. International Incident British officials from H.M.S. Leith landed on Canton on August 6, 1936. and posted a sign asserting British sovereignty. Then in June next year an American scientific expedition left Honolulu in the seaplane tender Avocet to observe an eclipse of the sun from Canton on June 8. While the Americans were setting up their camp, the New Zealand sloop Wellington, with a party of New Zealand scientists on board arrived at the island. Commander Louston-Clark. of the Wellington, requested the Americans to move off the anchorage, but the request was refused. -. „ Thus, though the representatives of the two countries fraternised during their stay at the island, an intern ational incident had been created. Both

parties posted signs asserting the sovereignty of their countries and both countries hastily sent settlers to back their claims On August 31 that year, two British agents, with radio equipment, landed on Canton and British officials remained there continuously. An American party of seven, including several Hawaiians, arrived in March 1938. These parties, too, became firm friends and left the arguments to Washington and London. Britain fired the first round in the diplomatic exchanges that followed with a Note containing a copy of an Order-in-Council by which it claimed Canton was incorporated in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony. Washington replied that its interest in the island was purely for civil aviation and there was no reason why the two countries should not share ownership. Discussions on the sovereignty of Canton began that year and in April 1939, an agreement was announced by which Canton became a condomin-v.m jointly administered by Britain and the United States for the next 50 years and “thereafter until such time as it may be modified or terminated by mutual consent.’’ In the same year the House of Commons voted £7500 for establishing a Colonial Office official on the island. Houses, a radio station and a lighthouse were built. Air Service Begins Pan American Airways, the pioneers of trans-Pacific air travel, was granted a licence to use Canton in 1939, and soon the company’s Sikorsky clippers were regularly touching down in the island’s lagoon for refuelling on the Honolulu-Canton - Noumea - Auckland service. The company made every provision for the comfort of passengers. In September, 1939, all the timber, cement, windows and furnishings for a 24-room hotel were loaded into a freighter at San Francisco and taken te Canton, where the hotel was built. The equipment included blower ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration plant. The company extended its radio station, set up a small hospital and blasted away dangerous coral reefs at the entrance to the lagoon so that the clippers could land in safety. But the service had not long been established when Pearl Harbour, nearly 2000 miles to the ribrth, was bombed Almost immediately, Canton became an important base. The forces took over the hotel, built a 9000 ft airstrip, and constructed many buildings, ftefrigeration. electric and water distillation plants helped to make life comfortable. A weather bureau and radar units were installed, and the atoll was the centre of a busy life. With the turn of the tide in the Pacific war, the forces puL'd out again, taking much of their equipment and demolishing many buildings. But they left the hotel, post office, radio and meteorological stations and the once luxurious cruise liner. President Taylor, which, during the war, missed the lagoon entrance and went on to the reef. She settled firmly and began to rust away. American whalers who visited Canton as early as 1830 thought it an inhospitable and barren island, and most passengers on the modern airliners landing there today will agree with them. The island is only a few degrees south of the equator, and the sun burns down fiercely on the gleaming coral and sand. Trade winds help to cool the air later in the day, but the meagre vegetation offers little shade, and soon a? ter sunrise most of the buildings, in spite of air conditioning, became uncomfortably hot. But those who live on the island are quick to defend it. The life, they say, is a pleasant one. Conditions are good, wages are high, and there is liberal leave. Passengers, sipping their iced drinks gratefully in the airline cafe, received these statements with some reservations and the majority are not sorry when, after about an hour, their plane is checked and refuelled, and stands ready to head into the Pacific sky once more.