Canton Island Base For Pacific Airway

Manawatu Times, Volume 64, Issue 161, 11 July 1939, Page 8

Canton Island Base For Pacific Airway

PREPARATION IN HAND VANCOUVER, June 7. Canton Island, in mid-Pacifie, 1900 miles south-west of Honolulu, where the Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes wave sido by side, is to be a scene of great activity for the next three months, with the arrival of the Pan American Airways construction vessel North Haven. She carries a crew of 29 and 58 artisans and building labourers, who will erect structures similar to those built by the same personnel at Midway, Wake and Guam Islands for the California-Hongkong mail, passenger and freight air line.

In the holds of the North Haven are 5000 tons of cargo—steel and timber for hotel, houses, stores, docks, radio direction finder, and aircraft maintenance equipment, for the 42-ton Boeing Clippers, similar to those now crossing the Atlantic.

These machines will alight and take off on a sheltered lagoon, nine miles long and five miles wide. So clear is the water in this mid-ocean lake that one can see the sandy bottom, 40ft. to 50ft. below, amid a forest of coral, through which a channel will be blasted for berthing the Clippers. Buildings for Modern Community.

The highest point of land is only nine feet above sea level. A dozen scattered coconut palms break the horizon. There is no vegetation.

There are 314,000 separate items of cargo. On each one is an actual address, key to the part it represents on blue prints. Each item has been checked, each pioco of machinery tested, and all materials subjected to careful analysis. The planning, ordering and assembly of the expedition has been tlu work of many months. Experts on tro pical sanitation, meteorologists, builders, dietitians, even interior decorators, have been consulted.

The permanent staff will include, besides the airport manager, a chief radio operator and assistant, a chief mecnanie and staff, a doctor, and a domestic staff of cooks, stewards and mess boys. By the end of July, it is expected that housing and quarters for a modern community will have been erected. It will boast a hotel, cottage living quarters for the staff, hospital, electric light and power plant, refrigerated warehouse, canteen and water plant, all of which will surround a modern base for the giant Clippers, with a marine railway, dock and loading pier. British and American Colonists. The first building to be erected will be the refrigerator for meats and vegetables. Next will be the radio station, which will keep the little community in touch with the outside world.

Following a recent exchange of Notes between Britain and the United State*, it was agreed that sovereignty over Canton Island would be. shared bj both.