PACIFIC AIRWAY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23394, 10 July 1939, Page 6

PACIFIC AIRWAY

CANTON ISLAND BASE PREPARATION IN HAND BUILDING A TOWNSHIP SHIPMENT OF MATERIALS. [from oun OWN* con respondent] • , : VANCOUVER, Juno 7 Canton Island, in mid-Pacific, 1900 miles ■ south-west of Honolulu, where the Union Jack and Stars and Stripes avo side hv side, is to he a scene of great activity for the next three months, with the arrival of the Pan American Airways construction vessel Tvorth Hjiven. She carries a crow 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 -12-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 cap see the snndv bottom, 40ft. to 50ft. below, amid a forest of coral, through which a channel will be blasted for berthing the Clippers.

Buildings lor 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 ad dress, key to the part it represents on blue prints. Each item has been checked/ each piece of machinery tested, and all materials subjected to careful analysis. The planning, ordering and assembly of the expedition lias been the work of many months. Experts on tropical 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 mechanic 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, cottngo 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 bo 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 States, it was agreed that sovereignty over would be shared by both. A licence was accordingly granted to Pan American Airways, on condition that should a '"properly-recognised'' British company—said to be Imperial Airways—wish to commence operations, it could share the Pan American facilities on some equitable basis of cost. For some months past, two small groups, of colonists, British and American, have been living in peace and amity on the island, evidence of the ""strategic value of a tinv piece of coral sand to two great Powers.