Howland Island
Encyclopedia
Coral island
A coral island is the result of an atoll whose lagoon has dried up or been filled in with coral sand and detritus. This state is typically the last in the life cycle of an island, the first being volcanic and the second being an atoll. Most of the world's coral islands are in the Pacific Ocean...
located just north of the equator
Equator
An equator is the intersection of a sphere's surface with the plane perpendicular to the sphere's axis of rotation and containing the sphere's center of mass....
in the central Pacific Ocean
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...
, about 1700 nautical miles (3,148.4 km) southwest of Honolulu. The island lies almost halfway between Hawaii and Australia and is an unincorporated, unorganized territory
Unorganized territory
An unorganized territory is a region of land without a "normally" constituted system of government. This does not mean that the territory has no government at all or that it is unclaimed territory...
of the United States. Geographically, it is part of the Phoenix Islands
Phoenix Islands
The Phoenix Islands are a group of eight atolls and two submerged coral reefs, lying in the central Pacific Ocean east of the Gilbert Islands and west of the Line Islands. They are a part of the Republic of Kiribati. During the late 1930s they became the site of the last attempted colonial...
. For statistical purposes, Howland is grouped as one of the United States Minor Outlying Islands
United States Minor Outlying Islands
The United States Minor Outlying Islands, a statistical designation defined by the International Organization for Standardization's ISO 3166-1 code, consists of nine United States insular areas in the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea: Baker Island, Howland Island, Jarvis Island, Johnston Atoll,...
.
Howland is located at 0°48′07"N 176°38′3"W. It covers 450 acres (1.8 km²), with 4 miles (6.4 km) of coastline. The island has an elongated shape on a north-south axis. There is no lagoon.
Howland Island National Wildlife Refuge consists of the 455 acres (1.8 km²) island and the surrounding 32074 acres (129.8 km²) of submerged land. The island is managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
United States Fish and Wildlife Service
The United States Fish and Wildlife Service is a federal government agency within the United States Department of the Interior dedicated to the management of fish, wildlife, and natural habitats...
as an insular area
Insular area
An insular area is a United States territory, that is neither a part of one of the fifty U.S. states nor the District of Columbia, the federal district of the United States...
under the U.S. Department of the Interior
United States Department of the Interior
The United States Department of the Interior is the United States federal executive department of the U.S. government responsible for the management and conservation of most federal land and natural resources, and the administration of programs relating to Native Americans, Alaska Natives, Native...
and is part of the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument.
The atoll has no economic activity. It is perhaps best known as the island Amelia Earhart
Amelia Earhart
Amelia Mary Earhart was a noted American aviation pioneer and author. Earhart was the first woman to receive the U.S. Distinguished Flying Cross, awarded for becoming the first aviatrix to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean...
never reached. Airstrips built in the late 1930s to accommodate her planned stopover were never used, subsequently damaged, not maintained and gradually disappeared. There are no harbors or docks. The reefs may pose a hazard. There is one boat landing area along the middle of the sandy beach on the west coast together with a crumbling day beacon
Day beacon
A day beacon is an unlighted nautical sea mark. Typically, day beacons mark channels whose key points are marked by lighted buoys. Day beacons may also mark smaller navigable routes in their entirety. They are the most common aid to nautical navigation in shallow water as they are relatively...
. The island is visited every two years by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Flora and fauna
Reef
In nautical terminology, a reef is a rock, sandbar, or other feature lying beneath the surface of the water ....
with a slightly raised central area. The highest point is about six meters above sea level
Sea level
Mean sea level is a measure of the average height of the ocean's surface ; used as a standard in reckoning land elevation...
.
There are no natural fresh water
Freshwater
Fresh water is naturally occurring water on the Earth's surface in ice sheets, ice caps, glaciers, bogs, ponds, lakes, rivers and streams, and underground as groundwater in aquifers and underground streams. Fresh water is generally characterized by having low concentrations of dissolved salts and...
resources. The landscape features scattered grasses along with prostrate vines and low-growing pisonia
Pisonia
Pisonia is a genus of flowering plants in the four o'clock flower family, Nyctaginaceae. It was named for Dutch physician and naturalist Willem Piso . Certain species in this genus are known as Catchbirdtrees because their sticky seeds reportedly trap small birds...
trees and shrubs. A 1942 eyewitness description spoke of "a low grove of dead and decaying kou trees" on a very shallow hill at the island's center, but 58 years later (2000) a visitor accompanying a scientific expedition reported seeing "a flat bulldozed plain of coral sand, without a single tree" and some traces of building ruins. Howland is primarily a nesting, roosting and foraging habitat for seabirds, shorebirds and marine wildlife.
The U.S. claims an Exclusive Economic Zone
Exclusive Economic Zone
Under the law of the sea, an exclusive economic zone is a seazone over which a state has special rights over the exploration and use of marine resources, including production of energy from water and wind. It stretches from the seaward edge of the state's territorial sea out to 200 nautical...
of 200 nautical miles (370.4 km) and a territorial sea
Territorial waters
Territorial waters, or a territorial sea, as defined by the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, is a belt of coastal waters extending at most from the baseline of a coastal state...
of 12 nautical miles (22.2 km) around the island.
Since Howland Island is uninhabited, no time zone is specified. It lies within a nautical time zone which is 12 hours behind UTC.
Prehistoric settlement
Sparse remnants of trails and other artifacts indicate a sporadic early PolynesianPolynesian culture
Polynesian culture refers to the indigenous peoples' culture of Polynesia who share common traits in language, customs and society. Chronologically, the development of Polynesian culture can be divided into four different historical eras:...
presence. A canoe, a blue bead, pieces of bamboo, and other relics of early settlers have been found. The island's prehistoric settlement may have begun about 1000 BC when eastern Melanesia
Melanesia
Melanesia is a subregion of Oceania extending from the western end of the Pacific Ocean to the Arafura Sea, and eastward to Fiji. The region comprises most of the islands immediately north and northeast of Australia...
ns traveled north and may have extended down to Rawaki
Rawaki Island
Rawaki Island is one of the Phoenix Islands in the Republic of Kiribati, also known by its previous name of Phoenix Island. It is a small, uninhabited atoll, approximately 1.2 by 0.8 km in size and 65 hec. in area, with a shallow, brackish central lagoon that does not communicate with the...
, Kanton
Kanton Island
Kanton Island , alternatively known as "Mary Island", "Mary Balcout's Island" or "Swallow Island", is the largest, northernmost, and as of 2007, the sole inhabited island of the Phoenix Islands, in the Republic of Kiribati. It is an atoll located in the South Pacific Ocean roughly halfway between...
, Manra
Manra Island
Manra Island or Sydney Island, is one of the Phoenix Islands in the Republic of Kiribati. It lies at . W. longitude, and has an area of 4.4 km2. and an elevation of approximately six meters...
and Orona of the Phoenix Islands
Phoenix Islands
The Phoenix Islands are a group of eight atolls and two submerged coral reefs, lying in the central Pacific Ocean east of the Gilbert Islands and west of the Line Islands. They are a part of the Republic of Kiribati. During the late 1930s they became the site of the last attempted colonial...
, 500 to 700 km southeast. K.P. Emery, an ethnologist for Honolulu's Bernice P. Bishop Museum, indicated that settlers on Manra Island
Manra Island
Manra Island or Sydney Island, is one of the Phoenix Islands in the Republic of Kiribati. It lies at . W. longitude, and has an area of 4.4 km2. and an elevation of approximately six meters...
were apparently of two distinct groups, one Polynesian and the other Micronesian, hence the same might have been true on Howland Island, though no proof of this has been forthcoming.
The difficult life on these isolated islands along with unreliable fresh water supplies may have led to the dereliction or extinction of the settlements, much the same as other islands in the area (such as Kiritimati
Kiritimati
Kiritimati or Christmas Island is a Pacific Ocean raised coral atoll in the northern Line Islands, and part of the Republic of Kiribati....
and Pitcairn
Pitcairn Islands
The Pitcairn Islands , officially named the Pitcairn, Henderson, Ducie and Oeno Islands, form a group of four volcanic islands in the southern Pacific Ocean. The islands are a British Overseas Territory and overseas territory of the European Union in the Pacific...
) were abandoned.
Sightings by whalers
Captain George B. Worth of the NantucketNantucket, Massachusetts
Nantucket is an island south of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, in the United States. Together with the small islands of Tuckernuck and Muskeget, it constitutes the town of Nantucket, Massachusetts, and the coterminous Nantucket County, which are consolidated. Part of the town is designated the Nantucket...
whaler Oeno
Oeno (ship)
The Oeno was a nineteenth century Pacific whaling vessel, registered in the United States in Nantucket, that disappeared in the Fiji Islands. Nine years later, the ship's cooper William Cary returned to Nantucket and claimed that the ship had wrecked on an island's reef and that the crew had been...
sighted Howland around 1822 and called it "Worth Island". Daniel MacKenzie of the American whaler Minerva Smith was unaware of Worth's sighting when he charted the island in 1828 and named it after his ship's owners on 1 December 1828. Howland Island was at last named after a lookout who sighted it from the whaleship Isabella of New Bedford
New Bedford, Massachusetts
New Bedford is a city in Bristol County, Massachusetts, United States, located south of Boston, southeast of Providence, Rhode Island, and about east of Fall River. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 95,072, making it the sixth-largest city in Massachusetts...
on 9 September 1842.
U.S. possession and guano mining
Howland Island was uninhabited when the United States took possession of it in 1857 under the Guano Islands ActGuano Islands Act
The Guano Islands Act is federal legislation passed by the U.S. Congress, on August 18, 1856. It enables citizens of the U.S. to take possession of islands containing guano deposits. The islands can be located anywhere, so long as they are not occupied and not within the jurisdiction of other...
of 1856. The island was a known navigation hazard for many decades and several ships were wrecked there. Its guano
Guano
Guano is the excrement of seabirds, cave dwelling bats, and seals. Guano manure is an effective fertilizer due to its high levels of phosphorus and nitrogen and also its lack of odor. It was an important source of nitrates for gunpowder...
deposits were mined by American companies until October 1878. John T. Arundel
John T. Arundel
John T. Arundel was an entrepreneur who was instrumental in the development of the mining of phosphate rock on the Pacific islands of Nauru and Banaba ....
and Company, a British firm using laborers from the Cook Islands
Cook Islands
The Cook Islands is a self-governing parliamentary democracy in the South Pacific Ocean in free association with New Zealand...
and Niue
Niue
Niue , is an island country in the South Pacific Ocean. It is commonly known as the "Rock of Polynesia", and inhabitants of the island call it "the Rock" for short. Niue is northeast of New Zealand in a triangle between Tonga to the southwest, the Samoas to the northwest, and the Cook Islands to...
, occupied the island from 1886 to 1891.
In the late 19th Century there were British claims on the island, as well as attempts at setting up mining. To clarify American sovereignty, Executive Order 7358 was issued on 13 May 1936.
Itascatown (1935–1942)
In 1935 a brief attempt at colonization was made, part of a larger project administered by the Department of CommerceUnited States Department of Commerce
The United States Department of Commerce is the Cabinet department of the United States government concerned with promoting economic growth. It was originally created as the United States Department of Commerce and Labor on February 14, 1903...
to establish a permanent U.S. presence on the equatorial Line Islands
Line Islands
The Line Islands, Teraina Islands or Equatorial Islands, is a chain of eleven atolls and low coral islands in the central Pacific Ocean, south of the Hawaiian Islands, that stretches for 2,350 km in a northwest-southeast direction, making it one of the longest islands chains of the world...
. It began with a rotating group of four alumni and students from the Kamehameha School
Kamehameha Schools
Kamehameha Schools , formerly called Kamehameha Schools/Bishop Estate , is a private co-educational college-preparatory institution that specializes in Native Hawaiian language and cultural education. It is located in Hawaii and operates three campuses: Kapālama , Pukalani , and Keaau...
for Boys, a private school in Honolulu. Although the recruits had signed on as part of a scientific expedition and expected to spend their three month assignment collecting botanical and biological samples, once out to sea they were told, "Your names will go down in history" and that the islands would become "famous air bases in a route that will connect Australia with California".
The settlement was named Itascatown after the USCGC Itasca
USCGC Itasca (1929)
The USCGC Itasca was a of the United States Coast Guard launched on 16 November 1929 and commissioned 12 July 1930. Itasca performed Bering Sea patrols; but is most remembered as the "picket ship" that would provide air navigation and radio links for Amelia Earhart when she made her 1937...
that brought the colonists to Howland and made regular cruises between the other Line Islands during that era. Itascatown was a line of a half-dozen small wood-framed structures and tents near the beach on the island's western side. The fledgling colonists were given large stocks of canned food, water, and other supplies including a gasoline powered refrigerator, radio equipment, complete medical kits and (characteristic of that era) vast quantities of cigarettes. Fishing provided much-needed variety for their diet. Most of the colonists' endeavors involved making hourly weather observations and gradually developing a rudimentary infrastructure on the island, including the clearing of a landing strip for airplanes. During this period the island was on Hawaii time, which was then 10.5 hours behind UTC
Coordinated Universal Time
Coordinated Universal Time is the primary time standard by which the world regulates clocks and time. It is one of several closely related successors to Greenwich Mean Time. Computer servers, online services and other entities that rely on having a universally accepted time use UTC for that purpose...
. Similar colonization projects were started on nearby Baker Island
Baker Island
Baker Island is an uninhabited atoll located just north of the equator in the central Pacific Ocean about southwest of Honolulu. The island lies almost halfway between Hawaii and Australia, and is a possession of the United States. Its nearest neighbor is Howland Island, to the north.Located at...
, Jarvis Island
Jarvis Island
Jarvis Island is an uninhabited 4.5 square kilometer coral island located in the South Pacific Ocean at , about halfway between Hawaii and the Cook Islands...
and two other islands.
Kamakaiwi Field
Ground for a rudimentary aircraft landing area was cleared during the mid-1930s, in anticipation that the island might eventually be used as a stopover for a commercial trans-Pacific air route and also to further U.S. territorial claims in the region against rival claims from Great Britain. In keeping with its intended aviation role, Howland Island became a scheduled refueling stop for American pilot Amelia EarhartAmelia Earhart
Amelia Mary Earhart was a noted American aviation pioneer and author. Earhart was the first woman to receive the U.S. Distinguished Flying Cross, awarded for becoming the first aviatrix to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean...
and navigator Fred Noonan
Fred Noonan
Frederick Joseph "Fred" Noonan was an American flight navigator, sea captain and aviation pioneer who first charted many commercial airline routes across the Pacific Ocean during the 1930s...
on their round-the-world flight in 1937. WPA
Works Progress Administration
The Works Progress Administration was the largest and most ambitious New Deal agency, employing millions of unskilled workers to carry out public works projects, including the construction of public buildings and roads, and operated large arts, drama, media, and literacy projects...
funds were used by the Bureau of Air Commerce
United States government role in civil aviation
Governments have played an important part in shaping air transportation. This role began as early as 1783, when the king of France summoned the Montgolfier brothers to demonstrate their balloon. In 1892, the French War Ministry backed an attempt to build a heavier-than-air flying machine...
to construct three graded, unpaved runways meant to accommodate Earhart's modern twin-engined Lockheed Model 10 Electra
Lockheed Model 10 Electra
The Lockheed Model 10 Electra was a twin-engine, all-metal monoplane airliner developed by the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation in the 1930s to compete with the Boeing 247 and Douglas DC-2...
.
The facility was named Kamakaiwi Field after James Kamakaiwi, a young Hawaiian who had arrived with the first group of four colonists, was subsequently picked as leader and spent a total of over three years on Howland, far longer than the average recruit. It has also been referred to as WPA Howland Airport (the WPA
Works Progress Administration
The Works Progress Administration was the largest and most ambitious New Deal agency, employing millions of unskilled workers to carry out public works projects, including the construction of public buildings and roads, and operated large arts, drama, media, and literacy projects...
contributed about 20% of the $12,000 cost). Earhart and Noonan took off from Lae
Lae
Lae, the capital of Morobe Province, is the second-largest city in Papua New Guinea. It is located at the start of the Highlands Highway which is the main land transport corridor from the Highlands region to the coast...
, New Guinea
New Guinea
New Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...
and their radio transmissions were picked up on the island when their aircraft reached the vicinity but they were never seen again.
Japanese attacks during World War II
Empire of Japan
The Empire of Japan is the name of the state of Japan that existed from the Meiji Restoration on 3 January 1868 to the enactment of the post-World War II Constitution of...
ese air attack on 8 December 1941 by 14 twin-engined bombers killed two of the Kamehameha School colonists: Richard "Dicky" Kanani Whaley, and Joseph Kealoha Keliʻhananui. The raid came one day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor, known to Hawaiians as Puuloa, is a lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. Much of the harbor and surrounding lands is a United States Navy deep-water naval base. It is also the headquarters of the U.S. Pacific Fleet...
and damaged the three airstrips of Kamakaiwi Field. Two days later a Japanese submarine shelled what was left of the colony's few buildings into ruins. A single bomber returned twice during the following weeks and dropped more bombs on the rubble of tiny Itascatown. The two survivors were finally evacuated by a U.S. Navy destroyer on 31 January 1942. Howland was occupied by a battalion
Battalion
A battalion is a military unit of around 300–1,200 soldiers usually consisting of between two and seven companies and typically commanded by either a Lieutenant Colonel or a Colonel...
of the United States Marine Corps
United States Marine Corps
The United States Marine Corps is a branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for providing power projection from the sea, using the mobility of the United States Navy to deliver combined-arms task forces rapidly. It is one of seven uniformed services of the United States...
in September 1943 and known as Howland Naval Air Station until May 1944.
All attempts at habitation were abandoned after 1944. Colonization projects on the other four islands were also disrupted by the war and ended at this time.
On 10 June 1944 a U.S. Navy Martin PBM-3-D Mariner
PBM Mariner
The Martin PBM Mariner was a patrol bomber flying boat of World War II and the early Cold War period. It was designed to complement the PBY Catalina in service. A total of 1,366 were built, with the first example flying on 18 February 1939 and the type entering service in September 1940.-Design and...
flying boat (BuNo 48199),piloted by William Hines, had an engine fire and made a forced landing in the ocean offshore of Howland. Hines beached the aircraft and although it burned, the crew escaped unharmed, was rescued by the (the same ship that later took Unit 92 to Gardner Island), transferred to a sub chaser and taken to Canton Island.
Kamakaiwi Field suffered additional damage during World War II and all but disappeared. Ironically, while Howland Island was colonized in 1935 as a future aviation facility and is known in popular culture mostly because of its association with the last flight of Earhart and Noonan, no aircraft is known to have ever landed there, although anchorages nearby could be used by floatplanes and flying boats during World War II.
Wildlife refuge
By the 1970s Howland Island was overrun by a population of feral catFeral cat
A feral cat is a descendant of a domesticated cat that has returned to the wild. It is distinguished from a stray cat, which is a pet cat that has been lost or abandoned, while feral cats are born in the wild; the offspring of a stray cat can be considered feral if born in the wild.In many parts of...
s, descendants of those brought by earlier colonists. The felines were gradually removed during the 1980s and the area was designated a bird and wildlife refuge. However, abandoned military debris continued to be a concern. Amateur radio
Amateur radio
Amateur radio is the use of designated radio frequency spectrum for purposes of private recreation, non-commercial exchange of messages, wireless experimentation, self-training, and emergency communication...
enthusiasts made several authorized visits to the island during the 1990s and early 2000s. In 2006, trespassing by commercial fishing boats and their helicopters was cited as a serious problem.
Public entry to the island is by special-use permit from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service only and is generally restricted to scientists and educators. Representatives from the agency visit the island on average once every two years, often coordinating transportation with amateur radio operators or the U.S. Coast Guard
United States Coast Guard
The United States Coast Guard is a branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven U.S. uniformed services. The Coast Guard is a maritime, military, multi-mission service unique among the military branches for having a maritime law enforcement mission and a federal regulatory agency...
to defray the high cost of logistical support required to visit this remote atoll.
Earhart Light
The Earhart Light (named after Amelia EarhartAmelia Earhart
Amelia Mary Earhart was a noted American aviation pioneer and author. Earhart was the first woman to receive the U.S. Distinguished Flying Cross, awarded for becoming the first aviatrix to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean...
) is a day beacon
Day beacon
A day beacon is an unlighted nautical sea mark. Typically, day beacons mark channels whose key points are marked by lighted buoys. Day beacons may also mark smaller navigable routes in their entirety. They are the most common aid to nautical navigation in shallow water as they are relatively...
or navigational landmark shaped somewhat like a short lighthouse
Lighthouse
A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses or, in older times, from a fire, and used as an aid to navigation for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways....
(with no illumination), painted with wide stripes and meant to be seen from several miles out to sea during daylight hours. It is located near the boat landing at the middle of the west coast by the former site of Itascatown. It was partially destroyed during early World War II by the Japanese attacks, but was rebuilt in the early 1960s by the US Coast Guard. By 2000, the Earhart beacon was said to be crumbling and it had not been painted in decades.
Howland Island was overflown in 1967 by Ann Dearing Holtgren Pellegreno
Ann Pellegreno
Ann Dearing Holtgren Pellegreno has been a professional musician, teacher, author, lecturer, and farmer. In 1967, Pellegreno and a crew of three successfully flew a similar aircraft to complete a world flight that closely mirrored Amelia Earhart's flight plan in 1937...
and in 1997 by Linda Finch
Linda Finch
Linda Finch is a San Antonio, Texas, businesswoman born in 1951. She is an operator of nursing homes in Texas. Finch also is an aviatrix and an aviation historian. She has totally restored six vintage aircraft and partially restored many others...
during memorial circumnavigation flights to commemorate Earhart's 1937 world flight. No landings were attempted but both Pellegreno and Finch flew low enough to drop a wreath on the island.
See also
- History of the Pacific IslandsHistory of the Pacific IslandsHistory of the Pacific Islands covers the history of the islands in the Pacific Ocean.-Easter Island – Rapanui:Easter Island is one of the youngest inhabited territories on Earth, and for most of the History of Easter Island it was the most isolated inhabited territory on Earth...
- Phoenix IslandsPhoenix IslandsThe Phoenix Islands are a group of eight atolls and two submerged coral reefs, lying in the central Pacific Ocean east of the Gilbert Islands and west of the Line Islands. They are a part of the Republic of Kiribati. During the late 1930s they became the site of the last attempted colonial...
- List of Guano Island claims