Midway is an atoll in the middle of the northern Pacific. It is about 3,200 miles west of San Francisco, about 3,600 miles east of Shanghai, China, and approximately 1,300 miles northwest of Oahu. (HABS UM-1)
(An island is a body of land surrounded by water. (Continents are also surrounded by water, but because they are so big, they are not considered islands.) An atoll is a ring-shaped coral reef, island, or series of islets. The atoll surrounds a body of water called a lagoon. (National Geographic))
In January 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt placed Midway Atoll under the control of the U.S. Navy. A few months later, the Commercial Pacific Cable Company brought in the first permanent residents of Midway Atoll.
Their mission was to install and maintain a trans-Pacific telegraph cable as part of the first round-the-world communications system. The cable company constructed four two-story buildings. (Friends of Midway)
Midway Atoll’s three small islands (Sand, Spit, and Eastern (W2E)) provide a virtually predator-free safe haven for largest nesting colonies of Laysan and Black-footed Albatrosses in the world. (FWS)
Beautiful in flight, but ungainly in their movement on land, the albatrosses were called “gooney birds” (or just “gooneys”) by the men stationed on the islands during World War II. (Marine Conservation Institute)
Midway’s gooneys did not become widely known until Pan American Airways built a base for its transpacific clippers on the mid-Pacific atoll in 1935.
Pan American Airways pioneered the transpacific air route between the US mainland and China, using US jurisdictions and territories across the Pacific as “stepping stones.” This extended the American Home Front westward, and sparked Americans’ imaginations and their excitement for the Airline. (NPS)
These large flying boats flew from San Francisco to China, marking the fastest and most luxurious route to the Orient at that time. This service not only connected distant regions but also brought tourists to Midway, operating until 1941.
Pan Am’s establishment of Midway Island as a stopover was part of a larger strategy to set up refueling stops across the Pacific, which included locations in Hawai’i, Wake Island, Guam, and the Philippines. (Midway-Island)
In April 1935 Pan Am began the construction of an intermediate base at Midway for their air route from the U.S. mainland to the Orient. Their air route across the Pacific used seaplanes, so no runways were needed, but a wooden dock and a mooring barge in the lagoon were constructed. (HABS UM-1)
The latter is where the seaplanes discharged cargo and passengers; they were then carried to the dock in small boats. Carrying air mail had been the first intended use for the Pan American planes, but demand for passenger service became so great, plans were drawn up to includes hotels at the isolated bases. (HABS UM-1)
A prefabricated hotel building was sent out. It was Y-shaped, with the lounge and dining room in the center and 20 rooms in each of the two flanking wings. Other prefabricated buildings were erected for the permanent base crew.
In 1938 the Pan American Airways settlement consisted of some 20 frame buildings, including “a machine shop, refrigerator plant, radio station, radio beacon, offices, and power plant”.
In 1939, “There are three ‘towns’ on this island: Cable City [for Commercial Pacific Cable company], Gooneyville [Pan Am’s facilities] and Used [the US Engineering Department] …”
“… but there are no boulevards, no street lamps, no telephone poles, no fire hydrants, no dogs, no traffic cops, no neon signs, no drug stores, no theaters, no daily newspapers (except a couple of sheets of news furnished by courtesy of the cable company). no post office, no almost anything!”
Buildings were “amidst a multitude of nesting white gooneys the Pan American Airways people staked claim and moved in on April 7, 1935. Neat, huff-colored cottages and work shops, all red-roofed, are scattered over the sandscape …”
“… unpainted board walks run along the cottage side of ruts in the sand which mark the main thoroughfare, while the PAA hotel – the first and only one of the island – sprawls apart by itself, a huge blue-trimmed ivory Y surrounded by wide-eyed gooneys and recently planted shrubbery.” (Adv, Apr 3, 1939)
During WWII, the military took over Midway … the Pan American Airways hotel was taken over as a recreation and recuperation center for the submariners, and its name changed to “Gooneyville Lodge” (HABS UM-1) A golf course received world-wide billing as the only one with gooney birds nesting on fairways. (Aldrich)
The Japanese planned to assault and occupy the atoll in order to threaten an invasion of Hawaiʻi and draw the American naval forces that had survived the attack on Pearl Harbor out into an ambush against the brunt of the Imperial Japanese Navy.
Midway was of vital importance to both Japanese and American war strategies in World War II, and the raid on the atoll was one of the most significant battles of the war, marking a major shift in the balance of power between the United States and Japan.
As dawn approached at around 0430, June 4, 1942, the American carriers (Enterprise, Hornet, and Yorktown) were about 300 miles north north-east of Midway. Their Japanese counterparts (Akagi, Kaga, Sōryū and Hiryū) were 250 miles northwest of the atoll.
In their attack, the Imperial Japanese Navy lost two thirds of its fleet aircraft carriers (four Japanese aircraft carriers and their accompanying aircraft and crews.) The loss of USS Yorktown was a major blow to the US, but the American wartime production of men and materiel would soon make up the difference and outpace that of the Japanese.
While the primary carrier fleet engagement occurred well to the north of Midway Atoll, much of the “secondary” action occurred within or originated from the atoll.
The Battle of Midway (June 4-7, 1942) is considered the most decisive US victory and is referred to as the “turning point” of World War II in the Pacific. The victory allowed the United States and its allies to move into an offensive position.
Then, in 1950, “Midway atoll, the United States’ oldest off-shore possession and once a bristling sentinel of the North Pacific, is being turned over to its first settlers, Gooney Birds.”
“The navy has ordered its personnel out by June 30, and long before then Pan American Airways and Civil Aeronautics administration employes will have packed up and left. … The navy’s deserted submarine base and two strategic airfields will be only symbols of America’s Pacific war strength.” (Adv, Apr 30, 1950)
“One navy wife explained the sentiments of the islands’ departing residents: ‘They must have called it Midway because its halfway between Heaven and Earth.’” (Adv, Apr 30, 1950)
Today, the US Fish and Wildlife Service staff, volunteers and contractors live on Midway to support the recovery and integrity of wildlife habitat and species while balancing their own human impact on the land and seascape, and protecting historical resources. (FWS)
While in the chain of islands, atolls, and seamounts of the Hawaiian Islands Archipelago, Midway is part of the US but not part of the State of Hawai‘i. (The Hawai‘i Admission Act (Public Law 86-3, March 18, 1959) excluded Midway – “The State of Hawaii shall consist of all the islands … but said State shall not be deemed to include the Midway Islands …”)
https://maps.app.goo.gl/xrFBTvL3miZPr84R8
A little personal side story … When Pan Am used Midway and Wake as stopping points for flights across the Pacific, my grandmother (Laura Sutherland) was Assistant Head Librarian for the Library of Hawai‘i in charge of the “Extension Department.”
My grandmother took advantage of these flights and expanded the reach of her “Extension Department” by supplying reading material to residents on Midway and Wake, with the cooperation of Pan Am. Each week, a new supply of books was added to the flights in what is believed to be America’s only Flying Library Service.
