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Howland Island

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Geography of Oceania
(Australasia)

   Howland Island seen from space.
   Enlarge
   Howland Island seen from space.

   Howland Island is an uninhabited atoll located just north of the
   equator in the central Pacific Ocean at 0°48′N 176°38′W, about 3,100 km
   (1,675 nautical miles) southwest of Honolulu. It is about one-half of
   the way from Hawaii to Australia and is an unincorporated, unorganized
   territory of the United States, part of the United States Minor
   Outlying Islands.

   Howland Island National Wildlife Refuge consists of the 455 acre (1.84
   km²) island and the surrounding 32,074 acres (129.80 km²) of submerged
   land. The island is now a National Wildlife Refuge managed by the U.S.
   Fish and Wildlife Service as an insular area under the U.S. Department
   of the Interior.

   The atoll has no economic activity and is perhaps best known as the
   island Amelia Earhart never reached. Defense is the responsibility of
   the United States and the island is visited every two years by the U.S.
   Fish and Wildlife Service.

History

   Sparse remnants of trails and other artifacts indicate a sporadic early
   Polynesian presence but Howland Island was uninhabited when the United
   States took possession of it in 1857 through claims under the Guano
   Islands Act of 1856. Its guano deposits were mined and thoroughly
   depleted by American and British companies during the second half of
   the 19th century.

   In 1935 a brief attempt at colonization was attempted, part of a larger
   project administered by the Department of Commerce to establish a
   permanent U.S. presence on the equatorial Line Islands. It began with a
   rotating population of four alumni and students from Kamehameha School
   for Boys, a military school in Honolulu, Hawaii. Although the recruits
   had signed on as part of a scientific expedition and expected to spend
   a three month assignment collecting botanical and biological samples,
   once at sea they were told, "Your names will go down in history" and
   that the islands would be developed into "famous air bases in a route
   that will connect Australia with California." The settlement
   Itascatown, near the beach on the island's western side, was a line of
   no more than half a dozen small wood-frame structures and tents named
   after the U.S. Coast Guard vessel that brought them and made regular
   cruises between the islands during that era. 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 for that time) vast quantities of
   cigarettes. They varied their diet by fishing. Most of their work
   involved making hourly weather observations and gradually developing a
   rudimentary infrastructure on the island, including the clearing of a
   landing area for airplanes. Similar projects were started on nearby
   Baker Island, Jarvis Island, and two other islands.

   In keeping with its potential aviation role Howland Island was a
   scheduled refueling stop for American pilot Amelia Earhart and
   navigator Fred Noonan on their round-the-world flight in 1937 and WPA
   funds were used to construct three airstrips on the atoll that year.
   They took off from Lae, New Guinea and radio transmissions from Earhart
   were picked up on the island when their aircraft reached its vicinity
   but they were never seen again.
   Building ruins near the site of Itascatown on Howland Island
   Enlarge
   Building ruins near the site of Itascatown on Howland Island

   A Japanese air attack on December 8, 1941 by fourteen twin-engined
   bombers killed two of the Kamehameha School colonists (Richard "Dicky"
   Kanani Whaley and Joseph Kealoha Keli'hananui) at the beginning of U.S.
   involvement in World War II. Two days later, a Japanese submarine
   shelled what was left of the government colony's few buildings into
   ruins. The two survivors were evacuated by a US Navy destroyer on
   January 31, 1942. The island was occupied by a battalion of United
   States Marines in late 1943 and known as Howland Naval Air Station
   during this brief period but was abandoned after the war (the
   colonization projects on the other four islands were also disrupted by
   the war and ended at the same time).

   By the 1970s Howland Island was overrun by a population of feral cats,
   descendants of individuals brought by earlier human colonists. The cats
   were gradually removed during the 1980s and the area was designated a
   bird and wildlife refuge. However, abandoned World War II military
   debris continued to be a concern. Amateur radio 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 to defray the high expense of
   logistical support required to visit this remote atoll.
   Howland Island map.
   Enlarge
   Howland Island map.

Geography

   Located in the North Pacific Ocean at ( 0°48′N 176°38′W), the island is
   tiny at just 1.84 km² (455 acres) and 6.4 km of coastline. The island
   has an elongated shape on a north-south axis. The climate is
   equatorial, with little rainfall and a burning sun. Temperatures are
   moderated somewhat by a constant wind from the east. The terrain is
   low-lying and sandy: a coral island surrounded by a narrow fringing
   reef with a slightly raised central area. The highest point is about 6
   meters above sea level.

   There are no natural fresh water resources. The landscape features
   scattered grasses along with prostrate vines and low-growing shrubs. A
   1942 eyewitness description mentioned "a low grove of dead and decaying
   kou trees" on a very shallow hill at the island's centre 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 of 200 nautical
   miles (370 km) and a territorial sea of 12 nautical miles (22 km).

   The island's time zone is UTC -12

Transportation

   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.

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
   stop-over for a commercial trans-Pacific air route and to further U.S.
   territorial claims in the region. In 1937 three graded, unpaved runways
   were constructed by the Bureau of Air Commerce to accommodate Amelia
   Earhart's modern twin-engined Lockheed L-10E Electra for a scheduled
   refueling stop on her flight around the world. The facility was named
   Kamakaiwi Field after James Kamakaiwi, a young Hawaiian who arrived
   with the first group of four colonists, was subsequently picked as
   leader and spent a total of over 3 years on Howland, far longer than
   the average recruit. It has also been referred to as WPA Howland
   Airport (the WPA contributed about 20% of the $12,000 cost). The
   airport was never used, suffered repeated damage during World War II
   and later all but disappeared. Ironically, while the atoll was
   colonized in 1935 as a future aviation facility and is referenced in
   popular culture almost exclusively because of its association with the
   last flight of Earhart and Noonan, no airplane is known to have ever
   landed on Howland Island.
   Earhart Light, pictured here showing damage it sustained during WWII,
   was named for Amelia Earhart during the late 1930s.
   Enlarge
   Earhart Light, pictured here showing damage it sustained during WWII,
   was named for Amelia Earhart during the late 1930s.

Earhart Light

   Earhart Light is a day beacon or navigational landmark shaped somewhat
   like a short lighthouse (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 in the Japanese attacks, but was
   later rebuilt. By 2000, the Earhart beacon was said to be crumbling and
   hadn't been painted in decades.

   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howland_Island"
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   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
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