Wake’s human population may be small these days, but the neighborhoods are full to bursting with birds (see video link below!). The remote, isolated atoll has hosted a wide variety of migratory and resident seabirds for time out of mind. The ravages of the WWII Japanese occupation and postwar feral cat predation left indelible marks, but researchers are encouraged by signs of robust recovery across the atoll. During my visit to Wake in the fall...

If you had looked in the mess hall on Wake Island at dinner time on any given day in 1941, you would have seen a sea of white faces. Some bore dark tans from hours in the tropical sun, but most were Caucasian except for a few Pacific Islanders and a couple dozen Chinese Americans. The “color line” was a wall against equal opportunity: preferential hiring, segregation of workers, and ethnic biases were entrenched in the construction...

Wilkes Island, the southwest arm of Wake atoll, bears a wartime scar that may never heal. Halfway along the lagoon side the shore juts sharply inward, nearly bisecting Wilkes. Only a narrow strip of land remains, cluttered with concrete blocks and nearly submerged at high tide, to connect to the western end. The indentation may appear natural to the casual observer but folks familiar with Wake and its history know that it is “man-made.” The...

No straight road leads to the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu. Winding up the narrow streets past modest houses and bright splashes of bougainvillea you only know that if you are still ascending your destination is surely ahead. At the top the Punchbowl opens up wide, a cemetery like no other, dedicated to those who lost their lives in World War II in the Pacific and the Korean and Vietnam Conflicts. Puowaina Crater, once...

Many Wake Island men sent cards and holiday gifts by ship’s mail in late November 1941, timed to reach loved ones at home just before the upcoming Christmas holiday. Some of the fellows reached deeper into their pockets to pay airmail rates and sent their cards on the eastbound Pan American Clipper. Despite the war clouds gathering over the Pacific, few on Wake worried that anything would hold up the mail unless Mother Nature cooked up another...

Pan American Airways was the first to establish a permanent settlement on Wake Island. Late in 1934 the commercial airline obtained permission from the U.S. government to build stations on Wake and Midway Islands for its transpacific Clipper operation. Protected lagoons offered calm waters for seaplane runways, though divers would have to blast many coral heads and shelves for safe depths. When operational the mid-Pacific stations would provide...