![\"Midway](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2018\/11\/Midway-Within-Hawaii-300x152.png\" "\\"\\"")
For statistical purposes, Midway is grouped as one of the United States Minor Outlying Islands<\/a>. \u00a0The Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge<\/a>, encompassing 590,991.50 acres of land and water in the surrounding area, is administered by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS)<\/a>. \u00a0The refuge and most of its surrounding area are part of the larger Papah\u0101naumoku\u0101kea Marine National Monument.<\/a><\/p>\n Until 1993, the atoll was the home of the Naval Air Facility Midway Island<\/a>. \u00a0The Battle of Midway<\/a>, which was fought between June 4 and 6, 1942, was one of the most important battles of the Pacific campaign of World War II<\/a>. \u00a0The United States Navy<\/a> defeated a Japanese battle group marking a turning point in the war in the Pacific Theater. \u00a0USAAF aircraft based at the original Henderson Field on Eastern Island<\/a> joined the attack against the Japanese fleet, which suffered losses of four carriers and one heavy cruiser.<\/p>\n Approximately 40 to 60 people live on the atoll, which includes staff of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and contract workers.<\/p>\n Visitation to the atoll is possible only for business reasons (which includes permanent and temporary staff, contractors and volunteers) as the tourism program has been suspended due to budget cutbacks. \u00a0In 2012, the last year that the visitor program was in operation, 332 people made the trip to Midway.\u00a0 \u00a0Tours focused on both the unique ecology of Midway as well as its military history. \u00a0The economy is derived solely from governmental sources and tourist fees. \u00a0Nearly all supplies must be brought to the island by ship or plane, though a hydroponic greenhouse<\/a> and garden supply some fresh fruits and vegetables.<\/p>\n As its name suggests, Midway is roughly equidistant between North America and Asia, and lies almost halfway around the world longitudinally from Greenwich, UK<\/a>. \u00a0It is near the northwestern end of the Hawaiian archipelago, about one-third of the way from Honolulu, Hawaii<\/a>, to Tokyo, Japan<\/a>.<\/p>\n Midway Atoll is less than 140 nautical miles east of the International Date Line<\/a>, about 2,800 nautical miles west of San Francisco<\/a>, and 2,200 nautical miles east of Tokyo.<\/p>\n Island\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Acres<\/p>\n Sand Island\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 1,117<\/p>\n Eastern Island\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 136<\/p>\n Spit Island\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 6<\/p>\n Total land\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 1,549<\/p>\n Midway Atoll is part of a chain of volcanic islands, atolls, and seamounts extending from Hawaii up to the tip of the Aleutian Islands<\/a> and known as the Hawaiian\u2013Emperor seamount chain<\/a>. \u00a0It consists of a ring-shaped barrier reef nearly five miles in diameter and several sand islets.<\/p>\n The two significant pieces of land, Sand Island and Eastern Island, provide a habitat for millions of seabirds. \u00a0The island sizes are shown in the table above. \u00a0The atoll, which has a small population (approximately 60 in 2014, but no indigenous inhabitants), is designated an insular area under the authority of the United States Department of the Interior<\/a>.<\/p>\n Midway was formed roughly 28 million years ago when the seabed underneath it was over the same hotspot from which the Island of Hawaii<\/a> is now being formed. \u00a0In fact, Midway was once a shield volcano<\/a>, perhaps as large as the island of Lana’i<\/a>. \u00a0As the volcano piled up lava flows building the island, its weight depressed the crust and the island slowly subsided over a period of millions of years, a process known as isostatic adjustment.<\/p>\n As the island subsided, a coral reef around the former volcanic island was able to maintain itself near sea level by growing upwards. \u00a0That reef is now over 516 feet thick.\u00a0 What remains today is a shallow water atoll about 6 miles across. \u00a0Following Kure Atoll<\/a>, Midway is the 2nd most northerly atoll in the world.<\/p>\n The atoll has some 20 miles of roads, 4.8 miles of pipelines, one port on Sand Island, and an airfield.\u00a0 As of 2004, Henderson Field airfield at Midway Atoll, with its one active runway has been designated as an emergency diversion airport for aircraft flying under ETOPS rules<\/a>. \u00a0Although the FWS closed all airport operations on November 22, 2004, public access to the island was restored from March 2008.<\/p>\n Eastern Island Airstrip is a disused airfield which was in use by U.S. forces during the Battle of Midway. \u00a0It is mostly constructed of Marston Mat<\/a> and was built by the United States Navy Seabees<\/a>.<\/p>\n Midway has no indigenous inhabitants and was uninhabited until the 19th century.<\/p>\n The atoll was sighted on July 5, 1859, by Captain N.C. Middlebrooks, commonly known as Captain Brooks, of the sealing ship Gambia. \u00a0The islands were named the “Middlebrook Islands” or the “Brook Islands”. \u00a0Brooks claimed Midway for the United States under the Guano Islands Act of 1856<\/a>, which authorized Americans to occupy uninhabited islands temporarily to obtain guano. \u00a0There is no record of any attempt to mine guano on the island. \u00a0On August 28, 1867, Captain William Reynolds<\/a> of the USS Lackawanna<\/a> formally took possession of the atoll for the United States; the name changed to “Midway” sometime after this. \u00a0The atoll was the first Pacific island annexed by the United States, as the Unincorporated Territory of Midway Island, and was administered by the United States Navy.<\/p>\n The first attempt at settlement was in 1871, when the Pacific Mail Steamship Company<\/a> started a project of blasting and dredging a ship channel through the reef to the lagoon using money put up by the United States Congress. \u00a0The purpose was to establish a mid-ocean coaling station to avoid the high taxes imposed at ports controlled by the Hawaiians. \u00a0The project was shortly a complete failure, and the USS Saginaw<\/a> evacuated the last of the channel project’s work force in October 1871. \u00a0The ship ran aground at Kure Atoll, stranding everyone. \u00a0All were rescued, with the exception of four of the five persons who sailed to Kauai<\/a> in an open boat to seek help.<\/p>\n In 1903, workers for the Commercial Pacific Cable Company<\/a> took up residence on the island as part of the effort to lay a trans-Pacific telegraph cable<\/a>.<\/p>\n These workers introduced many non-native species to the island, including the canary<\/a>, cycad<\/a>, Norfolk Island pine<\/a>, she-oak<\/a>, coconut<\/a>, and various deciduous trees; along with ants<\/a>, cockroaches<\/a>, termites<\/a>, centipedes<\/a>, and countless others.<\/p>\n On January 20, 1903, the United States Navy opened a radio station in response to complaints from cable company workers about Japanese squatters and poachers. \u00a0Between 1904 and 1908, President Roosevelt<\/a> stationed 21 Marines on the island to end wanton destruction of bird life and keep Midway safe as a U.S. possession, protecting the cable station.<\/p>\n In 1935, operations began for the Martin M-130 flying boats<\/a> operated by Pan American Airlines<\/a>.<\/p>\n The M-130s island-hopped from San Francisco to China<\/a>, providing the fastest and most luxurious route to the Far East and bringing tourists to Midway until 1941. \u00a0Only the very wealthy could afford the trip, which in the 1930s cost more than three times the annual salary of an average American. \u00a0With Midway on the route between Honolulu and Wake Island<\/a>, the flying boats landed in the atoll and pulled up to a float offshore in the lagoon. \u00a0Tourists transferred to a small powerboat that ferried them to a pier, then rode in “woodie” wagons to the Pan Am Hotel or the “Gooneyville Lodge”, named after the ubiquitous “Gooney birds” (albatrosses).<\/p>\n The location of Midway in the Pacific became important militarily. \u00a0Midway was a convenient refueling stop on transpacific flights, and was also an important stop for Navy ships. \u00a0Beginning in 1940, as tensions with the Japanese rose, Midway was deemed second only to Pearl Harbor<\/a> in importance to the protection of the U.S. west coast. \u00a0Airstrips, gun emplacements and a seaplane base quickly materialized on the tiny atoll.<\/p>\n The channel was widened, and Naval Air Station Midway was completed. \u00a0Midway was also an important submarine base.<\/p>\n On February 14, 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt<\/a> issued Executive Order 8682 to create naval defense areas in the central Pacific territories.<\/p>\n The proclamation established “Midway Island Naval Defensive Sea Area”, which encompassed the territorial waters between the extreme high-water marks and the three-mile marine boundaries surrounding Midway. \u00a0“Midway Island Naval Airspace Reservation” was also established to restrict access to the airspace over the naval defense sea area. Only U.S. government ships and aircraft were permitted to enter the naval defense areas at Midway Atoll unless authorized by the Secretary of the Navy.<\/p>\n Midway’s importance to the U.S. was brought into focus on December 7, 1941 when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor<\/a>. \u00a0Midway was attacked by two destroyers on the same day, and the Japanese force was successfully repulsed in the first American victory of the war. \u00a0A Japanese submarine bombarded Midway on February 10, 1942.<\/p>\n Four months later, on June 4, 1942, a major naval battle near Midway resulted in the U.S. Navy inflicting a devastating defeat on the Japanese Navy.<\/p>\n Four Japanese fleet aircraft carriers, the Akagi<\/a>, Kaga<\/a>, Hiryu<\/a> and Soryu<\/a>, were sunk, along with the loss of hundreds of Japanese aircraft, losses that the Japanese would never be able to replace. \u00a0The U.S. lost the aircraft carrier Yorktown<\/a>, along with a number of its carrier- and land-based aircraft that were either shot down by Japanese forces or bombed on the ground at the airfields. \u00a0The Battle of Midway<\/a> was, by most accounts, the beginning of the end of the Japanese Navy’s control of the Pacific Ocean<\/a>.<\/p>\n Starting in July 1942, one of the Fulton-class submarine tenders<\/a> was always stationed at the atoll to support submarines patrolling Japanese waters. \u00a0In 1944, a floating dry dock joined the tender. \u00a0After the Battle of Midway, a second airfield was developed, this one on Sand Island. \u00a0This work necessitated enlarging the size of the island through land fill techniques, that when concluded, more than doubled the size of the island.<\/p>\n In 1950, the Navy decommissioned Naval Air Station Midway, only to re-commission it again to support the Korean War<\/a>. \u00a0Thousands of troops on ships and aircraft stopped at Midway for refueling and emergency repairs. \u00a0From 1968 to September 10, 1993, Midway Island was a Naval Air Facility.<\/p>\n During the Cold War<\/a>, the U.S. established an underwater listening post at Midway to track Soviet submarines. \u00a0The facility remained secret until its demolition at the end of the Cold War. \u00a0U.S. Navy WV-2 (EC-121K) “Willy Victor” radar aircraft<\/a> flew night and day as an extension of the Distant Early Warning Line<\/a>, and antenna fields covered the islands.<\/p>\n With about 3,500 people living on Sand Island, Midway also supported the U.S. troops during the Vietnam War<\/a>. \u00a0In June 1969, President Richard Nixon<\/a> held a secret meeting with South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu<\/a> at the Officer-in-Charge house or “Midway House”.<\/p>\n In 1978, the Navy downgraded Midway from a Naval Air Station to a Naval Air Facility and large numbers of personnel and dependents began leaving the island. \u00a0With the war in Vietnam over, and with the introduction of reconnaissance satellites and nuclear submarines, Midway’s significance to U.S. national security was diminished. \u00a0The World War II facilities at Sand and Eastern Islands were listed on the National Register of Historic Places<\/a> on May 28, 1987 and were simultaneously added as a National Historic Landmark<\/a>.<\/p>\n As part of the Base Realignment and Closure process<\/a>, the Navy facility on Midway has been operationally closed since September 10, 1993, although the Navy assumed responsibility for cleaning up environmental contamination at Naval Air Facility Midway.<\/p>\n Midway was designated an overlay National Wildlife Refuge on April 22, 1988 while still under the primary jurisdiction of the Navy.<\/p>\n From August 1996, the general public could visit the atoll through study eco-tours. \u00a0This program ended in 2002, but another visitor program was approved and began operating in March 2008. \u00a0This program operated through 2012, but was suspended for 2013 due to budget cuts.<\/p>\n On October 31, 1996, President Bill Clinton<\/a> signed Executive Order 13022, which transferred the jurisdiction and control of the atoll to the United States Department of the Interior. \u00a0The FWS assumed management of the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge. \u00a0The last contingent of Navy personnel left Midway on June 30, 1997 after an ambitious environmental cleanup program was completed.<\/p>\n On September 13, 2000, Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt<\/a> designated the Wildlife Refuge as the Battle of Midway National Memorial<\/a>. \u00a0The refuge is now titled as the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge and Battle of Midway National Memorial.<\/p>\n On June 15, 2006, President George W. Bush<\/a> designated the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands<\/a> as a national monument. \u00a0The Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument<\/a> encompasses 105,564 square nautical miles and includes 3,910 square nautical miles of coral reef habitat. \u00a0The Monument also includes the Hawaiian Islands National Wildlife Refuge<\/a>, and the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge.<\/p>\n In 2007, the Monument’s name was changed to Papah\u0101naumoku\u0101kea Marine National Monument. \u00a0The National Monument is managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)<\/a>, and the State of Hawaii<\/a>. \u00a0In 2016 President Obama<\/a> expanded the Papah\u0101naumoku\u0101kea Marine National Monument, and added the Office of Hawaiian Affairs<\/a> as a fourth co-trustee of the monument.<\/p>\n The 2011 T\u014dhoku earthquake and tsunami<\/a> on March 11 caused many deaths among the bird population on Midway. \u00a0It was reported that a five foot high wave completely submerged the atoll’s reef inlets and Spit Island, killing more than 110,000 nesting seabirds at the National Wildlife Refuge. \u00a0However, scientists on the island do not think it will have long-term negative impacts on the bird populations.<\/p>\n The usual method of reaching Sand Island, Midway Atoll’s only populated island, is on chartered aircraft landing at Sand Island’s Henderson Field, which also functions as an emergency diversion point runway for transpacific flights.<\/p>\n The top is sky blue, the thin stripe is white for the beach and the turquoise bottom stripe is for the color of the surrounding ocean. \u00a0The bird, a Laysan Albatross<\/a>, is white and black.<\/p>\n It was designed for the Memorial Day<\/a> 2000 event being held at the USS Arizona<\/a>. \u00a0The flag was designed by the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge staff with assistance of a National Park Service<\/a> employee. \u00a0This flag has no official status, other than that it will be used to represent Midway Island in a Memorial Day ceremony. \u00a0The flag has the same status as a small US city’s flag – it is accepted as the flag by the inhabitants even though the federal government hasn’t given the flag official status.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The top is sky blue, the thin stripe is white for the beach and the turquoise bottom stripe is for the color of the surrounding ocean. The bird, a Laysan Albatross, is white and black. It was designed for the Memorial Day 2000 event being held at the USS Arizona. The flag was designed by the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge staff with assistance of a National Park Service employee. This flag has no official status, other than that it will be used to represent Midway Island in a Memorial Day ceremony. The flag has the same status as a small US city’s flag – it is accepted as the flag by the inhabitants even though the federal government hasn’t given the flag official status.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[5,6,7,29,30,40,10],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1957"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1957\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Eastern](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2018\/11\/Eastern-Island-Midway-Atoll-300x30.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
Location:<\/h2>\n
![\"Midway](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2018\/11\/Midway-Atoll-Location-300x169.png\" "\\"\\"")
Geography and Geology:<\/h2>\n
![\"Midway](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2018\/11\/Midway-Atoll-from-Satellite-300x252.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
![\"Kure](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2018\/11\/Kure-Atoll-300x197.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
Infrastructure:<\/h2>\n
![\"Midway](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2018\/11\/Midway-Atoll-Airport-300x200.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
History:<\/h2>\n
19th Century:<\/h3>\n
![\"USS](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2018\/11\/USS-Lackawanna-1880-300x136.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
Early 20th Century:<\/h3>\n
![\"Commericial](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2018\/11\/Commericial-Pacific-Cable-Company-Building-1903-300x225.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
![\"M130](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2018\/11\/M130-Flying-Boat-300x96.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
World War II:<\/h3>\n
![\"Midway](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2018\/11\/Midway-1941-281x300.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
![\"Battle](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2018\/11\/Battle-of-Midway-300x236.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
Korean and Vietnam Wars:<\/h3>\n
![\"Willy](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2018\/11\/Willy-Victor-on-Midway-300x200.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
Civilian Handover:<\/h3>\n
![\"Albatrosses](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2018\/11\/Albatrosses-on-Midway-Atoll-300x199.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
![\"Navy](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2018\/11\/Navy-Memorial-and-Gooney-Statue-225x300.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
2011 Tsunami:<\/h3>\n
Transportation:<\/h2>\n
Unofficial Flag of Midway Atoll:<\/h2>\n
![\"Flag](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2018\/11\/Flag-of-Midway-Atoll-300x180.png\" "\\"\\"")