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Midway Atoll was discovered in 1859 by a Captain N.C. Brooks sailing under the Hawaiian flag.
He named it Middlebrooks Islands (after himself) and claimed the atoll for the United States.
Captain William Reynolds of the U.S. Navy took formal possession eight years later, giving it
its present name. Intended as a coal depot for ships sailing to the Orient, it was the United
States' first overseas island possession.
The atoll consists of a nearly circular reef, about five miles in diameter, and two islands:
Sand and Eastern. Sand Island, the largest, is about a mile and a half long and a mile wide.
Originally, it consisted almost entirely of loose, barren sand with little vegetation -- a true
desert island. Eastern (or Green) Island, about a third the size of Sand, was originally covered
with a tangle of low shrubs.
After the atoll's discovery, a surprising number of ships ran aground on it; several sets
of desperate survivors lived on Sand Island. Some lived there for over a year, subsisting mostly on
birds and their eggs. Robert Louis Stevenson's novel "The Wreckers" was based on the
diaries of Mrs. Walker who, with her family, spent 18 desperate months on the atoll.
In 1903, President Teddy Roosevelt placed Midway under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Navy.
For the next 30 years or so, Sand Island served as a waystation for the Commercial Pacific
Cable Company which laid and maintained the first undersea communications cable between
America and Asia. During this time trees, soil, and grass were brought in. Buildings were
erected and the island made reasonably comfortable for human existence. Much of it is
now heavily wooded in great contrast to its original bare condition. The stabilization
and vegetation of Sand Island took over 30 years and involved much frustrating work and
patient nurturing on the part of the cable company's employees.
In 1935, Pan American Airways built the Gooneyville Lodge to house passengers of the
Flying Clippers which stopped at the atoll overnight on the first leg of their four
day flight from Hawaii to Asia. (These great sea planes also stopped at Wake Island,
Guam and Manilla before finally landing in China.) During 1940-41, the U.S. Navy built runways and commissioned the atoll as a Naval Air Facility.
On June 3rd and 4th of 1942, six months after Pearl Harbor, an armada of Japanese warships
(including four aircraft carriers and seven battleships) attacked Midway as step two of
Japan's planned conquest of Hawaii and the Pacific. Forewarned through a breach of Japan's
secret radio code, the U.S. Navy destroyed three of the Japanese carriers in a surprise
attack that has been called the most decisive naval engagement ever fought. Those "five
minutes that won the war" (the Battle of Midway)are all that most people know about these
faraway islets.
After the war, Midway became an important refueling stop for military aircraft and ships,
although commercial flights ceased in 1950. In its heyday, the atoll was home to over
2,000 naval personnel, many of whom brought their families. By the late 70s and early
80s, the strategic importance of Midway lessened and many of the personnel and their
dependents relocated. Tight military budgets in the early 1990s sealed the fate of
Naval Air Facility Midway Island, and in 1992 it was announced that the base would close.
By 1997, the atoll had been cleaned up and its abandoned buildings dismantled. Midway
Phoenix Corporation was contracted to maintain the infrastructure and keep the
airfield open as an emergency landing site. Administrative control was turned over
to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. In a unique joint undertaking by Fish and
Wildlife and Midway Phoenix, guest facilities were built and the atoll was opened
to the public as America's newest wildlife refuge.
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Battle of Midway
by John Greaves
Click Images for
Battle Descriptions
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USS Portland's SOC-1 Scout
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Nimitz Arrives At Pearl
Harbor - December 25, 1941
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Demonstrating My
Douglas Dive Bomber
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Last Mission of the
Devastators
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You Test the Weight and
I'll Test the Wind
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The Midway Marauders
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Midway Atoll