Woleai, back in the news after 80 years
An isolated coral atoll of 22 islands inhabited by about 1,000 locals, Woleai is 35nm away from the nearest other inhabited island (which has a population of about 500) and is 400 miles away from the nearest serious airport in Guam.
The current civil airfield, an overgrown 1,200-foot strip that hasn’t been used in two decades, is listed as “closed for repairs.” The most reliable physical connection to the outside world these days is a semi-regular four-day boat service with Yap, some 350 miles away.
Considered part of the Caroline Islands under the Spanish from 1686 on, and briefly under the Germans from 1899, the Japanese navy scooped up the chain in 1914 as part of the Emperor’s contribution to the Great War. Post-Versailles, the Japanese retained Woleai under the South Seas Mandate and during WWII transformed it into a fortress, complete with a 3,300-foot airstrip (Falalap Airfield), seaplane base, and port facilities, protected by a 6,000-strong garrison.
Starting in late March 1944 and continuing for the next 18 months, the U.S. military turned the airfield and harbor at Woleai into a smoking ruin as extensively detailed in NARA reports.
Woleai under attack, 1 April 1944, by Navy carrier-based aircraft. US Air Force Reference Number: 60226AC
Japanese airfield on the Island of Woleai Atoll under attack by Task Force 58 planes, probably on 1 April 1944. 80-G-45318
The first large raids, by TF 58 F6Fs, SBDs, and TBFs from USS Lexington (CV 16), USS Bunker Hill (CV 19), and USS Hornet (CV 12), were followed after August 1944 by Army tactical air (P-47s, etc) flying from recently occupied Saipan. Then came regular airstrikes by land-based Navy bombers and flying boats (PB4Y-1s, PV-1s, and PBY-5s) of VD-5, VPB-133, VP-33, VP-52, VB-150, and VPB-151.
Left to wither on the vine, the garrison had constricted to just over 1,600 when USS Sloat (DE-245) arrived two weeks after VJ Day with the unarmed 9,300-ton Japanese hospital Takasago Maru to accept the island’s surrender. It was all very unceremonial.
Unlike other islands in the Pacific, there were no documented holdouts on Woleai. The Japanese there just wanted to go home.
Members of the Japanese garrison on Woleai Island in the Caroline Islands about to be evacuated by a waiting ship. Japanese prisoners are searched by US Marine Corps enlisted men. The Japanese appeared to be in good physical shape, in direct contrast to those found on other islands. 80-G-495722
Japanese rifles and samurai swords are neatly stacked by members of the Japanese garrison on tiny Woleai, an island in the Carolines just west of Truk, preparatory to being evacuated by US Pacific Units cleaning up by-passed islands in the Pacific, September 1945. 80-G-485723
Three days later, with the garrison loaded on Takasago Maru and the garrison’s weapons and interesting equipment stowed aboard Sloat, the two vessels went their separate ways.
Administered by the Navy (U.S. Naval Base Woleai for a time) as a Trust Territory until 1979, the Carolines became the Federated States of Micronesia, and Woleai soon after the Cold War became a backwater for real. I can’t find where a U.S. warship has visited the island since Johnson was in office (USS Brister (DER-327) in February 1965).
So it should not be surprising that the Chinese government just recently broke ground on a new airport project in Wolei.
Did we mention this is just 400 miles from Guam?
As noted by The Island Times, “The FSM maintains diplomatic ties with the People’s Republic of China, while Palau and the Marshall Islands, which also have Compacts of Free Association with the United States, recognize Taiwan.”