THE PHOENIX ISLANDS REPUBLIC OF KIRIBATI: AN ANNOTATED AND ILLUSTRATED CHRONOLOGY

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THE PHOENIX ISLANDS
REPUBLIC OF KIRIBATI
AN ANNOTATED AND ILLUSTRATED CHRONOLOGY
by
IAN ELLIS-JONES
IAN ELLIS-JONES
Sydney NSW Australia
2018
Fifth Edition

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Copyright © 2018 Ian Ellis-Jones
All Rights Reserved
Fifth edition
Published in Australia by Ian Ellis-Jones
Email: ian.ellis-jones@hotmail.com
First edition 1979
Second edition 1990
Third edition 2002
Fourth edition 2014
Note. The first to fourth editions of this work were published
under the title of The Phoenix Islands: An Annotated Chronology
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted,
in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning
or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher, or as expressly permitted
by law, or under the terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organisation.
Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above or for any other information
regarding permission should be sent to Ian Ellis-Jones <ian.ellis-jones@hotmail.com>
ISBN 978-0-646-98722-4
Printed in Australia

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Dedicated to the legacy of
Edwin Horace Bryan, Jr (1898-1985)
Explorer ~ Scientist ~ Author ~ Polymath Extraordinaire
It was through reading Bryan’s books about his personal adventures
on the Phoenix Islands that the author of this monograph
first became vitally interested in the Islands. IEJ.

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INTRODUCTION
There are dozens of white, coral atolls south-west of Hawaii. They
include the Phoenix Islands (now part of the Republic of Kiribati,
which is the largest atoll state in the world), the former Ellice Islands
(now the nation of Tuvalu) and the Line Islands (eight of which now
form part of Kiribati, while the remaining three islands are United
States territories).
The Phoenix (or Rawaki) Islands, are a group of eight small, low-lying,
desolate coral islands and two submerged coral reefs located in the
central Pacific Ocean (Polynesia) in one of the largest marine protected
areas on Earth. The islands and reefs are scattered in a more-or-less
oval shape between 2 30' and 4 30' South Latitude and 170 30' and
174 30' West Longitude, and situated north of Western Samoa and
the Tokelaus, about midway between Fiji and Hawaii.
The islands, once an important source of guano, have a total land
area of about 29 sq km (11.2 sq miles)1. All are low atolls enclosing
lagoons, or the remnants of lagoons. The group consists of Kanton
[Island]2 (formerly Canton Island, also known as Abariringa3 [Aba-
Riringa], and known previously as Mary, Mary Balcout [or variously
Ballcouts, Balcott, Babcut], and Swallow Island), Enderbury [Island],
Rawaki (formerly Phoenix Island), Manra (formerly Sydney Island),
Birnie [Island], McKean [Island] (once named Drummond's Island, and
later Arthur Island), Nikumaroro [‘Niku’ for short] (formerly Gardner
Island, and once named Kimins [or Kemin’s] Islands or Mary Letitia’s
1 Conversions from metric to imperial and vice versa are approximate.
2 Now with a capital ‘k’ as there is no ‘c’ in the Kiribati language. In this chronology,
those of the Phoenix Islands that have ‘native’ names are referred to by those names,
since those names have now largely superseded the names bestowed by the
explorers. However, this is not to suggest that the so-called ‘historical’ names have
been rendered obsolete, as many current maps and gazetteers continue to use them,
nor are the ‘native’ names truly indigenous to the islands in question.

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Island) and Orona (formerly Hull Island).4 The two coral reefs are
Winslow Reef and Carondelet Reef.
Archaeological evidence shows that Manra, Orona and Nikumaroro
were inhabited by humans in pre-European times, from both Eastern
Polynesia and, so it would appear, Micronesia, with such settlements
probably beginning around 1000 BCE. However, when the first
European whalers visited the group in about 1820 the islands were
uninhabited. The later inhabitants were not indigenous to those
islands.
Kanton Island, which is the only island in the group that has a
resident population, is also the largest atoll in the group (9 sq km
[about 6 sqm]). The sun baked island consists of a roughly chop-
shaped lagoon which is almost completely ringed by a narrow ribbon
of flat, barren land up to 3.66 m (12 feet) above sea level. On the west,
the atoll has an overall width of 8.05 km (5 miles). Its length to the
south-eastern point is about 16 km (10 miles).
Kanton’s lagoon (about 11 km [6.8 miles] long and about 5 km [3
miles] wide) is a beautiful stretch of glass-smooth, deep-blue water
filled with tropical fish; the surrounding rim is seldom more than 550
m (601 yards) wide and, ignoring the presence of human-made
structures (communication towers, tanks, etc), varies in height from 6
m (20 feet) to 3 m (10 feet) or less. Until the comparatively recent
(post-World War II) planting of many coconut palms and other
vegetation, the island carried mainly stunted vegetation (low shrub)
much of which still covers the majority of the island.
3 Abariringa is Taetae ni Kiribati (a Gilbertese [Kiribatese]) word. The word abari
means land extending under the water; ringa is a verb meaning to feel, handle or
touch.
4 Howland and Baker Islands, to the north of the Phoenix group, do not belong to
the group and are US possessions.

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Kanton was garrisoned and defended by the United States military
during World War II. By the mid-1960s, about 40 percent of the land
area of Kanton had been covered with man-made structures, most of
which are now in ruins. An American-built wharf is capable of
handling large freighters. Seagulls, formerly a menace to planes, seek
refuge on the island and tiny insect-eating lizards dart through the
ruins and debris of the former United States military base.
Although there are no longer any regular scheduled commercial flights
to Kanton Island, Coral Sun Airways, based in Tarawa, operates
charter flights to the island, making use of the international standard
runway which is not currently used for international flights. Kanton
airstrip is located on the north-western corner of the island and has
its own ICAO and IATA codes. The airstrip was initially built by Pan
American Airways in 1939 and later enhanced by the United States
military during World War II. The airport was used as a refuelling stop
for international flights en route to Australia and New Zealand before
the introduction of long range jets. After World War II, Kanton airport
facilities were turned over to United States civilian control, with up to
four different airline companies using this facility until the late 1950s
or early 1960s, when jet aircraft began overflying the island. However,
military aircraft of various countries, including the United States,
Australia and New Zealand, continued to use the airstrip for several
more years. The Kiribati Government is working towards the
reestablishment of air service infrastructure for Kanton Island which
could include communications facilities, basic navigational aids and
equipment, resurfacing of the runway (if required) and upgrading or
reconstructing any buildings that may also be required.
In addition, an Australian owned and operated business specialising
in remote expedition style sport fishing has expeditions to Kanton,
sailing from Apia, Samoa. The Kiribati Government is encouraging

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sport fishing, diving, birdwatching and the sightseeing of historical
and heritage monuments on Kanton.
Enderbury Island (which lies about 60 km [37.3 miles] ESE of Kanton)
is almost completely solid land, the lagoon now only a shallow pond
dotted with sand islets. The island is less than 4.83 km (3 miles) long
and about 1.61 km (1 mile) wide. Its elevation around the rim is
between 4.57 m (15 feet) and 6.7 m (22 feet). Much of the island's
surface is covered with bunchgrass. The island reeks of guano from
kilometres away on the leeward side. Colonies of seabirds can be
found on the island,5 which is also important for green sea turtle
breeding. In recent years non-indigenous coconut palms from the
islands of Manra, Orona and Nikumaroro have appeared on the
island. There is no anchorage on the island.
Kanton and Enderbury Islands were claimed by both the United
States and the United Kingdom and were shared from 1939 to 1979
under an agreement called the Anglo-American Consortium.
Rawaki is roughly pear-shaped (with a shallow ankle deep lagoon),
less than 1.2 km (0.7 miles) long and 0.8 (0.5 miles) km wide. The
island, predominantly coral rubble, is more bare in terms of vegetation
than Enderbury. The highest point on the island is not quite 6 m (19.6
feet). The island was for many decades heavily populated with rabbits
(they were brought to the Phoenix Islands by guano collectors in the
1870s) but, after recent eradication work, a 2009 survey found the
presence of no European rats on the island. There are also many
thousands of sea birds on the island, which is a declared wildlife
sanctuary.
5 Some of the birds use the remnants of buildings left by the Phoenix Guano
Company.

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Manra6 is roughly triangular, with sides of 2 km (1.24 miles) in length
and base and about 3.22 km (2 miles) in width. It encloses a land-
locked but sizable lagoon which was once open to the sea. Polynesian
ruins have been located on the island which has dense vegetation on
it.
Birnie Island is the smallest in the group, less than 1.6 km (1 mile) in
length and 550 m (601 yards) at its widest part. The island is flat and
possesses a shallow brackish lagoon. A navigation beacon was erected
on its eastern side.
McKean Island, being the north-westernmost island in the Phoenix
group, and the first of the Phoenix Islands to be reported and named,
is roughly oval-shaped, 57 ha (140.85 acres) in area, 0.8 km (0.5
miles) in length and about 732 m (800 yards) in width. The island is
ringed by a reef flat, with a beach ridge of coral rock and rubble
surrounding the rim. The highest point of land on the island rises to
5.18 m (17 feet) above sea level. The centre of the island is depressed,
with a shallow, hypersaline, guano-laced lagoon. There is a fairly
recent but very prominent wreck on the island.
Nikumaroro7 consists of a narrow but fertile rim of land (about 6.5 km
[4 miles] by 2 km [1.24 miles]) around a wedge-shaped central lagoon.
Most of the rim is covered with forest, 4.6 m (15 feet) to 15 m (49 feet)
in height. Numerous coconut palms and ren trees can be found all
over the island which is full of lush vegetation and is home to a large
amount of crabs and birds. There is no effective place to anchor a
ship, and the fringing reef can only be penetrated on the island’s west
end where a human-made channel has been blasted through to the
beach. The beach itself is lined with a nearly impenetrable wall of
Scaevola (te mao).
6 Named after a legendary ancestral place.
7 Named after a land, with many buka trees, that supposedly lay in the direction of
Samoa, from which a legendary ancestress had come to the Kiribati home islands.

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In recent years, Nikumaroro often has been in the news in connection
with the 1937 disappearance of the famed aviator Amelia Earhart.
There are those who believe that Earhart and her navigator Fred
Noonan, being unable to find their intended destination Howland
Island and running desperately short of fuel, went south and landed
on a coral reef on the northern part of Nikumaroro where they
survived for a while as castaways. However, there are others.
including the author of this monograph, who believe that Earhart and
Noonan ran out of fuel while searching for Howland Island, ditched at
sea in the vicinity of Howland (probably within 52 miles (83.6859 km)
of Howland), and perished. The main, but not the only, problem with
the Earhart-on-Nikumaroro thesis is that there is no documented
evidence that Earhart and Noonan were anywhere near Nikumaroro
and it is doubtful that they had enough fuel left to travel so far south
of their intended destination. Nikumaroro lies 350 nautical miles
south of Howland and Earhart herself reported that she was running
out of fuel when we know (having regard to her radio transmissions)
that she was on her intended fight path, was in the vicinity of
Howland, and was coming closer to Howland with every transmission.
Orona,8 which lies eastward of Nikumaroro, is shaped like a
parallelogram and contains a deep lagoon. It is about 11 km (6.8
miles) long by 5 km (3.1 miles) wide. The rim of land around the
lagoon is cut by about 20 channels. Orona is perhaps the most
archaeologically interesting island in the group; at its eastern end
have been found ancient Polynesian graves and a stone marae. The
United States built a radar station on the island.
The climate of the Phoenix Islands can be summed up in one word -
hot. Rainfall is generally low, except in the wetter, southern islands of
8 A Polynesian name borrowed from Niue Islanders who had worked coconut
plantations.

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Manra, Orona and Nikumaroro, but even those islands are subject to
severe droughts. Daytime temperature is between 26.70C (80.06F)
and 33.9C (93.02F); night time temperature is seldom below
21.10C (71.78F). Since the Phoenix Islands are close to the Equator,
the sun's descent is rapid and almost vertical. Consequently, twilight
is very short.
Although the Phoenix Islands are low-lying, they are generally
protected from heavy seas by outlying coral reefs. However, the Pacific
Ocean breakers incessantly pound their way on the sea sides of the
islands, throwing white spray high into the air.
The Phoenix Islands, whose colonisation represented ‘the last
expansion of the British Empire’,9 have been the subject of, and base
for, numerous important archaeological, anthropological,
ornithological and scientific studies. As mentioned above, Kanton
Island became an important international airport on the trans-Pacific
route. Subsequently, the island became an integral part of the United
States defence and space programs. In more recent years, the island
has been a world weather watch global observing system station, and
a part of the Tropical Ocean and Global Atmosphere (TOGA) program.
In 2006 the Phoenix Islands became the Phoenix Islands Protected
Area (PIPA), then the world's largest marine protected area, now
covering a total area of 425,300 sq km (164,300 sq miles) of land and
ocean,10 and in August 2010 the World Heritage Committee inscribed
the Phoenix Islands Protected Area (PIPA), one of Earth’s last intact
oceanic coral archipelago ecosystems, on the World Heritage List. PIPA
is actually the largest world heritage site. The islands, being a World
Heritage Marine Protected Area, are a closed area and can only be
visited by those granted with a PIPA permit after thorough screening.
9 King, Thomas F, ‘Gallagher of Nikumaroro and the Last Expansion of the British
Empire’, http://www.tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Bulletins/8_02_00bull.html.

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Now that the Phoenix Islands, with the exception of Kanton, are once
again deserted,11 one can only wonder if and when they, like the
fabulous Egyptian bird, will rise again from the ashes in the renewal
of youth. The biggest peril the islands face is climate change. Humans
always cause the most damage.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS, COPYRIGHT AND DISCLAIMER.
Acknowledgements are due to the relevant rights holders whose intellectual property rights
are strictly reserved. The author is committed to upholding the rights of copyright owners and
no intention of infringing copyright in respect of any copyrighted material. If you believe that
any material in this publication constitutes a copyright infringement or a breach of a contract
or licence, please notify the author by email and any offending material will either be removed
or appropriately credited. Some photos are courtesy Google Images and National Geographic
Magazine. Finally, the author does not endorse, warrant or guarantee any third party content,
products or organisations referred to or pictured in this publication and accepts no liability
for loss, damage, injury including death or claims however caused by reliance on any
information or content found within.
10 The park was extended in 2008. When first proclaimed in 2006 PIPA covered a
total area of 410,500 sq km (158, 495 sq miles) of land and ocean.
11 All of the Phoenix Islands are visited by private yachts from time to time and there
are semi-regular expeditions of various kinds (for scientific and environmental
purposes).

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CHRONOLOGY
Pre-European Times
Archaeological evidence indicates that at least some of the Phoenix Islands,
relevantly, Nikumaroro, Manra and Orana, were inhabited by humans
(Polynesians and, it seems, Micronesians) in pre-European times.
c3500-2000 Much of Western Micronesia is settled.
BCE
c1500 BCE Ancestors of present-day Polynesians reach Fiji.
c1200 BCE Proto-Polynesian colonising of Tonga takes place; there
is subsequent movement into Samoa.
c1000 BCE Manra, Orona and, to a lesser extent, Nikumaroro are
inhabited by humans in pre-European times, from both
Eastern Polynesia and, so it would appear, Micronesia,
with such settlements probably beginning around this
time.
Archaeological evidence, including walled structures, on
some of the Phoenix islands is evidence of early
colonization by both Micronesians and Polynesians.
There is no good evidence to show that these people ever
lived on Kanton for any length of time, though according
to Car1 E Meinicke, quadrangular ruins of large coral
blocks occur there which he considers as certainly
ancient temples.
c300-500 CE The Marquesas are colonised.

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Subsequently, the settlement of the Eastern Pacific,
including Hawaii, takes place, with the oldest carbon date
being South Point on the Island of Hawaii (124 CE).
Ancient stone marae on Manra
Photo taken by Edwin Horace Bryan, Jr in 1924
Whaling Days
European whalers visited the Phoenix Islands probably in the early 1820s. By 1840
American whaling ships were all over the waters of the Pacific.
1598 (September) The first recorded sighting of Kanton by
Europeans takes place in the course of the second
expedition of the Spanish navigator Álvaro de Mendaña
y Neira (or Neyra) (1542–1595).
The island is sighted by Lorenzo Barreto, while in
command of one of the smaller vessels on a local voyage
round Santa Cruz (today's Nendo Island).

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Lorenzo Barreto was the brother of Isabel Barreto de
Castro (1567–1612) who was a Spanish sailor and
traveller and one of the first women to hold the office of
admiral in history.
1794 (May 28) The British sea captain Captain Henry Barber
of the ship Arthur, while en route from Botany Bay, New
South Wales to the north-west coast of America,
discovers McKean and names it ‘Drummond's Island’,
plotting the island at 3°40'S, 176°51'W.
Barber operated merchant routes from India and
America to the new settlement at Port Jackson, at
Sydney, Colony of New South Wales, Australia. He was
also responsible for the first recorded western shipwreck
in the Hawaiian Islands.
The Albany Sentinel (issue of August 28, 1797) reports
that the ‘small sandy island … is very low and cannot be
seen from the deck of a vessel more than five or six
miles’.
The island is later renamed ‘Arthur Island’ and appeared
as such in charts of that time. Its coordinates were given
as 3°30'S, 176°0'W.
1820 Several American whalers and British warships have by
now visited Kanton.
1823 Captain James J Coffin, in command of the British
whale ship Transit, reportedly discovers and names
Enderbury (as ‘Enderby's Island’, after a London
whaling house named ‘Enderby’).

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Coffin, of Nantucket, while in command of the British
whaler Transit, discovered a group of islands north of
the Marianas, which he named Fisher, Kidd, South and
Pigeon Islands.
1823 British whaler Captain Emment [query ‘Emmett’ or
‘Emmert’] (Sydney Packet or the Sydney) comes across
Manra and also names Birnie (after a well known
British shipowner of the time).
Sperm whale hunt
Currier & Ives (photo in public domain)
1824 (August 5) Two London whaling ships, the Phoenix,
(under the command of Captain John Palmer) and
the Mary (under the command of Captain Edward Reed)
report visits to Kanton.

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1824 (January 8) Captain Kemin, of an unnamed ship,
discovers what is possibly Gardner Island (at 4°45'S,
186°20'15"E) and McKean Island, naming them the
‘Kemin Islands’.
1824 The American sea captain and whaler Joshua Gardner
(reportedly aboard the whaler Ganges which he
commanded in the mid-1820s), discovers an island
(located at 4°20' S, 174°22' W) [Nikumaroro] and names
it ‘Gardner's Island’ in 1825.
Gardner’s discovery is reported in the Nantucket
Enquirer in December 1827.
Joshua Coffin (also reportedly on the Ganges) is also
sometimes credited with the discovery, naming the
island after his ship's owner, Gideon Gardner [see
below].
1825 An island named ‘Mary Island’ and ‘Mary Balcoutts [or
Ballcouts] Island’ (named after the shipowner’s wife), at
similar coordinates to Kanton, exists in reports and
charts from 1825.
c1828 The French naval captain Louis Tromelin, aboard the
24-gun corvette Bayonnaise (launched 1793) comes
across Manra and Rawaki, probably in 1828.
Some sources state 1823 and 1826.

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Bayonnaise (left) ramming into HMS Ambuscade
Artist: Louis-Philippe Crépin (1772–1851), a French naval painter
1828 Kanton is listed on page 12 of the Reynold’s Report as
Mary Balcout’s Island.
1828 Rawaki has by now been discovered by Thomas Macy’s
whaler Phoenix (of Nantucket, Massachusetts).
Jeremiah N Reynolds' 1828 report to the United States
Navy describes a ‘Barney's Island’, roughly at Kanton's
position, which was possibly named and discovered by
Captain Joseph Barney (Equator), who was whaling in
the area in 1823-4.
A ‘Phenix’ [sic], plus unnamed islands at similar
coordinates, also feature in Reynold's report.

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1828 (or 1825) Captain Joshua Coffin (Ganges) is credited
with discovering Nikumaroro, naming it Gardner (after
the ship’s owner and apparently his father-in-law).
1830 The whaler Japan, under the command of sea captain
Shubael Chase, visits McKean.
1832 Captain Worth visits McKean but mistakes the island
for Onotoa.
1834 An unknown whaler names McKean ‘Wigram’s Island’.
1838-42 During the United States Exploring Expedition of 1838-
1842, American naval officer, ship’s captain and
explorer Charles Wilkes (1798–1877), who led the
Exploring Expedition, identifies Nikumaroro from the
reported position, and confirms its existence.
Modern positioning places Nikumaroro at 4°40' S,
174°31 W.
Wilkes commanded the ship in the Trent Affair during
the American Civil War (1861–1865), where he attacked
a Royal Mail Ship, almost leading to war between the
United States and the United Kingdom.
His behaviour led to two convictions by court martial,
one stemming from the massacre of almost 80 Fijians on
Malolo in 1840.
1840 (August 19) Lieutenant Charles Wilkes (USS Vincennes),
of the United States Exploring Expedition, comes
across, maps, and renames McKean (after a member of

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his crew) and also confirms Nikumaroro’s position and
name (‘Gardner’).
Despite the renaming of McKean, ‘Arthur Island’ remains
suspected and ‘in need of confirmation’ until at least
1871, when it is listed in Findlay’s Directory, using the
charts of cartographer John Arrowsmith.
1840 Wilkes, during his American Exploring Expedition,
comes upon Orona.
A Frenchman and 10 Tahitians were then living ashore.
Lieutenant Charles Wilkes

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1840-41 Enderbury is surveyed by vessels of the United States
Exploring Expedition.
1841 The existence of Orona is confirmed by the United
States Exploring Expedition.
The island is found to be inhabited, and is named ‘Hull
Island’ by Charles Wilkes after Commodore Isaac Hull.
1850s The British vessel HMS Curacao, under the command of
Captain Gibson, visits Kanton.
1851 The whaler Phoenix discovers Winslow Reef, northwest
of Kanton, and the name of the vessel became attached
to the entire group of islands.
1851 Moby-Dick, by the American writer Herman Melville
(1819–1891), is published.
Melville places the final confrontation involving the
whale-obsessed Captain Ahab in the Phoenix group.
One basis for the work is Melville's 1841 whaling voyage
aboard the Acushnet. (Actually, Melville had jumped ship
in the Marquesas Islands.)
More importantly, the novel's ending is based on the
sinking of the American whaler Essex (from Nantucket
MA) in 1820 while under the command of Captain
George Pollard Jr (1791–1870).
Pollard's life, including his encounter with the sperm
whale that sank the Essex, served as the direct
inspiration for Melville’s Captain Ahab.

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Herman Melville
1854 (March 4) The New Bedford whaler Canton, under the
command of Captain Andrew J Wing, is wrecked on the
reef of Kanton (then Mary Balcout’s Island or, briefly,
Mary’s Island).
After a short sojourn on the waterless island, the captain
and his crew take to their open whaleboats and reach
Tinian Island in the Marianas, without the loss of a
single person, after 49 days at sea.
Three of the survivors, including Captain Wing and
Thomas E Braley finally settle in Acushnet,
Massachusetts.

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Guano and Coconuts
Between 1859 and 1877 Enderbury, McKean and Phoenix Islands were worked
for guano (‘bird poop’). After the guano deposits were exhausted coconut plantations
began on Orona and Manra. Over the years leases passed from one company to
another (J T Arundel & Co, Pacific Islands Company Ltd, Lever’s Pacific Plantations
Ltd, and Samoa Shipping and Trading Co Ltd).
1856 The United States claims 14 islands in the Line and
Phoenix groups under the Guano Islands Act (11 Stat
119, enacted August 18, 1856, codified at 48 USC ch 8
§§ 1411-1419), which was enacted under the
administration of President Franklin Pierce and which
is still in force to the present day.
The statute provides that if a United States citizen
discovers guano on ‘any island, rock, or key’ that is
uninhabited (by people) and ‘not within the lawful
jurisdiction of any other Government’, and the citizen
peacefully occupies the same, ‘such island, rock, or key
may, at the discretion of the President, be considered as
appertaining to the United States’, with the discoverer
then having the exclusive right to mine guano and the
President being authorised to deploy the armed forces to
protect it; over the years Americans and the British both
mined islands claimed under the Guano Islands Act,
though not simultaneously.
1856 American guano companies claim Kanton.

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Guano Islands Act (1856)
1859 (April 20) In the Honolulu missionary publication The
Friend, and elsewhere, the claim of ownership by the
American Guano Company, the United States Guano
Company, and the Phoenix Guano Company of about
50 guano islands is recognized by the United States
Government.
1859-77 American companies work the guano deposits on
Rawaki, Enderbury and McKean.

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Abandoned guano miners' huts (c1870) on Enderbury Island
(Black-and-white photo taken by Edwin Horace Bryan, Jr in 1938)
Guano on coral on Kanton Island in 2017

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1859 (December 31) The United States Secretary of State
issues rights to dig guano on Enderbury to the Phoenix
Guano Company.
1860 (April) The Phoenix Guano Company commences guano
digging on Enderbury.
1861 The United States Guano Company, headed by Alfred G
Benson, unsuccessfully attempts to gain control of
Enderbury by force.
1866 (December 11) The British bark Golden Sunset, under
the command of E H Tidmarsh, goes ashore on
Enderbury.
The 20 passengers, captain and crew are later brought
safely to Honolulu on the Hawaiian supply ship
Kamehameha V.
1872 (March 27-29) Commander Richard W Meade (1837–
1897), of the USS Narragansett, surveys Mary’s Island
(Kanton) and at that time renames the island ‘Canton
Island’ to commemorate the shipwreck 18 years before;
Meade also maps Enderbury.
In 1871-73 Meade took the Narragansett on a lengthy
diplomatic and information-gathering cruise through the
South Pacific. He was commandant of the Washington
Navy Yard in 1887-90. Promoted to commodore in 1892
and rear admiral two years later, his final service was as
commander of the North Atlantic Squadron in 1894-95.
1872-73 Meade's report describes his visit to Kanton, which (as
‘Canton’, the name Meade gives to the island, after the

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whaler Canton, which was wrecked there in 1854)
becomes the official name of the island.
1877 (March) Guano operations on Enderbury cease; as the
supply of guano becomes depleted in the Phoenix
Islands, the American companies abandon them.
1881-91 John T Arundel and Company, a London concern, then
steps in and takes over the islands between 1881 and
1893.
Kanton is worked for its guano by John T Arundel
pursuant to a lease from the British Government.
1882 The British flag is hoisted and a protectorate declared.
John T Arundel and Company leases Manra and later
uses Enderbury during the 1880s.
John T Arundel (1841–1919)
Public domain photo
1982-85 Guano is shipped from Manra; coconuts are planted.

32
1884 Guano vessel Howard E Troup is driven on to the reef at
Kanton.
1885-86 Guano is shipped from Kanton.
1887 John T Arundel & Co plant coconuts on Orona and
Nikumararo.
The coconut plantations do not thrive because of a
drought in the 1890s.
1889-92 Great Britain asserts
sovereignty over the
Phoenix Islands, by
hoisting the British flag
on various members of
the Phoenix group (but
not actually on Kanton
itself).
The United States
claims ownership on the ground of discovery, advertised
claims of ownership during whaling days, and the terms
of a Presidential Order of May 13, 1936 on the general
subject of islands.
1889 (June 26) The British flag is raised on Manra.
1889 (June 29) Great Britain annexes Rawaki.
1892 Great Britain establishes a protectorate over the Gilbert
and Ellice Islands.

33
1892 (May 28) Captain Herbert W S Gibson, in command of
the HMS Curacao, a Comus-class corvette of the Royal
Navy, annexes Nikumaroro in the name of Queen
Victoria.
The island may have been temporarily settled in the
1890s and abandoned shortly thereafter, but that has
not been confirmed.
1892 (October 9-16) The Curacoa is sent to the Ellice Islands,
with Captain Gibson visiting each of the islands to
make a formal declaration that the islands are a British
Protectorate.
HMS Curacao
in drydock in
Sydney NSW
Australia
Photo Courtesy
Powerhouse
Museum, Sydney
Phillips Glass
Plate Negative
Collection
Gift of the Estate
of Raymond W
Phillips in 2008

34
1899 Great Britain leases Kanton, Enderbury and Birnie to
the Pacific Islands Co.
1900s Lever Bros maintain coconut plantations on Manra.
1914 (January 1) The Phoenix Islands (except McKean and
Enderbury) are leased to the Samoa Shipping and
Trading Co for 87 years.
1915 Captain Allen, of the Samoa Shipping and Trading Co,
visits Kanton, erects a beacon and plants hundreds of
coconut trees, with the prospect of establishing a copra
industry on the island.
The last coconut tree survives until 1950 and then
remains as an erect dead trunk some 9.14 m (30 feet)
high. Because this tree was visible to ships at sea,
Kanton was often known as the ‘Lone Tree Island’ to
sailors.
1916 Samoa Shipping and Trading Co establishes camps on
Orona and Manra for copra-cutting.
1919 Captain Allen returns for an inspection of Kanton.
Most of the coconut trees have died.
1922 (March) The American scientist and explorer Edwin H
Bryan Jr visits and conducts a scientific exploration of
Kanton.
Bryan recommends Kanton to Charles Kingsford-Smith
as a possible landing spot if needed (see later entry).

35
1925 After Captain Allen's death in this year, the Phoenix
Islands are again abandoned.
1928 Charles Kingsford-Smith chooses Kanton as an
emergency landing place (should it be necessary) on his
trans-Pacific flight in the Southern Cross, via Hawaii
and Suva, Fiji.
Sir Charles Kingford Smith MC AFC
Photo Courtesy State Library of New South Wales
1929 The SS Norwich City is beached, with eleven fatalities
(including two British and five Yemeni who are
unaccounted for and never found), on the western reef

36
of Nikumaroro during a storm; four bodies are buried
by survivors after washing ashore.
The 24 survivors make camp on the island until their
rescue a few days later.
SS Norwich City beached at Nikumaroro
Remains of SS Norwich City at Nikumaroro in 2014

37
Photo courtesy TIGHAR
1930 (August 16) The first issue of Pacific Islands Monthly
(‘PIM’) is published.
The magazine was founded in Sydney by New Zealand
born journalist Robert William (Robbie) Robson. He had
moved to Australia during World War I. PIM runs until
June 2000.

38
Pacific Islands Monthly, Vol 1, No 1, August 16, 1930, p 1
1933 Ancient Polynesian structures are found on Orona.
1935 The United States annexes Howland and Baker Islands.

39
1936 (August 6) British officials from the sloop HMS Leith
land on Kanton.
British sovereignty is asserted in the name of King
Edward VIII.
Annexation, Colonisation and Aviation
The Phoenix Islands were included within the boundaries of the Gilbert and Ellice
Islands Colony in 1937. Between 1938 and 1940 Orona, Manra and Nikumaroro are
colonised with people from the overcrowded Gilbert Islands; the scheme is known as
the Phoenix Islands Settlement Scheme. During 1938-39 Pan American Airways
develop an airport on Kanton. In 1939 Great Britain and USA agree to jointly
administer and control Kanton and Enderbury.
1936 (May) Burns, Philp & Co's SV Makoa, an Australian
schooner built in 1918, is wrecked on Orona's reef.
Burns, Philp & Co Ltd (‘Burns Philp’) was formed in the
1870s and originally concentrated on Australian
passenger and cargo coastal trade. In the 1890s trade
expanded to the Pacific Islands. The company survived
in shipping until 1970 by which time it had disposed of
most of its ships and diversified into other industries.

40
Source: The Sydney Morning Herald, July 6, 1937, p 11
1937 Great Britain visits every one of the Phoenix Islands to
confirm her sovereignty.
Great Britain includes all of the Islands (except Kanton
and Enderbury) in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony.
Administration officials are stationed on Kanton and
Orona.
1937 (May 26) The US Navy seaplane tender USS Avocet carries
the National Geographical Society-United States Navy
solar eclipse party to Kanton.

41
The party erects a concrete monument with two
American flags of porcelain enamel on stainless steel
embedded in it, claiming ownership of Kanton for the
United States.
The marker left by the National Geographical Society to
commemorate its 1937 solar eclipse visit to Kanton Island
(The marker has suffered damage over the years)
Photo Courtesy National Geographic Magazine

42
1937 (June 3) British officials from HMS Wellington land on
Kanton and, after a brief skirmish with the Americans
(USS Avocet) over anchorage, confirm British
sovereignty in the name of King George VI.
The ship also brings New Zealand scientists to Kanton to
observe the sun's eclipse. A radio network’s transmitter
beams an on-the-spot description of the eclipse to the
United States.
Solar corona, at the total solar eclipse,
June 8, 1937, Kanton Island
Towering above the edge of the black moon is an unusual prominence,
shaped like a bird or dinosaur, nicknamed ‘Heliosaurus’
Portrait by Irving Gardner (United States National Bureau of Standards)
on a joint expedition with the United States Naval Observatory
and the National Geographic Society

43
1937 (July 2) Amelia Earhart's twin-engined Lockheed
airplane vanishes, supposedly in the vicinity of
Howland Island.
The US mine-sweeper Swan sails to Kanton in a vain
search for Earhart. Subsequently, all of the Phoenix
Islands are visited as part of the official search, with
three Vought O3U-3 Corsair float planes (each with a
pilot and an observer) from the Battleship
USS Colorado flying all over, among the other islands,
Nikumaroro for some 30 minutes at 128.748 kph (80
mph) and at an altitude of some 15.24m to 152.4 m (50
to 500 feet).
It was Captain John Lambrecht, senior Navy aviator
aboard the Colorado, who overflew Nikumaroro and
McKean. He saw ‘signs of recent habitation’ on
Nikumaroro. (Note. Lambrecht later told Frederick Allan
Goerner [so the latter said in a letter to Edward Barnes
of Life magazine dated October 11, 1991] that the ‘signs
of recent habitation’ were the crumbling walls of what
appeared to have been buildings.)
See later entries for the relevance or otherwise of
Nikumaroro and Amelia Earhart.
USS Colorado

44
Fred Noonan and Amelia Earhart in Bandoeng,
Indonesia, about a week before their final flight
Source: George Palmer Putnam Collection of Amelia Earhart Papers
Courtesy Purdue University Libraries, Karnes Archives & Special Collections

45
1937 (August 31) Two British agents land on Kanton from
HMS Leith and proceed to erect a radio station on the
island.
Subsequently, the British ambassador in Washington
DC asks the United States State Department to remove
the American markers claiming sovereignty. That
request is refused.
1937 (October) British vessel HMCS Nimanoa (with Henry E
(‘Harry’) Maude, Administrator for the Gilbert and Ellice
Islands Colony, and later officer-in-charge of the
Phoenix Islands Settlement Scheme [PISS]) visits the
Phoenix group prior to the colonisation of Orona, Manra
and Nikumaroro.
The British survey team, headed by Maude and Eric
Bevington, along with 18 Gilbertese men, thoroughly
explore Nikumaroro and its lagoon for several days
(October 13-16, being some 100 days after Amelia
Earhart’s last flight).
The task of the survey team is to explore the island
thoroughly, dig wells and evaluate the island’s potential
for colonization.
Maude and his assistants see no trace of Earhart’s
Lockheed Electra or the fliers themselves and nothing
that would link them to the island. The same was true at
McKean.

46
Henry Evans (‘Harry’) Maude OBE (1906-2006)
1938 (January) PAA Clipper Samoan, with the legendary
Captain Edwin C Musick at the controls, explodes in
flight while dumping fuel.
A light tower (‘Musick Light’) is later erected on Kanton
as a memorial to Captain Musick and his crew. Musick
inaugurated the first scheduled cargo and mail service
between the United States and New Zealand on
December 23, 1937. He and his crew perished off Samoa
during the second flight in January 1938.
1938 (March 3) United States President Franklin D Roosevelt,
by an administrative order, places Kanton and
Enderbury under the jurisdiction of the United States
Secretary of the Interior.
Stephen T Early, Secretary to President Roosevelt,
announces that:

47
The position of the United States as regards lands or
islands hitherto unoccupied or in question as to ownership
is as follows—
1. First claim to title over undiscovered territory rests on
discovery.
2. Under this many islands in the Pacific were first
discovered by American flag ships.
3. The United States always has held that mere discovery
does not give final title. If it is not followed up by
reasonable occupation it is insufficient.
4. In relation to the islands in question, of which there are
many, the United States assumes the right to occupation
either because of:
(a) discovery,
(b) former occupation,
(c) failure of any other nation to occupy,
or a combination of the three.
1938 (July 2) Canton Light (also known as Musick Light) is
dedicated as a memorial to the late Captain Musick and
his crew.
Dedication of Canton Light
(also known as Musick Light) on July 27, 1938

48
Canton Light some 80 years later

49
1938 (March 6) An American party of seven, including four
Americans of Hawaiian ancestry, disembark from the
United States Coast Guard cutter Roger B Taney on
Enderbury and establish their camp on Kanton.
United States Coast Guard Cutter Roger B Taney
The Taney was present at Pearl Harbor
during the Japanese attack
1938 (March-July) Kanton is surveyed for the United States
Department of the Interior (later revised, mainly
vegetationally, by William H Hatheway).
1938 (April 1) The United States Secretary of the Interior
grants Pan American Airways (later Pan American
World Airways) a licence to use Kanton as a stop on the
California-Hawaii-South Pacific flying route, with all
personnel to be American citizens.

50
1938 (July 25-27) E H Bryan Jr revisits Kanton with a
scientific expedition.
1938 (November 30) A 16-man joint New Zealand and British
Survey team (known as New Zealand Pacific Air Survey
[NZPAS]), explores Nikumaroro from an aviation
viewpoint for the next several weeks.
The team conducts a full survey of Nikumaroro. The
survey for an airfield and clear obstructions in the
lagoon.
The purpose of the survey, which was the brainchild of
Sir Ralph Cochrane and E A Gibson, is, firstly, to
prepare the islands for defence purposes in the event of
a Pacific War and, secondly, to claim the islands for
Great Britain for possible later use for trans-Pacific
commercial aviation.
The survey team find no trace of Earhart’s Lockheed
Electra or the fliers themselves and nothing that would
link them to the island.
1938 (December) While the New Zealand team is still on
Nikumaroro, at least 80 colonists from the Gilbert and
Ellice Islands settle on the island.
1938 British and United States colonists settle in Kanton.

51
British and American camps on Kanton Island in 1938
Photo taken by Edwin Horace Bryan, Jr in 1938
1938-40 Orona, Manra and Nikumaroro are colonised with
people from the overcrowded Gilbert Islands.
The scheme is known as the Phoenix Islands Settlement
Scheme.
1938 Orona's population numbers 610, following the transfer
of Southern Gilbertese.
1938 Samoa Shipping and Trading Co, controlled by Burns,
Philp & Co, sells its lease to the Gilbert and Ellice
Government, which buys the Phoenix Islands from
Burns Philp to re-settle the Gilbertese.
1938 Four colonists from the American Equatorial Islands
Colonization Project settle on Enderbury to uphold an
American claim of ownership.

52
1938-39 Pan American Airways deepen and clear Kanton’s
lagoon for the purpose of constructing a seaplane
runway, and construct ancillary seaplane facilities, the
aim being for Kanton to be a refuelling stop for Pan
Am’s China-Australia Clippers.
The Pan Am hotel, then the sole substantial building on
the island, and some seaplane installations, also built by
the airline, are taken over by the United States Navy
near the start of World War II.
Kanton Island---lagoon---seaplane runway---Pan-Am flying boat
1939 Dr Leonard P Schultz of the Smithsonian Institution
catalogues 221 species of fish in the waters of Kanton
and its neighbours.
1939 (January 11) A post office is opened on Manra (closed in
1958)
1939 (April 6) An agreement is reached, by an official
exchange of notes, between Britain and USA under

53
which both nations will jointly administer and control
Kanton and Enderbury for a period of 50 years and
‘thereafter until such time as it may be modified or
terminated by the mutual consent of the two
Governments’.
Both countries would be entitled to use the two islands
for communications and as airports for international
aviation.
1939 (August) The seaplane California Clipper sets out for the
first survey flight over the new trans-Pacific route.

54
1939 (November) The second survey flight over the trans-
Pacific route takes place.
1939 (November 5) Crew members from the USS Bushnell, a
Navy Survey ship lands at Nikumaroro and discharges
25 sailors and technicians.
The team surveys Nikumaroro for defence purposes. A
tower is constructed on the island. The survey also
includes aerial photos and mosaics of the island.
Nothing concerning Amelia Earhart or Fred Noonan was
found or reported.
1939 British colonial administrator H E (‘Harry’) Maude
returns to the island with the first contingent of Gilbert
Islands settlers. The island is occupied by 80 settlers as
part of the Phoenix Islands Settlement Scheme.
A village is built on Nikumaroro on the area surveyed for
an airfield. A co-op store and a post office are erected
and thousands of coconut palms are planted on the
island. (Again, no trace is found of Earhart’s airplane or
the fliers themselves or nothing that would link them to
the island.)
1940 (July 12) Pan American Airways Boeing 314, American
Clipper, takes off from San Francisco Harbor,
inaugurating a regular fortnightly service to New
Zealand, via Los Angeles, Honolulu, Kanton Island and
Noumea.

55
The American Clipper prepares to take off from San Francisco
Harbor for an inaugural flight to New Zealand in 1940
Photo: San Francisco Chronicle (Pan Am Historical Foundation)
Queensland
Times, July
16, 1940, p 5

56
Pan American Airways Clipper advertisement, 1940

57
1940 The population of the Phoenix Islands, before the
arrival of United States troops after 1941, is
approximately 850 (including 260 on Manra).
1940 Nikumaroro colonisers find human skeletal remains (viz
skull, lower jaw, one thoracic vertebra, half pelvis, part
scapula, humerus, radius, two femurs, tibia and fibula)
near the southeast end of the island about 30.5 m (100
feet) above ordinary high water springs (over 6.4 km [4
miles] from where the SS Norwich City came to grief in
1929).
The body had been lying under a ren tree (Tournefortia
argentia). There were also remains of fire, a turtle and
dead birds. All the small bones had been removed by
giant coconut crabs which had also damaged larger
ones. Also found were part of a shoe (about an English
size 10, and judged to have been a woman’s), a sextant
box, designed to carry a Brandis Navy Surveying Sextant
manufactured c1918, and a Benedictine bottle.
Gerald B Gallagher, the officer-in-charge of the Phoenix
Islands Settlement Scheme (PISS), thinks that the bones
may be the remains of Amelia Earhart. The bones are
shipped to Fiji.
Photo Courtesy TIGHAR

58
Gerald Bernard Gallagher (1912-1941)
1941 A forensic analysis carried out by Dr David Hoodless,
principal of the Central Medical School, Fiji, concludes
that the bones are those of a middle-aged stocky male
of European or mixed ethnicity.

59
Dr David Winn Hoodless (1887-1956)
1941 (January 9) Enderbury is once again surveyed by the
United States.
1941 (January 25) A post office is opened on Kanton (closed
around February 1968).
1941 (September 27) Gerald B Gallagher, aged 29, dies on
Nikumaroro from complications arising from tropical
spruehe.
1941 (October) Three Catalinas leave Kanton en route to
Sydney NSW Australia.

60
The planes arrive in Sydney after covering nearly 5,000
km (3,107 miles) in 26 hours. They have two hours of
fuel left.
1941 (November) Work begins on the construction of a fighter
airstrip on Kanton.
By January 17, 1942 the airstrip can support a B-17
heavy bomber.
1941 (December 7) The Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
Kanton airport soon thereafter passes into United States
Naval control. The airport itself is not bombed by the
Japanese throughout World War II.
1941 (December 14) All civilians are evacuated from Kanton,
as the island passes to the military.
World War II
After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor the Kanton airport passes into
United States military control. During World War II thousands of American
troops are brought to Kanton. The importance of the island to the United States
and its allies during the War cannot be overstated.
1942 The seminal text American Polynesia and the Hawaiian
Chain, by Edwin H Bryan Jr, is published by Tongg
Publishing Company, Honolulu, Hawaii.
The book contains first-hand descriptions of each of the
Phoenix Islands as well as other islands situated in
‘American Polynesia’.

61
1942-43 The United States Air Force builds a modern airport for
landplanes on the northwest land rim of Kanton.
Flying boats also visit Nikumaroro during World War II.
During the late War years a large four-engine aircraft
from Kanton crashes on Manra.
1942 (January) The first landplanes to use the new coral
runway on Kanton fly from Hawaii to Kanton.
1942 (February 14) The SS President Taylor, formerly the SS
President Polk, under contract from the President Lines
to the United States Army as a troop ship, runs
aground on Kanton after being pursued by two
Japanese submarines.

62
The ship is caught in the channel current at Kanton
while trying to disembark troops (some 1400 aboard), as
close to shore as possible because of the enemy
submarine danger. The ship piles up on the reef at the
entrance of the channel with her bow 246.9 m (270
yards) from Musick Light. Salvage operations are
abandoned when attempts to refloat her prove
unsuccessful.
The SS President Taylor was the first United States
shipping casualty of the Pacific War
The wreck dominated the coralscape of Kanton Island, and in many
ways most of the island, for the next 14 years after it grounded on the
reef in February 1942

63
The wreck of the SS President Taylor today
Photo Courtesy Rock Expeditions
1942-45 Kanton becomes an important United States Air Force
base in the Pacific Ocean.
Some 30,000 American troops are brought to Kanton
during World War II. Many of them are stationed on
the island for months.

64
Palm tree observation point on Kanton Island
Photo taken by Edwin Horace Bryan, Jr
Kanton Island military base during World War II

65
Kanton Island port
1943 A natural channel through the rim of Kanton is
deepened by dredging, and a new channel is cut so that
seagoing vessels not exceeding 128 m (420 ft) in length
can tie up at a wharf in the lagoon.
1943 (around January) Japanese submarines impose a
blockade, with the result that food and other supplies
become scarce on Kanton.
1943 (January 30) A Japanese submarine surfaces before
dawn and shells Kanton for 30 minutes.
1943 (March 19, 22 and 26) Japanese patrol bombers carry
out night raids on Kanton.

66
The last raid destroys three barracks and a Navy PBY
Catalina, damages the island’s water tank, and shells
the hulk of the SS President Taylor.
PAT-RIOT II, P-39Q, 46th FS, 15th FG, Kanton Island
Photo Courtesy Alvin Darrell Ankrum
(Ankrum’s father-in-law was Howard McCartney who was
in charge of the US Naval Post Office at the naval air facility
on Kanton Island in World War II)
1944 (June) The United States Coast Guard arrives on
Nikumaroro and begins construction of a Loran station.
The station is up and running on December 16, 1944
and is manned by 25 Coast Guard personnel.
1944 (June) Famed English-born American actor and
comedian Bob Hope visits Kanton on a Pacific island-
hopping USO tour and entertains American troops
stationed on the island.
Hope later writes about his time on Kanton in one of his
many books.

67
After the War
After World War II, Kanton airport becomes an important refuelling stop
on the trans-Pacific airline route between the years 1945 and 1958.
The Phoenix Islands Settlement Scheme fails. After 1958 Kanton airport
is used for emergency landings only and as a land port for light aircraft
and a base for the United States Air Force and NASA aircraft.
1945 (January) Howard McCartney is in charge of the United
States Naval Post Office at the naval air facility on
Kanton (NAF #1301).
1945 (post-August) After World War II, Kanton airport
becomes an important refuelling stop on the trans-
Pacific airline route.
The main runway is 1828.8 m (6000 feet) in length;
there is also an auxiliary runway, being the former
fighter strip, of 2072.64 m (6800 feet). Over the years,
the former fighter use falls into desuetude.
Pan American's Kanton Island terminal
Photo: Bill Johns

68
1946 The United States Civil Aeronautics Administration
(CAA) sets up a base on Kanton, as aviation facilities
are transferred from the War Department to the
Department of Commerce.
1946 British Commonwealth Pacific Airlines (BCPA),
operating Australian National Airways (ANA) DC-4
Skymasters, open a service from Australia to North
America, via Suva, Kanton Island and Honolulu.
BCPA was liquidated in favour of Qantas Empire
Airways operating the trans-Pacific route on March 31,
1954, and was absorbed by Qantas on April 1,
1954.
1946 (May 15) The United States Coast Guard Loran station
on Nikumaroro is deactivated.
1946 (September) The renowned Australian professional
tennis player Rod Laver plays tennis at the ‘Canton [sic]
Court’.
1948 A United States Act of Congress extends the jurisdiction
of the District Court, Hawaii, over Kanton and
Enderbury.
1948 (May) The SS President Taylor is gutted by fire, which is
rumoured to have started from the explosion of illicit
whiskey still in her hold.
The ship burns for four days. The rusted and fire-
blackened wreck then serves as the most prominent
landmark on Kanton, her funnel and masts being visible
for 29 km (18 miles) at sea.

69
1949 The first civilian commercial airliner, a Qantas L-49
Lockheed Constellation, lands at Kanton.
This flight opens up the Pacific skies.
1949 (July 13) Canadian Pacific Airlines (later CP Air) opens
its first international route across the South Pacific
from Vancouver to Sydney, via San Francisco,
Honolulu, Kanton Island and Nadi.
1949 (October-December) The east-west runway at Kanton
Airport is extended and resurfaced, and new lighting is
installed, at Kanton Airport by the CAA.
The north-south runway has since been abandoned as
well as the former fighter strip about 4.8 km (3 miles)
east of the main runway.
1950 The Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony administration
decides that Manra can no longer properly support a
permanent population and prepares for a resettlement
of the population.
1950 (July 11-19) At the request of the United States Civil
Aeronautics Administration (CAA), a floristic and
vegetational survey of Kanton is conducted by Otto
Degener and William H Hatheway.
The island is revisited by Hatheway in February 1951
and by Degener in April and May 1951.
1951 Commercial fishing becomes more important on
Kanton.

70
1952 Ornithologists Alfred M Bailey and Robert Niedrach of
the Denver Museum list a total of 28 bird species and
subspecies at Kanton.
1953 (February) The birth of the first American child to be
born on Kanton takes place.
1954 As part of moving the American population from the
Southside of Kanton to the Northside, CAA has by now
constructed 25 modern family quarters and five
Quonsets and rehabilitated five former military
quarters.
A hospital, with a physician in constant attendance, is
in the vicinity. The hotel operated by PAA on Southside
continues to provide room and board for transients.
1954 By now Kanton has a school, with a teacher supplied by
the Department of the Interior, and a kindergarten-
nursery school with a teacher hired by the residents.
There is also a British school in the Gilbertese
compound.
1954 (May 15) Qantas Airways begin trans-Pacific operations
to the United States (Sydney Australia—Nadi Fiji—
Kanton Island—Honolulu—San Francisco), using
Lockheed Super Constellations;
Three airlines (Pan American, Canadian Pacific and
Qantas) now route passenger and cargo planes through
Kanton.

71
1950s (mid) The population of Nikumaroro reaches a high of
approximately 100.
1954-55 The wreck of the SS President Taylor is cut up for scrap
and to be hauled away.
1954-55 Many attractive, modern houses are built on Kanton,
south of the airport terminal building.
1955 Valuable radio equipment is reported to be rusting on
Nikumaroro.
1955 (July 11) The 300-ton vessel Caronia, moored at Kanton
and being used to salvage the President Taylor, is itself
gutted by fire, with the result that salvage operation of
the President Taylor ceases.
1956 The population of the Phoenix Islands numbers 1,257.
1956 The Civil Aviation Authority directs the installation of a
new powerful homing device on Kanton to assist pilots.
1957 (January) The last of the ‘Taylor Salvors’ forsakes
Kanton.
1957 (March 31) The United States Coast Guard tows the
wreck Caronia from Kanton lagoon out to sea and sinks
her.
1958 Most long-range aircraft are now overflying Kanton,
with the result that the island ceases to be a regular
stopover station on the trans-Pacific route for most of
the major airlines.

73
The oft-photographed Kanton Island signpost

74
Aerial view of Kanton Island
Kanton Island Airport in 1973

75
Kanton Island Airport (IATA: CIS, ICAO: PCIS)
Also known as ‘Topham Field’ [named after deceased
airman 2nd Lt John H Topham] and ‘Runway 26’)
Residential accommodation on Kanton Island

76
‘Southside’, Kanton Island---the former British sector
Enderbury Island

77
Masked boobies on Enderbury Island
Enderbury Island lagoon and colony of frigates

78
Northern end of Enderbury Island from the air in 1973
Enderbury Island from the air in July 2011

79
Swamp on Orona
Aerial view of Nikumaroro

80
Nikumaroro
McKean Island reef

81
McKean Island
Birnie Island lagoon

82
Cairn (day beacon) on Birnie Island
Scaevola (in Hawaii ‘beach naupaka’) bushes on Manra

83
Manra lagoon
Aerial view of Manra
Photo Courtesy NASA

84
Rawaki
Photo Copyright R Pierce
Rawaki
Photo Copyright New England Aquarium

85
1958 Kanton's Pan American World Airways hotel has by now
been abandoned.
1958 Phoenix Islands Co-operative Society continues to work
Manra's coconut plantations.
1958 The inhabitants of Manra are evacuated to the British
Solomon Islands.
The post office, which had been opened on the island in
1939, is closed.
1958-67 Kanton airport is used for emergency landings and as a
land port for light aircraft and a base for the United
States Air Force and NASA aircraft.
The Federal Aviation Agency administers Kanton and
Enderbury.
Tracking Station
In the early 1960s Kanton Island becomes a satellite tracking station.
In the early 1970s it becomes a tracking station for anti-ballistic missiles.
The other islands in the Phoenix group remain deserted.
1958-62 United States space research (Project Mercury) results in
the establishment on Kanton of a satellite tracking
station.
NASA selected the island as a station for its worldwide
Mercury tracking network in September 1959. The
station became operational on April 1, 1961 and
supported the first Mercury space flights, providing,

86
monitoring and recording of telemetry date and voice
communications.
1960 Population of Kanton numbers approximately 320.
1960s Smithsonian Institute scientists set up camps on
Enderbury during bird-tagging expeditions, as part of
their study of Pacific migratory birds.
1961-62 Severe droughts, saline well water and difficulties in
maintaining communications between the islands of
Orona, Manra and Nikumaroro cause the three
settlements to fail.
1963 The estimated population of the Phoenix Islands, before
the resettlement program of 1963-64, is 1,019.
1963-64 The entire population of Orona, Manra and Nikumaroro
is moved to the British Solomon Islands.
The colonists are relocated to villages they name
Nikumaroro and Rawaki in the Solomon Islands.
At his mother's request, the remains of Gerald B
Gallagher, former officer-in-charge of the Phoenix
Islands Settlement Scheme, are moved from Nikumaroro
to Tarawa for reburial there in a Catholic cemetery, with
the memorial plaque on his grave being retrieved.
The Phoenix Islands (except Kanton and Enderbury) now
become administered solely from Tarawa, Gilbert
Islands.

87
1964 A scientific party from the Smithsonian Institution
visits Nikumaroro to study the bird and plant life.
1964 Abandoned dogs on Orona and Nikumaroro are
poisoned.
1965 (November) The last Pan Am flight (a DC-7C) returns to
Miami from Kanton after the opening of a new airport in
Auckland, enabling New Zealand to be added to Pan
Am's jet routes.
Kanton's airport remains operational, but only as an
emergency landing field. The United States office on
Kanton is closed.
1966 (December 31) Kanton's population numbers about
132, including 67 Gilbert and Ellice Islanders.
1967 Kanton's military base is closed down.
1967 (December) Kanton airport's non-directional radio
beacon (generally regarded by pilots as the loudest in
the Pacific) closes down.
1966 (December 22) United States personnel leave Kanton.
All NASA operations cease on December 31. The
American Samoan Government is authorised to salvage
the installations.

88
Graves and huts on Orona in 1967
1968 (January) Kanton airport officially closes down.
1968 (February 12) Colony personnel leave Kanton and the
United States and British administrative officers are
withdrawn.
1968 Henry Evans (‘Harry’) Maude’s seminal book, Of Islands
and Men: Studies in Pacific History, is published.
The book has a chapter on the Phoenix Islands
Settlement Scheme.

89
1969 Kanton is reinhabited by 200 United States Air Force
personnel.
The Phoenix Islands (except McKean, Nikumaroro and
Rawaki) are used in the United States anti-ballistic
missile program.
1970s Geomarex Corporation surveys the Phoenix group for
exploitable minerals but finds none.
The United States Air Force also examines the islands
with a view to their possible use as biological weapons
testing sites.
1970s The United States Coast Guard maintains buoys and
markers for the Kanton lagoon ship channel for a
number of years in the 1970s and beyond.
1970 (September 18) Kanton becomes a United States
tracking station for anti-ballistic missiles, being
serviced by United States and American Samoan
personnel.
The Space and Missile Test Centre (SAMTEC) starts its
Kanton Island Operating Location, with further bases
located on Enderbury and Orona. (Note. Nikumaroro is
surveyed in the 1960s and again in the 1979s with
respect to the operation of the Pacific Missile testing
Range and NASA.)
1970 A radio antenna, two sighting towers and a road across
the island are constructed on Enderbury.

90
In addition, a tracking station beacon is installed on
Manra, and a radar station is erected on Orona, by virtue
of a lease to end in 1980.
Kanton Island in 1973
Kanton Island in 1973

91
1974 Panala’au Memoirs, by E H Bryan Jr, is published by
the Pacific Scientific Information Center, Bernice P
Bishop Museum, Honolulu, Hawaii.
The book is an intimate story of events on 5 coral
islands (including Kanton and Enderbury) during the
years 1935 to 1941, and of their colonisation.
1974 Smithsonian naturalists return to Nikumaroro.
The expedition is interested in the island’s bird
population.
In addition, Birnie is declared a wildlife sanctuary.
The former ‘British/Pan-Am’ Southside
of Kanton Island at dawn, in 1974
1975 (October) The Ellice Islands separate from Gilbert
Islands, formally taking effect from 1 January 1976.

92
Kanton Island tracking station, 1975
1978 (October 1) The Ellice Islands become the independent
nation of Tuvalu.

93
Independence and Beyond
In 1979 the Gilbert Islands become the independent nation of Kiribati.
The United States relinquishes its authority over the Phoenix Islands. Oversight of the
Phoenix Islands is maintained by the Kiribati Ministry of Line and Phoenix Groups,
Kiritimati (Christmas) Island. The Intenational Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery
(TIGHAR), as part of its ‘Earhart Project’, explores the Phoenix Islands and advances its
thesis that Amelia Earhart’s aircraft ran out of fuel and either crashed into the waters off, or
landed on the reef of, Nikumaroro. TIGHAR’s research and investigations continue right up
to the present day. Kanton Island is used for meterological purposes, tropical ocean and
atmospheric research, and amateur radio and fishing expeditions. The island has a small
resident population. The other islands remain unpopulated but are important wildlife
sanctuaries. In 2008 the Phoenix Islands become the Phoenix Islands Protected Area (PIPA),
the world's largest marine protected area.
1979 (July 12) The Gilbert Islands become the independent
nation of Kiribati.
Flag of the Republic of Kiribati
1979 (September 20) Kiribati and the United States sign a
treaty of friendship (the ‘Treaty of Tarawa’) pursuant to
which the United States relinquishes its authority over
Kanton and Enderbury and any other interests it may
have in the Phoenix Islands (subject to Article 3, in
which the United States reserves the right to maintain
military bases on Canton, Enderbury and Hull).

94
By this time the United States has closed down all
installations and withdrawn all personnel. The Treaty of
Tarawa specifies that the islands will not be used for
military purposes by third parties without consultation.
1980 Kanton is peopled by seven I-Kiribati and one Samoan,
who take care of the unused United States facilities.
1981 Te Mautari Ltd, fishing company, is established to
provide fish for the local market and for export.
Kiribati plans to establish a long-line fishing fleet in the
Line and Phoenix groups, using Kanton's American-built
wharf capable of handling large freighters.
1982 Professor Frederick Hooven, of the Thayer School of
Engineering at Dartmouth College, who had conducted
a series of computer studies on the fate of Amelia
Earhart’s airplane, writes a paper regarding his
conclusions.
The paper is presented on Hooven’s behalf by Frederick
Allan Goerner at an Earhart symposium at the National
Air and Space Museum (NASM) in Washington DC.
Hooven, who was the inventor of a low frequency air
direction finder that was used for several decades
aboard commercial and military aircraft, is said by
Goerner to have been the originator of the thesis later
propounded by The International Group for Historic
Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) that Earhart had landed on
Nikumaroro.
Prior to his death in 1985 Hooven came to the view,
based on more research carried out by Goerner and

95
himself, that neither Nikumaroro nor McKean could
have been the landing place of Earhart’s plane.
1982 Some United States senators oppose ratification of the
Treaty of Tarawa.
Queen Elizabeth II visits Kiribati.
Kiribati buys Fanning and Washington atolls back from
Burns Philp.
1983 (June 21) Nevertheless, the United States Senate
approves the Treaty of Tarawa and thereby recognises
Kiribati's sovereignty of the Line and Phoenix groups,
except Kingman Reef and Palmyra (still United States
possessions).
1983 (September 23) The Treaty of Tarawa comes into force
by the exchange of the instruments of ratification,
which takes place at Suva, Fiji.
The Treaty, together with British cessation of claims,
ends the Canton and Enderbury Islands Condominium,
which had begun under the terms of the Guano Islands
Act.
1985 The estimated population of Kanton is 24.
The other islands remain uninhabited.
1985 Kiribati signs a fishing agreement with the USSR.
1985 (July 24) Edwin H Bryan Jr, famed Pacific island
explorer and scientist, and long-time curator of

96
collections at the Bishop Museum in Honolulu, dies in
Honolulu, aged 87.
1986 The United States Government agrees to a US$60
million aid package, including licensing fees for United
States tuna boats to work the exclusive economic zones
(EEZs) of the 16 member states of the South Pacific
Forum (including the Federated States of Micronesia,
Kiribati, Marshall Islands, and Nauru) for five years.
The Soviet-Kiribati fishing agreement is not renewed.
1989 The oversight of the Phoenix Islands continues to be
maintained by the Kiribati Ministry of Line and Phoenix
Groups, Kiritimati (Christmas) Island.
1989 The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery
(TIGHAR) explores Nikumaroro and McKean in
connection with the disappearance of Amelia Earhart.
The search team finds an aluminium box on Nikumaroro
that the team believes was used as a navigator’s
bookcase aboard Earhart’s Lockheed Electra.
1990 (May 4) The former British colonial administrator H E
(‘Harry’) Maude (also sometime head of the Social
Development section of the South Pacific Commission
and Professor of Pacific History at the Australian
National University), writes to Richard E Gillespie (of
TIGHAR), questioning the latter’s theory that Amelia
Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan crash-landed
on Nikumaroro’s reef and allegedly died of starvation or
dehydration shortly thereafter.

97
Maude, who had made three visits to Nikumaroro
between 1937 and 1939 and several others in
subsequent years, expresses his view that the skeleton
found on Nikumaroro ‘if pre-1937 was almost certainly
that of a Polynesian man … for the islanders known to
have resided there were Polynesian workers from Niue
Island’.
1990 Kiribati signs agreement under which the United
Nations Development Program (UNDP) will assist in
economic advancement of the Line and Phoenix Islands
groups, with the aim of resettling the islands.
In more recent years 5 of the Phoenix Islands have been
earmarked for residential development with a grant of
US$0.4m from the Asian Development Bank.
Kanton’s airport is upgraded to serve as an emergency
strip for two-engine jets flying between Kirimati and
Tarawa.
1991 TIGHAR finds an aluminium sheet on Nikumaroro
believed by the search team to be part of the fuselage of
Earhart’s airplane.
The search team also finds other fragments, including
aviation wire and a shoe heel and sole of a size and style
similar to Earhart’s. A sonar scan of the ocean around
Nikumaroro by Oceaneering International fails to find
the bulk of the plane.
1992 (March) TIGHAR announces the Earhart mystery has
been solved, but other researchers and aviation experts
remain unconvinced.

98
Cartoon---The Detroit News---March 18, 1992
Copyright © 1992 Larry Wright and Digital First Media. All Rights Reserved
(Note. The present author intends no disrespect to TIGHAR or its dedicated team.)
1996 TIGHAR’s current working hypothesis is that the
aircraft debris found on Nikumaroro originated from 2
distinct aircraft, one being a B-24 and the other
Earhart’s Lockheed.
1997 A re-enactment of Amelia Earhart’s last flight refuels at
Kanton using avgas specially shipped in for the
occasion.
1998 (February) TIGHAR team flies to Kanton to investigate
the possibility that an engine reportedly found on the
reef of Nikumaroro and brought to Kanton in 1971
during a United States Air Force missile testing
program might be from the missing Earhart aircraft.

99
1998 K R Burns et al analyse measurements taken in 1941
by Dr D W Hoodless and conclude that the bones found
on Nikumaroro in 1941 were more likely those of a
female of European ancestry and between 167.64 cm
(5'6") and 172.72 cm (5'8") tall, a biological profile
entirely consistent with Amelia Earhart.
The Burns report, published in TIGHAR Tracks, prompts
a rebuttal by Cross and Wright in 2015.
1999 Fred Culick, a professor of mechanical engineering and
jet propulsion at Caltech, having carried out a detailed
analysis of the fuel consumption of Amelia Earhart’s
plane on her final flight, determines that Earhart was,
as she stated, nearly out of fuel right at the time when
she said she was, putting Nikumaroro far out of reach.
2000 The conservation organisation WWF joins a unique
scientific expedition to investigate the unspoiled marine
environment around the Phoenix Islands.
2000 (June) The final issue of Pacific Islands Monthly (‘PIM’) is
published.
The first issue of PIM appeared in August 1930.
2001 About ten families reside on Kanton, mainly involved in
making weather observations, maintaining a customs
station, and maintaining the island’s airstrip.
The 1,829 m (6,000 ft) paved runway, which is an
emergency landing strip between Tarawa and Kiritimati,
remains serviceable.

100
Kanton is also used for tropical ocean and atmospheric
research, and amateur radio and fishing expeditions.
Abandoned cottage on Kanton Island
2001 (July) TIGHAR announces that satellite images of
Nimumaroro appear to show rusting metal under water
just offshore, in an area where native fishermen are
said to have once seen the wreckage of an airplane.
In September 2001 it transpires that the ‘rusty splotch’
is red algae.
2001 (September) TIGHAR affixes a replica of the original
plaque on the former grave of Gerald B Gallagher,
former officer-in-charge, Phoenix Islands Settlement
Scheme, unaware at the time that his remains had
been disinterred in 1963 and reburied on Tarawa.
2001 (October) Australia and Kiribati investigate the
possibility of converting the former United States

101
military base on Kanton into a refugee processing
camp.
The island is officially inspected by an engineer, an
Australian Foreign Affairs official and an Australian
police officer. Nothing comes of the idea.
2002 The Korean fishing vessel MV Chance is shipwrecked
on McKean.
MV Chance shipwrecked on McKean Island
2002 (March) Deep-sea searches for Amelia Earhart’s lost
airplane take place in the vicinity of Howland Island.
A 3,100 sq km (1,200 sq miles) quadrant north and west
of Howland is searched during two deep-sea sonar
expeditions (2002 and four years later in 2006).
Although nothing is found, search leader David W
Jourdan, cofounder and president of Nauticos, a deep

102
ocean exploration company, still believes that Earhart’s
went into the ocean off Howland Island.
2002 (May 18 to June 16) Panala’au: ‘Survivor’ Hawaiian
Style is exhibited at the Bishop Museum, Honolulu,
Hawaii.
The in-house travelling exhibit tells the story of how 60
young Hawaiian men were sent to occupy the Phoenix
Islands and other equatorial Pacific islands from 1935 to
1942.
2004 The Kanton runway still remains on the north side of
the island, close to the village.
The old seaplane landing strip is said to be still
clearly marked in the lagoon with sticks in the
water. However, there has been coral regrowth since
the original strip was laid out which involved some
coral blasting works.
2004 Quantitative and qualitative surveys reveal near 100
percent coral mortality in the lagoon of Kanton and 62
per cent mortality on the outer leeward reef slopes of
the island as well as elsewhere throughout the Kiribati
Phoenix islands.
This is due to a sudden increase in water temperature.
The coral bleaching and destruction is described as
being ‘catastrophic’ and ‘one of the worst bleaching
events ever recorded’.

103
Hydnophora rigida corals on Kanton,
part of the Phoenix Islands Protected Area
Copyright © Randi Rotjan/New England Aquarium
2005 The population of Kanton is 41, down from 61 in 2000.
2006 Nauticos carries out a second deep-sea sonar
expedition in the area of Howland Island in search of
Amelia Earhart’s lost airplane.
There is a further expedition in 2017.

104
2007 The Phoenix Islands are submitted as a UNESCO World
Heritage site.
2008 The Phoenix Islands become the Phoenix Islands
Protected Area (PIPA), then the world's largest marine
protected area, covering a total area of 410,500 sq km
(158,495 sq miles) of land and ocean.
2008 The New Zealand Agency for International Development
(NZAID) funds what proves to be a successful
eradication of rats on McKean.
2009 (November/December) A survey of selected atolls of the
Phoenix Islands group is undertaken.
The main aims of the survey are to check on rabbit and
rat eradication work undertaken in 2008 and to help
plan for the restoration of additional priority islands in
the group. The work is funded by the Critical
Ecosystems Partnership Fund (administered by
Conservation International) and NZAID.
2009 The Waitt Institute for Discovery conducts the largest
exploration to date of the sea floor around Howland
Island.
The group performs a detailed sonar survey of 5,700 sq
km (2,200 sq miles) to the north and west of the island
but locates no trace of Earhart's airplane.
2010 A survey of the Kanton reef reveals that the coral
bleaching has killed all the coral on the lagoon floor.

105
Nevertheless, almost half appears to be growing back,
thanks to the presence of abundant fish which eat the
algae, thus keeping it from smothering the coral.
The reefs of the Phoenix Islands bounce back … but will it last?
Photo: National Geographic Society
2010 (May) The population of Kanton is reportedly 24, with
14 adults and 10 children.
The island's sole village is called Tebaronga. Most of the
island’s inhabitants live in abandoned structures from
the United States/United Kingdom occupation (1936–
1976).
2010 (June) TIGHAR makes its 10th expedition to
Nikumaroro in its search for the remains of Amelia
Earhart’s airplane.

106
2010 (August) The World Heritage Committee inscribes the
Phoenix Islands Protected Area (PIPA) on the World
Heritage List.
PIPA is the largest such site. The inscription is by reason
of PIPA’s beauty and abundance of wildlife—birds, sea
turtles, schools of fish, deep water sleeper sharks and
200 species of coral. The area has also been a cemetery
for sunken ships since voyagers first set out across the
Pacific Ocean.
Lagoon fish at Nikumaroro
2011 An expedition to carry out eradication of the rat
population on Birnie Island is carried out.

107
2012 (July 2) TIGHAR launches its 9th expedition to
Nikumaroro, on the 75th anniversary of Earhart’s
disappearance.
Forensic imaging specialists, using sonar, find what
looks like a wheel and other landing gear off
Nikumaroro’s coast, right where TIGHAR thinks
Earhart's airplane went down. The objects in a supposed
debris field (‘anomalous readings’) are said to be related
to the so-called ‘Bevington Object’ (also known as
‘Nessie’) seen at the reef edge in some photos [see below]
taken by a British Colonial Service officer Eric Bevington
in October 1937. TIGHAR opines that the ‘Bevington
Object’ is the landing gear of Earhart’s plane. (However,
see later entry below.)
The so-called ‘Bevington Object’
at Nikumaroro reef edge in October 1937
Photo taken by British Colonial Service officer Eric Bevington

108
2012 There are now some 23 people (including about 10
schoolchildren) on Kanton, being transient caretakers
from Kiribati.
The inhabitants rotate in 2-5 years shifts, use some of
the remaining structures on the island, and rely upon a
government ship for re-supply (2 visits a year, at the
most).
TIGHAR states that an Australian team recently
undertook a hazmat clean-up of debris left by the United
States Air Force in the 1970s.
2014 Further analysis of the ‘anomalous readings’ captured
in the 2012 data is carried out and the TIGHAR team
uses side-scan sonar to search the area of Nikumaroro
where the Bevington Object was seen.
At first, TIGHAR thinks it has captured data showing
clear signs of a fuselage-shaped object in the sonar data,
but subsequent analysis and a 2014 expedition strongly
suggest that the object TIGHAR thought it captured via
sonar was actually a coral ridge. TIGHAR acknowledges
that there is no sign of debris from Earhart’s Lockheed
Electra at depths accessible to scuba divers.
2015 (January 1) The Phoenix Islands Protected Area (PIPA)
is closed to all commercial fishing, with a small
exemption for subsistence fishing around Kanton
Island.
The PIPA Management Committee (PMC) endorses catch-
and-release game fishing as one of the new tourism
activity in PIPA, with other tourist activities including

109
diving, birdwatching and the sightseeing of historical
and heritage monuments.
2015 (November) The National Economic Planning Office,
Kiribati Ministry of Finance and Economic Development
reports that the upgrading of Kanton Island airport
would support the development of tourism potential
and the feasibility of establishing an air link between
Tarawa and Kiritimati.
View of Nikumaroro in 2015
2015 The Burns report of 1998, which had concluded that
the bones found on Nikumaroro in 1940 were more
likely those of a female of European ancestry and
between 167.64 cm (5'6") and 172.72 cm (5'8") tall, a

110
biological profile entirely consistent with Amelia
Earhart, prompts a rebuttal by P J Cross and R K
Wright in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports.
2016 The population of Kanton is reportedly 29, with six
households;
2016 Coral Sun Airways, founded in 2009 and based in
Tarawa, now operates charter flights to the island
among other destinations.
Rock Expeditions, an Australian owned and operated
business specialising in remote expedition style sport
fishing, also has expeditions to Kanton, sailing from
Apia, Samoa.
2016 Kiribati bans all commercial shark fishing in its huge
exclusive economic zone.
2016 (August) A Massachusetts-based research team finishes
a new exploration of the reefs in the Phoenix Islands,
observing unmistakable signs of life, reef resilience and
regrowth.
Scientists say that the recent protections might have
fostered the coral rebound. The algae that live in corals
may also be evolving to cope with warmer temperatures.
Alternatively or additionally, hardier coral species may
be supplanting others.
2017 Some upgrade works are carried out to the airstrip on
Kanton, the aim being the reestablishment of some
basic air service infrastructure for the airport.

111
2017 The Eustace Earhart Discovery Expedition 2017 is
conducted, searching some 725 square nautical miles
of ocean floor in the vicinity of Howland and Baker
Islands.
Nearly 2000 square nautical miles have now been
searched in the course of three separate expeditions
(2002, 2006 and 2017) in search of Amelia Earhart’s lost
airplane, thought to be resting at depths of 5486.4 m
(18,000 feet). To date, no sign of the plane has been
found.
2017 (June) Reef Ecologic, Arup [officially Arup Group
Limited, a multinational professional services firm
providing engineering, design, planning, project
management and consulting services] and Phoenix
Islands Protected Area (PIPA) carry out an expedition to
Kanton.
The purpose of the expedition is to develop a plan to
sustainably manage the resources to preserve the
natural, biological, heritage and socio-economic values
of this remote location. The sustainability plan will
enable the development of eco-tourism and research
opportunities in this diverse and unique location. This
is the story of their adventure.
2017 (June) At the United Nations Oceans Conference held in
New York, Alexander Teabo, Kiribati's environment
minister, speaks of the ten years invested in developing
PIPA.

112
Newly constructed traditional style
Kiribati huts on Kanton in 2018
2018 (January 15-17) The Tourism Advisory subcommittee of
the Republic of Kiribati meets at North Tarawa to review
and update the existing PIPA management plan
developed 7 years ago for the formulation of the PIPA
eco-tourism and investment strategy.
It is expected that the PIPA eco-tourism and investment
strategy will have been completed and ready to be used
early 2018. The major task this time is on the
formulation of the Kiribati PIPA Eco-Tourism Investment
Guideline (KPETIG). The main purpose of the guideline
is to provide guidance to the Government of Kiribati and
the private sector with respect to the key investment
areas that can help Kanton Island (the PIPA hub) quickly
rise into a global eco-tourism and research centre.
2018 (March) Richard L Jantz, emeritus anthropology
professor at the University of Tennessee, in an article
published in the journal Forensic Anthropology, argues
that the bones discovered on Nikumaroro in 1940 were

113
most likely those of Amelia Earhart, thus contradicting
the 1941 forensic analysis carried out by Dr David
Hoodless who had concluded that the bones were those
of a middle-aged stocky male.
However, other experts, including biological
anthropologist Kristina Killgrove, disagree or are not so
certain about the matter.
Killgrove says that the Jantz’s study does not settle the
mystery because no one knows where the actual bones
are. Jantz had no option but to rely on ‘meager data in
Hoodless’s report and a premortem record gleaned from
photographs and clothing’ (his own words).
Even Jantz himself acknowledges that there is nothing
about the bones in and of themselves that establish
them as being those of Earhart.

114
Map of Kanton Island at the 1950s airport terminal
Terminal Building, Kanton Island Airport in 1957

115
British Commonwealth Pacific Airlines (BCPA) Douglas DC-6 VH-
BPH Discovery arriving at Kanton Island, early 1950s (pre-1954)
Photo: Pekka Kauppi Collection
Pan American World Airways Boing B-377
at Kanton Island in 1954
Photo: Peter Leslie

116
Pan American World Airways Stratoclipper
‘Glory of the Skies’ at Kanton Island in 1957
Photo: Fred Mitchell
Qantas Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellation
refuelling on Kanton Island c1958

117
Royal Australian Air Force C-130A A97-210
Lockheed Hercules at Kanton Island in 1963
Photo: Wynnum Graham
Royal New Zealand Air Force airplane
at Kanton Island in February 1963

118
Kanton Island community at the airport in 2015
Sunrise en route to Kanton Island, at 27,000 feet, in 2017
Both photos on this page courtesy Coral Sun Airways

119
The eastern windward coast of Kanton Island
The south side of Kanton Island

120
Kanton lagoon
Fishing on Kanton Island in 2018
Rock Expeditions is an Australian owned and operated business focusing on
sport fishing experiences in the South Pacific. For more information go to
http://rockexpeditions.com/

121

122
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About the Author
Dr Ian Ellis-Jones
BA, LLB (Syd), LLM, PhD (UTS), Dip Relig Stud (LCIS)
Dr Ian Ellis-Jones is an experienced lawyer (specialising in local
government law, environmental planning law, administrative law, and
mental health law), educator and trainer. He has worked as a lawyer
(for 40 years now) and manager (for many of those years) in the public
and community sectors and in private practice, and has also had a
long career as an academic in the abovementioned areas of law. A
member of the Australian and New Zealand Mental Health
Association, Ian lectured at the NSW Institute of Psychiatry to mental
health workers for almost 14 years. He also lectured in law at the
University of Technology, Sydney (UTS) for some 16 years. An author,
his books have been published in several countries, and some of his
writings have been translated into languages other than English. He
has written on the law, religion, psychology, philosophy, the Pacific
Islands and the performing arts.

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