# Palmyra Atoll during World War II

Palmyra Atoll or just Palmyra participated in the Second World War, as a territory of the United States of America, since the beginning of the Pacific War initiated by the Empire of Japan in 1941.

## Palmyra Atoll Military Base

Palmyra was turned into a military base at the start of World War II in the Pacific after some legal issues were resolved. The island was fortified when it found itself on the Pacific front line, due to the losses of US territories to the west. It was bombed once early in the war, but due to US military success it ended up being used for resupply and training. After World War II it was returned to private ownership and the naval base was mostly demolished.

### American Government Visits

A number of unofficial documents and reports since World War II state that Palmyra Atoll was placed under naval jurisdiction in 1934 as part of Executive Order 6935. However Palmyra is not mentioned in that order, the first official mention of Palmyra under naval jurisdiction comes from a 1939 letter from the U.S. Attorney General, mentioned in a 1997 Insular Areas report, concluding that "Palmyra was U.S. public land and that the Fullard-Leo claim was invalid. S. Rep. No. 83-886 at 37.” Shortly thereafter, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8,616, officially 'Placing Palmyra Island, Territory of Hawaii, under the control and jurisdiction of the Secretary of the Navy.'
On February 14, 1941, Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8682 to create naval defense areas in the central Pacific territories. The proclamation located the "Palmyra Island Naval Defensive Maritime Area", which encompassed the territorial waters between the extreme high tide marks and the three-mile marine boundaries surrounding the atoll. The "Palmyra Island Naval Airspace Reserve" was also established to restrict access to the area's airspace. Only U.S. government ships and aircraft were permitted to enter the naval defense areas of Palmyra Atoll unless authorized by the Secretary of the Navy. The Navy took control of the atoll for use as the Palmyra Island Naval Air Station on August 15, 1941. From November 1939 to 1947, the atoll had resident representatives of the Federal Government, the island commanders. The atoll was bombed by a Japanese submarine in 1941, without significant damage or consequences. The government made extensive changes to the landforms. It exploded and swept a ship channel from the open sea into the West Lagoon, which had been completely surrounded by islands and reefs and was not navigable until the channel reached the lagoon on May 15, 1941. It linked islands with elevated roads, built new islands and continuous existing islands with dredged coral remains, including the main runway on Cooper Island. an emergency landing strip called Sand Island joined by a bridge to Home Island and two artificial runway islands that were not completed. These changes have blocked the flow of water through the atoll and are believed to have seriously damaged the natural ecology of the lagoons.

## War

In December 1941, Japan declared war on the United States and Great Britain and launched attacks and invasions throughout Asia and the Pacific, plunging the United States into World War II, in this context I-175 of the Imperial Japanese Navy bombed the naval station on December 24, 1941, opening fire at 04:55 Greenwich Mean Time, the bombing hit the atoll's radio station and hit the dredger, after which a coastal artillery battery returned fire and forced the Japanese ship to retreat.
Although the United States lost control of the Philippines, Guam, and Wake early in the war, the tide of the battle of the Pacific slowly turned with battles such as the Battle of Midway and Guadalcanal. By 1944, much of the Southwest Pacific was under Allied control, and the combination of island hopping and strategic bombing led to the Japanese surrender in 1945. During the war, the Palmyra base was used by the Navy for training and resupply.

## Post-War

After World War II, much of the Naval Air Station was demolished, with some of the materials piled up and burned on the atoll, dumped in the lagoon or, in the case of unexploded ordnance on some islets, left in place[1] after World War II. Worldwide, the atoll suffered many consequences of the bombings, such as the fauna and flora that were damaged by the toxic gases, after the Second World War they named the Atoll an "Environmental Refuge" (in English "Palmyra Atoll National Wildlife Refuge").

## See Also

* Palmyra Atoll
* Johnston Atoll
* World War II
* Wallis and Futuna during the Second World War
* Pacific War
* History of United States
* United States Minor Outlying Islands
* Kingman Reef
* Guam
* Northern Mariana Islands
* United States of America
* American Samoa
* History of American Samoa
* History of Guam
* Wake Island
* Midway Island