Evening star., 1935-04-30
airline CO[0N|STS
BUSY ON MIDWAY
Forty Men Rush Building of
Houses, Radio Towers and
Plane Haven.
BY JUNIUS B. WOOD.

MIDWAY ISLAND, April 80 (N.A.
N.A.).-Running at its highest speed,
q launch towing a barge piled high
with frozen meats. eggs and other
food plowed through the waves from
the steamship North Haven to the
shore of Midway Island. In short
time the last 1000 tons of cargo
brought by the ship fortnight ago
was safely on the isle that will serve
as one Of the bases for the Pan
American Airways line linking the
United States and China.
Unloading that amount in such
time would make a city stevedore
laugh, but It's another story to ac-
complish the task from ship an
chored in the open sea, with the
barges rising and falling 10 feet in
rough waves at the side Of the steel
hull and then being towed miles
through a mass of coral reefs.
The harbor where the cargo was
landed was not equipped with docks
or stanch piers, but was a sandy
beach, with the surf often breaking
shoulder high. And the crew hold
ing its footing and slowing heavy
pieces of freight on the bobbing
barges had never tied sailors knot
few weeks ago, nor voyaged over
anything rougher than a country
road.
Island Has Refrigeration.
The last cargo was the food trans
ferred from the special refrigerator
built in the ship to the refrigerator
plant built on the island. Though
Midway is not in the tropics, the con-
tents of the refrigerator were not i'm
proved by their slow ride for 4 miles
over sun-kissed waves and a slower
trek OF a mile over broiling sand.
The barge load of food is enough to
feed the construction gang of 40 men
remaining on Midway until the North
Haven returns a couple of months
later. and also the islands IL per-
manent colonists for several months
longer, until another supply ship ar
rives. The food stores ended the
islands dependence on the outside
world to that extent. The men on
Midway will have a radio to talk
across the waters and in a few weeks
the clipper planes will start flying
from the mainland of the United
States across the Pacific The colon
lists will be alone on the tiny island
in mid-Pacific in a few days when
the North Haven sails to repeat the
same job on Wake Island.
An amazing change has been ac-
complished in few DAYS by the con-
struction gang on little corner of
the sandy island which for hundreds
of years has been covered with a
rank growth of jungle bushes and
whose only sign of life has been
myriads of ocean birds. Though It
is not yet Summer resort. with
tourist hotel, pleasure boats, beach
parasols and tennis courts, one can
distinguish the form that this new
settlement on waterlapped desert is
going to take.
Radio Towers Rise.
The towers of three radio stations,
for sending, receiving and the direc-
ton finder, arise from corners of the
island. A steel windmill. anchored
to concrete caiSsonS. is pumping water
from a newly-sunk well. Half dozen
scattered brown roofs stand out
against background of green brush
and white sand.
A piece of luck favored the party
when it arrived In the colonization
area specified by the United States
Navy. which is sovereign over these
Pacific atolls, the newcomers found
a grove of Australian hardwood trees
planted by employees of the CONNER
cial Pacific Gable Co. years ago and
now grown to substantial size They
also found tiny six-sided building
constructed of boards from discarded
packing cases and wire netting, with
a palm leaf roof. during the drab
prohibition days. The building, known
as "Whoopee House" stood in grove
a half mile from the well-kept cable
compound where the cup that cheers
was forbidden in those years.
Merely by installing the necessary
machinery and scribbling a keep
out" sign on the door of the cramped
quarters of the well ventilated
"vhoopee house." it became station
for engineers and Office men, a me-
neurological bureau, a doctors clinic.
a radio station and kitchen. Now
each of these activities is in its own
building, SO rapidly have the portable
buildings risen on stable foundations.
Fires Never Go Out.
Eternal fires have been lit in pat
ented ovens which burn 10 pounds
of coal a day and never go out. The
Chinese cooks are learning to broil
beefsteak without frying their fingers
at the same time. The honeymoon
oil stoves which an uncanny fore
sight provided for the bachelor sta
tion managers, in anticipation that
the future will bring brides to the
islands, were put to practical use for
cooking the last two weeks. Now
the oil stoves are again cold, wrapped
in clean paper, awaiting the happy
event.
Aside from the grove of Australian
hardwood trees, the site of the set
tlement is covered with tangled
mass of shoulder-h high bushes, called
magnolias here and airplants in Ha-
waii. These bushes had to be cleared
by hand, and the men swung
machetes on every spot where build
ing has risen.
Nature through the years ha.
erected around the jungle brush 6
protecting bulwark of sand dunes, q
feet high. against the stormy waves
While the sand wall protects the
Pan-American Airways settlement
which is only scant 5la feet above
the sea, it was a hindrance to the
tractors pulling heavily loaded sleds
from the beach. A road was cut
through the sand wall, which the men
promptly chistened "Culebra Cut" in
memory of the Panama Canal.
Beach Extends Far.