Wake Island

Wake Island (Marshallese: Ānen Kio, lit. 'island of the kio flower'), also known as Wake Atoll (Chamorro: Islan Wake), is a coral atoll which is an unincorporated territory of the United States in the Micronesia subregion of the Pacific Ocean. The atoll is composed of three islets – Wake, Wilkes, and Peale Islands – surrounding a lagoon encircled by a coral reef. The nearest inhabited island is Utirik Atoll in the Marshall Islands, located 592 miles (953 kilometers) to the southeast. The island may have been found by prehistoric Austronesian mariners before its first recorded discovery by Álvaro de Mendaña de Neira in 1568. Ships continued visiting the area in the following centuries, but the island remained undeveloped until the United States claimed it in 1899. Significant development of the island did not begin until 1935 when Pan American Airways constructed an airfield and hotel, establishing Wake Island as a stopover for trans-Pacific flying boat routes. In December 1941 at the opening of the Pacific Theatre of World War II Japan seized the island, which remained under Japanese occupation until the end of the war in September 1945. In 1972, Pan American Airways ceased using the island for trans-Pacific layovers, instead using Boeing 747 aircraft, which could cross the ocean without stopping. With the withdrawal of Pan American Airways, the island's administration was taken over by the United States Air Force, which later used the atoll as a processing location for Vietnamese refugees during Operation New Life in 1975. Wake Island is claimed by the Marshall Islands but is administered by the United States as an unorganized and unincorporated territory and is part of the United States Minor Outlying Islands. The island is administered by the Department of the Interior and managed by the United States Air Force. While there...