Midway Islands 🏳

Brooks sighted the uninhabited atoll on 5 July 1859 and named it the Middlebrook Islands, claiming it under the Guano Islands Act of 1856 which allowed Americans to occupy uninhabited islands to obtain guano. No guano mining was ever recorded. The claim began the American association with the atoll.

On 28 August 1867 Reynolds annexed the atoll, later renamed Midway, as the Unincorporated Territory of Midway Island under United States Navy administration. It was the first Pacific island annexed by the United States, and its separate acquisition later kept it outside the Territory and State of Hawaii.

Funded by the United States Congress, the company started dredging a channel to the lagoon from 1869–70, intending a coaling station that would avoid the high port taxes of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi. The project failed and the workforce was evacuated in October 1870, but the blasting began the profound alteration of the atoll's environment.

The Saginaw evacuated the channel workers in October 1870 and wrecked on 21 October at Kure Atoll, stranding 93 men. Five men set out for help on 18 November; four died off Kauaʻi, the survivor reaching Honolulu on Christmas Eve, and relief ships reached Kure on 4 January 1871.

The Organic Act of 1900 defined the Territory of Hawaii by reference to the Newlands Resolution of 1898, and because Midway was assumed to have been acquired separately in 1867 it fell outside the territory. This gave Midway a distinct legal and administrative status under the Navy.

Cable company staff took up residence in 1903 as part of the trans-Pacific telegraph effort, making Midway a link in global communications. To green the island they imported some 9,000 short tons of soil from Oahu and Guam and introduced many non-native plants, along with ants, cockroaches, termites and other organisms.

The station opened on 20 January 1903 after complaints from cable company workers. It marked the beginning of a permanent naval presence protecting the cable station and asserting American possession.

Roosevelt posted a Marine detachment to end the wanton killing of seabirds by poachers and to keep Midway secure as a U.S. possession protecting the cable station. It was an early instance of federal wildlife protection combined with strategic garrisoning.

From 1935 Pan American Airways' Martin M-130 flying boats island-hopped from San Francisco to China, making Midway a refuelling and overnight stop between Honolulu and Wake Island; wealthy tourists stayed at the Pan Am Hotel or Gooneyville Lodge until the service ended in 1941. Midway continued to serve as a refuelling stop for trans-Pacific flights until 1947, giving the atoll a brief civil aviation role.

From 1940 Midway was deemed second only to Pearl Harbor in importance to protecting the U.S. West Coast. Airstrips, gun emplacements and a seaplane base were built, the channel widened and Naval Air Station Midway completed; the atoll also became an important submarine base.

The order of 14 February 1941 established a naval defensive sea area out to the three-mile marine boundary and a Naval Airspace Reservation over it. Only U.S. government ships and aircraft could enter without the Secretary of the Navy's authorisation, sealing Midway off as a military zone.

Two destroyers shelled Midway on 7 December 1941, the first Bombardment of Midway. A Pan Am flying clipper called at the atoll and carried evacuees from Wake Island onward to Honolulu, ending the civil air era.

From July 1942 a submarine tender was always present at the atoll, supporting boats patrolling Japanese waters, and a floating dry dock joined it in 1944. This made Midway a sustaining base for the American submarine campaign.

After the Battle of Midway a further airfield was developed on Sand Island, requiring extensive landfill that more than doubled the island's size. The works permanently reshaped the atoll's geography.

The submarine bombardment of 10 February 1942 was the last of four attacks on Midway between 7 December 1941 and that date. The raids underlined the atoll's exposure and its value as a forward outpost.

In the naval battle beginning 4 June 1942 the U.S. Navy sank Akagi, Kaga, Hiryū and Sōryū and destroyed hundreds of aircraft that Japan could never replace, losing the carrier Yorktown and numerous aircraft. The victory is widely regarded as the beginning of the end of Imperial Japanese Navy control of the Pacific, and it defined Midway's place in history.

The station was closed in 1950 but immediately reactivated to support the Korean War, with thousands of troops passing through on ships and aircraft for refuelling and emergency repairs. Midway regained its role as a mid-Pacific staging point.

From 1 July 1954 to February 1971 Eastern Island hosted the NSGA operating the AN/GRD-6 High-Frequency Direction Finding system, integral to the Eastern and Western Pacific HFDF networks. It allowed monitoring of high-frequency radio traffic across vast stretches of the Pacific during the Cold War.

MILS was installed in the Pacific Missile Range to locate the splashdowns of test missile nose cones, with Midway hosting both a precision target array and a broad ocean area system supporting ICBM tests. Companion terminals stood at Kaneohe Bay, Wake Island and Eniwetok.

In 2025 an additional translocation project brought 100 Laysan Finch from Pearl and Hermes Atoll and released them on Eastern Island. The move extended efforts to secure endangered species within the refuge.

The 2016 expansion enlarged the protected marine area and made the Office of Hawaiian Affairs a fourth co-trustee of the monument. It strengthened both the conservation regime and Native Hawaiian involvement in governance.

On 11 March 2011 a wave 1.5 m high completely covered the reef inlets and Spit Island, killing more than 110,000 nesting seabirds at the National Wildlife Refuge, though scientists expected no long-term population damage. A U.S. Geological Survey study warned that Midway and similar islands could become uninhabitable during the 21st century from storm waves and rising sea levels.

A Boeing 747-400 flying Honolulu to Osaka diverted to Midway in 2011, demonstrating the runway's continuing ETOPS value. Refuge employees assisted the landing and cared for nearly 380 passengers and crew for eight hours until a relief aircraft arrived.

In 2009 the USFWS allowed amateur radio operations for the first time in seven years, with 19 operators activating the atoll for ten days across multiple bands. Midway had long counted as a separate country for amateur radio purposes because of its status outside the State of Hawaii.

In 2007 the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument received its Hawaiian name. The change recognised the cultural significance of the island chain to Native Hawaiians.

Proclaimed on 15 June 2006, the monument encompasses 105,564 square nautical miles including 3,910 square nautical miles of coral reef habitat. It placed Midway within one of the world's largest protected marine areas.

All airport operations were closed on 22 November 2004, though the runway remained designated as an emergency diversion airport for aircraft flying under ETOPS rules. Public access to the island was restored in March 2008.

On 13 September 2000 the Wildlife Refuge was given memorial status commemorating the 1942 battle. The designation formalised Midway's dual identity as wildlife sanctuary and war memorial.

The final contingent departed on 30 June 1997 following an ambitious cleanup of contamination left by decades of military use. Midway thereafter had no permanent military presence.

The order of 31 October 1996 moved jurisdiction and control of the atoll from the Navy to the United States Department of the Interior. It completed the legal handover from military to civilian conservation management.

From August 1996 civilians could visit the atoll on ecotours, the first general public access in its history. The programme ended in 2002 and a successor ran from March 2008 until 2012, when 332 people visited, before suspension in 2013 on budget grounds.

The Naval Air Facility, in operation since 1968, closed on 10 September 1993 as part of the BRAC process, ending more than half a century of military occupation dating from 1941. The Navy retained responsibility for cleaning up environmental contamination.

On 22 April 1988 the atoll became a National Wildlife Refuge while still under primary Navy jurisdiction. This began the shift from military installation to conservation reserve.

On 28 May 1987 the wartime facilities on Sand and Eastern Islands were entered on the National Register of Historic Places and simultaneously designated a National Historic Landmark. The designation recognised Midway's place in American military heritage as its operational role ended.

In 1978 the Navy reduced the Naval Air Station to a Naval Air Facility and personnel and dependents began to leave. With the Vietnam War over and reconnaissance satellites and nuclear submarines available, Midway's national security significance had diminished.

The two presidents conferred at the Officer-in-Charge house on Sand Island in June 1969, during a period when about 3,500 people lived there and Midway supported U.S. forces in the Vietnam War. It was the atoll's most prominent moment of high diplomacy.

The shore terminal processing Sound Surveillance System array data became operational in 1968 and was commissioned on 13 January 1969. It remained secret until decommissioning on 30 September 1983, its array data transferring to Barbers Point in 1981 and then to Ford Island.

In defining what the state of Hawaii inherited from the Territory, the 1959 Act specifically excluded Midway, along with Palmyra Island, Johnston Island and Kingman Reef. This settled Midway's status as a separate unincorporated U.S. possession.