Nikumaroro
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Nikumaroro, formerly Gardner Island, is part of the Phoenix Islands, Kiribati, in the western Pacific Ocean, a remote, elongated, triangular coral atoll with profuse vegetation and a large central marine lagoon, located at . Nikumaroro is approximately 6 km long by less than 2 km wide. There are two narrow entrances through the rim, both of which are blocked by a wide reef which is dry at low tide.
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[edit] 19th century sightings and claims
The island was known by sundry names during the early 19th century: Kemins' Island, Kemis Island, Motu Oonga, Motu Oona and Mary Letitia's Island. The first record of a European sighting was made by Capt. C. Kemiss (or Kemin, Kemish) from the British whaling ship Eliza Ann in 1824. On 19 August 1840 the USS Vincennes of the U.S. Exploring Expedition confirmed its position and recorded the name as Gardner Island, originally given in 1825 by Joshua Coffin of the Nantucket whaler Ganges. Some sources say the island was named after U.S. Congressman Gideon Gardner, who owned the Ganges.[1] Since other sources say family member Joshua Gardner was captain of the Ganges at this time there is either some confusion in the historical record or both Gardner and Coffin were on board when the island was sighted in 1825.[2]
In 1856 the atoll was claimed as Kemins Island by CA Williams & Co of New London, Connecticut under the American Guano Islands Act. There is no record guano deposits were ever exploited.[1] On 28 May 1892 the island was claimed by the United Kingdom during a call by HMS Curacoa. Almost immediately a license was granted to Pacific entrepreneur John T. Arundel for planting coconuts. Twenty-nine islanders were settled there and some structures with corrugated iron roofs were constructed but a severe drought resulted in the prompt failure of this project within a year, by 1893.
[edit] Great Britain and Kiribati
[edit] SS Norwich City wreck
During a storm on 29 November 1929, the SS Norwich City, a large unladen British freighter with a crew of 35 men ran aground on the reef at the island's northwest corner. There were at least eight fatalities after a fire broke out in the engine room and all hands abandoned ship in darkness through storm waves across the dangerous coral reef. The survivors camped near collapsed structures from the abortive Arundel project and were rescued after several days on the island. The devastated wreck of the Norwich City was a prominent landmark on the reef for 70 years although by 2007 only the ship's keel, engine and two large tanks remained.[3][4]
[edit] Phoenix Islands Settlement Scheme
On 1 December 1938, members of the British Pacific Islands Survey Expedition arrived to evaluate the island as a possible location for either seaplane landings or an airfield. On 20 December, more British officials arrived with 20 Gilbertese settlers in one of the last colonial expansions of the British Empire. Efforts to clear land and plant coconuts were hindered by a profound lack of drinking water. By June 1939, a few wells had been successfully established and there were 58 Gilbertese settlers on Gardner, including 16 women and 26 children. The island's early supervisor and magistrate was Teng Koata whose wife, according to local legend, had an encounter with the goddess Manganibuka on a remote part of the island. The British colonial officer, Gerald Gallagher (1912- 1941), established a headquarters of the Phoenix Islands Settlement Scheme in the village located on the island's western end, on the south side of the largest entrance to the lagoon. Wide coral-gravel streets and a parade ground were laid out and important structures included a thatched administration house, wood-frame cooperative store and a radio shack. Gallagher died and was buried on the island in 1941.[5] From 1944 through 1945 the United States Coast Guard operated a navigational LORAN station with 25 crewmen on the southeastern tip of Gardner, installing at least one quonset hut and some smaller structures.
The island's population reached a high of approximately 100 by the mid-1950s. However, by the early 1960s, periodic drought and an unstable freshwater lens had thwarted the struggling colony. Its residents were evacuated to the Solomon Islands by the British in 1963 and by 1965 Gardner was officially uninhabited.
[edit] Kiribati
In 1971, the UK granted self-rule to the Gilbert Islands, which achieved complete independence in 1979 as Kiribati. That same year the United States, after having recently surveyed the island for possible weapons testing, relinquished any claims to Gardner through the Treaty of Tarawa. The island was officially renamed Nikumaroro, a name inspired by Gilbertese legends and used by the settlers during the 1940s and 1950s.
[edit] Ecology and archaeology
Nikumaroro is sporadically visited by biologists attracted to its extensive marine and avian ecosystems. Visitors often mention the island's oppressive equatorial heat, razor-sharp coral, dense foliage and extremely aggressive coconut crabs. Several species of shark and tursiops dolphins have been observed in the surrounding waters, and some of the fish species are toxic to humans during certain seasons. The ocean beyond the reef is very deep and the only anchorage is at the west end, across the reef from the village ruins, but this is safe only with the southeast trade winds. Landing has always been difficult and is usually accomplished south of the anchorage.
Severe storms in 2002 destroyed most of the remaining structures on Nikumaroro, although Gallagher's grave can still be seen in the overgrown village site. The non-profit International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery made numerous expeditions to Nikumaroro during the 1990s and 2000s.[6][7][8]
There is documentary, archaeological and anecdotal evidence to support a hypothesis that in July 1937 Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan landed and died on Gardner after failing to find Howland Island during the final stages of their ill-fated World Flight, including indications Earhart may have survived for several months before British survey parties began arriving in 1938.[9]
[edit] References
[edit] Notes
- ^ a b Bryan 1942, p. 71.
- ^ Dunmore 1992, p. 115.
- ^ Amelia's Shadow: The Search for Earhart and Noonan on Nikumaroro Island (Note: an expedition to Nikumaroro on 24 September 2005 confirmed this observation, originally reported in 2004 on an Internet LISTSERV).
- ^ TIGHAR photograph and caption 2007
- ^ Archaeology and the fate of Amelia Earhart
- ^ NikuIIII summary, TIGHAR website
- ^ NikuV summary, TIGHAR website
- ^ The Guardian/AP, Group Ends Island Search for Earhart, 3 August 2007, Retrieved: 5 August 2007.
- ^ Richard Pyle, Associated Press, 1 April 2007, Diary a Clue to Amelia Earhart Mystery
[edit] Bibliography
- Bryan, Edwin H., Jr. American Polynesia and the Hawaiian Chain. Honolulu, Hawaii: Tongg Publishing Company, 1942.
- Dunmore, John.Who's Who in Pacific Navigation. Melbourne, Australia: Melbourne University Press, 1992. ISBN 0-52284-488-X.
- Gillespie, Ric. Finding Amelia - The True Story of the Earhart Disappearance. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 2006. ISBN 1-59114-319-5.
- Jones, A.G.E. Ships Employed in the South Seas Trade, 1775 - 1861 (Part I and II) and Registrar General of Shipping and Seamen Transcripts of Registers of Shipping, 1787-1862 (Part III). Canberra, Australia: Roebuck Society, 1986. ISBN 0-90943-430-1.
- Maude, Henry Evans. Of Islands and Men: Studies in Pacific History. Melbourne, Australia: Oxford University Press, 1968. ISBN 0-91684-525-8.
- Reynolds, J.N. Report dated 24 September 1829 in: American State Papers, Documents Legislative and Executive of the Congress of the United States from the Second Session of the Twenty-first to the First Session of the Twenty-fourth Congress...Volume IV Naval Affairs, Document 573, Information Collected by the Navy Department Relating to Islands, Reefs, Shoals etc, in the Pacific Ocean (29 January 1835). Washington, DC: Gales's & Seaton, 1861.Document 573
- Stackpole, Edouard A. The Sea-Hunters, The New England Whalemen during Two Centuries: 1635-1835. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1953.
[edit] External links
[edit] See also
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