Recalling things that happened five years ago may not be an easy job, but my memory of the summer of 1990 belongs to the kind that does not fade away easily. I spent about two months that summer on some exotic islands in the South Pacific to take part in some sophisticated high-altitude rocket experiments.

Image (right): Map for the South Pacific - Marshall Islands

Image (left): Rocket Launcher

The experiments were devoted to research proposed by a group of space physicists at Boston University, Cornell University, the Naval Research Laboratory, and NASA. The experiments included a series of rocket launches at Kwajalein Atoll to generate and to measure the irregularities of ionized gas in the upper atmosphere, the ionosphere, a region spanning from approximately 100 to 1000 kilometers above the surface of the Earth. Occurring frequently in the equatorial region, the irregularities can cause serious problems for short wave radio communications that rely on reflections from the ionosphere. They can also degrade propagation conditions for radio signals transmitted from navigation satellites. We hoped that our experiments could help in understanding the mechanisms of generation and suppression of the irregularities.

Image (right): Map for the South Pacific - FSM

My trip included short visits to Kwajalein Atoll, Republic of the Marshall Islands, one and half months of field observations on Kosrae, Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), and a short visit to Ponapei, FSM. Despite the fact that these islands are actually all in the northern hemisphere, near the equator, this part of the Pacific has been called the "South Pacific." (Ironically, the movie "South Pacific," made in 1958 was filmed in Hawaii, more than 3,000 km northeast of the aforementioned islands. )

Our team was divided into several groups and we had to fly to different islands separately. My group would fly from Hawaii to Kwajalein Atoll, and continue a journey from there to Kosrae, FSM. Continental Airlines was the only U.S. civil airline flying the south Pacific route. We took one Continental plane at the Honolulu International Airport on July 2, to Kwajalein Atoll.

Image (left): Destination marks at the Kwajalein airport

After stopping by Johnston and Majuro Islands, our plane landed at Kwajalein Atoll, a U.S. Army base since 1964. It was not open to tourists, but commercial planes could stop there. About twenty people, including us stepped out of the plane. Almost all were from the U.S. except for a few Pacific islanders, who I realized later were contractors. We got to the airport customs and security office and lined up, waiting for security inspection. The inspection procedure was not complicated. First, a big dog, led by an armed military police officer, probed our luggage. Nothing happened, of course. The procedure then went on to the examination of our identifications and security clearance documents, which had been prepared months earlier in our case. My foreign student status at the time did not seem to bother the security inspector. "Welcome to Kwajalein," he said to me with a pleasant smile.

Image (right): Scenery of Kwajalein - a rocket model

Kwajalein Atoll is known as the largest atoll in the world. Its coral reef encloses a number of islets and a huge lagoon of about 2,170 sq km [1]. Being close to the equator, in the middle of ocean, and having a tropical climate all add up to make Kwajalein one of the ideal places to carry on experiments related to oceanography, meteorology, atmospheric sciences, and so on. Being an army base, Kwajalein was also accustomed to accommodating scientists and engineers, who came to conduct research sponsored by U.S. government agencies such as NASA and NSF.

Image (left): Tropical Fish

Since all our work was planned before coming here, and the work needed to be conducted at nighttime, when the irregularities mostly occurred, we could do some sight-seeing in the daytime. I had not seen coral reefs, lagoons, or tropical fish before stepping on Kwajalein (not counting those in movies, magazines, or fish bowls). The chance to see these living things had excited me even before the trip started. Every team member bought a set of snorkeling gear before leaving, and some of us even took courses to learn scuba diving. We wasted no time in picking up our snorkeling gear as soon as we dropped off our luggage.

Image (right): Coral Reef

Finding a good spot to snorkel was no problem. People living there knew where sharks were not likely to be around, and they also told scuba divers where to find shipwrecks. (However, we were told there was no treasure in the wrecks.) I also learned that lagoons were the places to snorkel, to see corals and fish, in which waves were not strong and water was shallow, so that sharks would not be interested in visiting us. Without learning more, I rushed into the sea. The water was warm and very pleasant. It took me quite a few minutes to learn how to breathe without using my nose, but this was absolutely required if one wanted to enjoy nice and wonderful snorkeling without coughing and swallowing the salty water. Gosh, what a paradise! Various kinds of beautiful fish accompanied me when I was snorkeling between colorful coral trees.

Image (left): A Typical Atoll

Image (right): A Volcanic Island

I also noticed and learned from a tour book [1] that coral reefs were created by a long-time accumulation of calcareous skeletons left by coral polyps. An atoll is normally rather flat and is formed by coral skeletons which were gradually exposed above sea level over hundreds or thousands of years. This shows a distinguishable difference from another type of island, which might be raised above sea level by volcanic activity and appear mountain-like. One of the differences I noticed between atolls and mountain-like islands was that atolls, unlike the other kind, were poor in fertile soil. In Kwajalein, however, I saw palm trees and grass growing. I wondered whether people had shipped soil to this atoll, as the Japanese did to some atolls in the Pacific before World War II.

Image (left): Scenery of Kwajalein - Palm Trees

Image (right): Beach in Kwajalein

It felt so relaxing to be wandering on those tropical beaches, watching waves breaking through coral reefs and rushing toward me, with the wind blowing from the sea. I wondered if my eyesight could reach that Bikini Atoll about 300 km away, to the northwest. One legacy left by Bikini is the two-piece swimsuit. The connection between the suit and the atoll was made in 1946 when the suit was first shown by a French couturier at a pool in Paris, and had the similarly explosive impact as a nuclear test did at the atoll. The chilling fact is that more than 20 nuclear bombs have exploded in Bikini's surrounding atmosphere and sea during 1946-1958. According to the tour book, tens of the captured Japanese war ships had been positioned in the Bikini lagoon to test the use of atomic weapons against naval forces. The radioactive fallout had heavily contaminated the atoll. Facing repeated requests from the locals, the U.S. government has had to spend millions of dollars to clean up Bikini since the 1960s.

Image (left): Scenery of Kwajalein - Wrecked Guns; Flags of U.S. and Republic of the Marshall Islands

Being a major testing site for strategic weapons, Kwajalein has also experienced the cold war era. After being seized from the Japanese in 1944, it was used as the main supporting facility for the nuclear testing program. After the Limited Test Ban Treaty was signed in 1963, it became a U.S. Army base, and its huge enclosed lagoon was then used as a target of intercontinental ballistic missiles for testing missile accuracy [1]. Later in the 1980s, anti-ballistic-missile (ABM) weapons were also often tested at Kwajalein. These were intended to intercept missiles aimed at the Kwajalein lagoon. It is said that the first successful ABM test was conducted at Kwajalein Atoll on June 10, 1984, when a missile launched from California was destroyed 160 km out in space by another missile fired from the atoll.

Image (right): An Aerial View Drawing of Kwajalein Atoll

While in Kwajalein, soaking up all this living history from the tour book, I felt fortunate that there were no such tests going on -- at least not then. Instead, I saw more scientists and engineers than military personnel. There were all kinds of facilities built for people's convenience, such as a Jr./Sr. high school, a hospital, bank, library, church, department store, post office, tennis court, bowling alley, laundry room, video game room, snack bar, one indoor and one open-air theater, even a free bus and a travel agency. There were several multi-floor and air-conditioned buildings exclusively for visitors. The food served in cafeterias was really good, including both Asian and typical American cuisines, as well as fresh fruits (all you could eat, for only $4.50). I thought in most countries, soldiers lived in very spartan conditions, but Kwajalein was not like that.

Image (left): A Bunker Left by the Japanese at Roi-Namur

On the second day at Kwajalein, our team visited another islet, Roi-Namur (see its location from the aerial view image). Several of us would stay at that islet for the rest of the experiment period. Although Roi-Namur was one of the islets within Kwajalein atoll, we needed to take a small military airplane to get there. The flight was very noisy and we were given ear plugs for protection. This islet was as pretty as Kwajalein, and it was also well-facilitated. There was a radar facility on the islet for military usage but also accessible to scientists. We would use it to monitor both the experiments and the background conditions of the ionosphere. Captain E, who had been our host for both scientific and touring purposes, led us on a tour to the islet. Besides all the beautiful scenery, we saw on the tour some bunkers and a large cement water tank which were left by the Japanese. The water tank was obviously for the purpose of storing fresh water, probably gotten from rain. The Japanese had possessed Kwajalein Atoll and many other islands in the south Pacific during 1914-1944. When the Germans lost World War I, the Japanese took the Pacific islands from the Germans by agreement with the British [1]. About thirty years later, the Japanese lost all of them to the Americans as a result of WWII.

The last night of my first visit to Kwajalein was a pleasant one. I watched a movie at Kwajalein's open-air theater called, "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids." The next day would be July 4. I would not have a chance to see how people celebrate Independence Day on an islet more than 4,000 miles away from the U.S. mainland. Instead, another island was waiting for me for a one and half month stay.

Note from the author:

Thanks to Dan Nottingham who kindly provided me some photos he took at Kwajalein Atoll during the 1990 trip.

[1] Micronesia Handbook - Guide to the Caroline, Gilbert, Mariana, and Marshall Islands, by David Stanley, Moon Publications, Inc., 1989.

MW Home Page        Current Issue ToC