Posted on 01/12/2007 11:49:50 PM PST by HAL9000
Excerpt -
A decision about the future of the Air Force facility on Wake Island, devastated last August by Super Typhoon Ioke, is expected later this month, officials told Stars and Stripes.~ snip ~
A decision is expected from Pacific Air Forces sometime in late January, according to a statement from Maj. Clare Reed, spokeswoman for the 15th Airlift Wing, Wake’s parent command at Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii.
Ioke, a Category 5-equivalent tropical cyclone, passed just north of Wake overnight Aug. 30 and into the morning of Aug. 31, packing sustained 161-mph winds and 198-mph gusts. Weather sensors on the island detected wind gusts of nearly 100 mph before they were knocked out.
~ snip ~
(Excerpt) Read more at estripes.com ...
We refueled on Wake Island in '69 on my first trip to Nam. It would be shame to see it just abandoned. iime will tell what they decide, though.
I would LOVE to go there sometime.. however, being your average Joe citizen.. i feel i will never have that chance. So much history, so much was lost and fought for on that tiny island!
hell that was the war cry was it not?
"remember Wake Island!"
About fifteen years ago the Air Force tried to shut down its operation at Wake; at the time, the USAF reasoned that most of the users were non-Air Force aircraft (mostly Navy), so they tried to pass the burden of staffing and funding Wake to the Navy. The Navy's allies in Congress directed that the Air Force continue the Wake operation.
I'm willing to bet dollars to doughnuts that the USAF will seize this opportunity to make another push for shutting down Wake, and will exaggerate the amount of damage suffered in the typhoon (the USAF's own press release says that "70 percent of the buildings suffered moderate to severe damage" -- how much is moderate, how much is severe?).
I hope enough pressure is put on the USAF to repair and continue the Wake operation. I was fortunate to visit there just over a year ago when our C-20 landed for refuelling on our long return trip from Hawaii to Okinawa. Wake is a fascinating, beautiful place, and VERY isolated. And our military needs it as a refuelling stop. Let's hope the Air Force is made to understand that!
I'm sympathetic to the idea, because I like historic preservation, but a monument for whom? You're going to hire and supply park rangers for the few visitors a year who will head to a postage stamp in the middle of the Pacific?
I would imagine that the military facilities there are pretty self-sufficient, so they could be the basis for a megabucks resort -- and the government might more effectfely preserve its history by selling it than by keeping it.
I was nine years old in 1958 when our flight from Japan stopped at Wake. The beach was still strewn with rusting hulks of Jap ships including a submarine, and it was off limits due to uncleared mines (but I went there anyway and picked up some sea shells and coral which I still have).
Wake Island itself is a memorial to those who perished defending it. And it should be maintained as a U.S. base indefinitely.
Pearl Harbor, remember Pearl Harbor. Sheesh.
Very little was lost and was hardly worth fighting for on that tiny island 2000 miles from reinforcement.
We did little to assist the defenders. They were on their own from the start (12/8/41) to finish (12/23/41) 15 days later.
The defenders were heroic but what was lost was nothing in the larger war.
We didn't even bother to take Wake back. The war ended with the Japanese still in possession.
AV
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