| The Palmyra Gazette |
| Welcome to: PalmyraGazette.org Created by: Michael E. Murray January 2008 Enjoy your visit! |
The best steel pipe buried in the ground world rot away in a
year. Brand new trucks bought in to haul sand, were good for
no more the 2500 miles, and their fenders would thin out
under their paint and suddenly collapse when apparently still
in good shape. The lime in the coral combined with the ever-
present moisture to make a powerful alkali that ate all metal
within reach.
The perpetual threat of corrosion was serious. Motor vehicles
were deteriorating four times as fast as in ordinary climates.
The problem was not licked until an ingenious mechanic
devised an apparatus, set in the floor of a shed that would
spray the entire running gear of a truck or cat with rust-
resisting oil while its driver rolled it through at slow speed.
The men made a habit of running through the “bath house” on
their way to work every morning.
Yankee ingenuity like this was always turning up on this
fantastic desert isle. Especially in the repair shops these
mechanics, five thousand miles from home, showed their
genius for tinkering by replacing broken dredge cutters,
bulldozer blades – anything that Palmyra’s deceptive softness
managed to destroy. They did it with bits of steel, a welder,
and that mechanical sense of humor that makes Americans
everywhere a match for the environment.
As at Johnston, dredging was the first order of business in
creating the base. But here it had a second purpose as
important as clearing the channels and runways. This was to
make new land. There was not a single islet in the atoll big
enough to hold the permanent buildings planned. It was
necessary to join several of them together with dredged
material, packing it in and rolling it down hard. Thus the
coral that was an obstruction underwater [118] became a ready-
made building material that was virtually a free gift.
To make the idea effective, the Army leased PNAB its huge
suction dredge Sacramento, which was towed to Palmyra
lagoon as soon as the outer channel would admit her. The
Sacramento dropped her “ladder” in the west lagoon and
began eating her way to the east, pouring a twenty-inch
stream of coral mud up on the shores of Menge and Idella
islands behind her. The first result was to join the two islets
together to make a continuous stretch of ground big enough to
build runways for the landplanes. This was the opening move
in an urgent new policy to fit all the island bases for
landplane uses. Both Palmyra and Johnston had been
designed as seaplane (PBY) havens only; but the certainty of
war had started Admiral Moreell to negotiating with the Civil
Aeronautics Authority and the Army Air Force for extra funds
to broaden the land as all five-island locations.
Having connected the two western islets, the Sacramento went
on pumping, and, before long had built a causeway completely
around the chain of fifty-two – a stretch nearly nine miles
long. At the same time she chewed out shoals between the
three lagoons and made a single big pond. Palmyra, under its
palms, was making ready to welcome the vast armada of
bombers headed west. And the
year. Brand new trucks bought in to haul sand, were good for
no more the 2500 miles, and their fenders would thin out
under their paint and suddenly collapse when apparently still
in good shape. The lime in the coral combined with the ever-
present moisture to make a powerful alkali that ate all metal
within reach.
The perpetual threat of corrosion was serious. Motor vehicles
were deteriorating four times as fast as in ordinary climates.
The problem was not licked until an ingenious mechanic
devised an apparatus, set in the floor of a shed that would
spray the entire running gear of a truck or cat with rust-
resisting oil while its driver rolled it through at slow speed.
The men made a habit of running through the “bath house” on
their way to work every morning.
Yankee ingenuity like this was always turning up on this
fantastic desert isle. Especially in the repair shops these
mechanics, five thousand miles from home, showed their
genius for tinkering by replacing broken dredge cutters,
bulldozer blades – anything that Palmyra’s deceptive softness
managed to destroy. They did it with bits of steel, a welder,
and that mechanical sense of humor that makes Americans
everywhere a match for the environment.
As at Johnston, dredging was the first order of business in
creating the base. But here it had a second purpose as
important as clearing the channels and runways. This was to
make new land. There was not a single islet in the atoll big
enough to hold the permanent buildings planned. It was
necessary to join several of them together with dredged
material, packing it in and rolling it down hard. Thus the
coral that was an obstruction underwater [118] became a ready-
made building material that was virtually a free gift.
To make the idea effective, the Army leased PNAB its huge
suction dredge Sacramento, which was towed to Palmyra
lagoon as soon as the outer channel would admit her. The
Sacramento dropped her “ladder” in the west lagoon and
began eating her way to the east, pouring a twenty-inch
stream of coral mud up on the shores of Menge and Idella
islands behind her. The first result was to join the two islets
together to make a continuous stretch of ground big enough to
build runways for the landplanes. This was the opening move
in an urgent new policy to fit all the island bases for
landplane uses. Both Palmyra and Johnston had been
designed as seaplane (PBY) havens only; but the certainty of
war had started Admiral Moreell to negotiating with the Civil
Aeronautics Authority and the Army Air Force for extra funds
to broaden the land as all five-island locations.
Having connected the two western islets, the Sacramento went
on pumping, and, before long had built a causeway completely
around the chain of fifty-two – a stretch nearly nine miles
long. At the same time she chewed out shoals between the
three lagoons and made a single big pond. Palmyra, under its
palms, was making ready to welcome the vast armada of
bombers headed west. And the
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Page 6
Paradise Island
| The Palmyra Hilton |
| Remnants of the Old Machine Shed. NW Airstrip. Fork Lift |
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