Кваджалейн атолдары: тарихы мен қазіргі жағдайы

Atoll in the Marshall Islands

Kwajalein Atoll ('/k//w//ɑː//dʒ//ə//l//ɪ//n/; Marshallese: Kuwajleen ) is part of the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI). The southernmost and largest island in the atoll is named Kwajalein Island, which its majority English speaking residents (about 1,000 mostly U. S. civilian personnel) often use the shortened name, Kwaj /k//w//ɑː//dʒ/. The total land area of the atoll amounts to just over It lies in the Ralik Chain, southwest of Honolulu, Hawaii. The US Navy has hosted a naval base on Kwajalein Island since World War II. It was the final resting place of the German cruiser Prinz Eugen after it survived the Operation Crossroads nuclear test in 1946. In the late 1950s, the US Army took over the base as part of their Nike Zeus anti ballistic missile efforts, and since then the atoll has been widely used for missile tests of all sorts. Today it is part of the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site, with various radars, tracking cameras, missile launchers, and many support systems spread across many islands. One of the five ground stations used in controlling the operation of the Global Positioning System (GPS) navigation system is located on Kwajalein. The atoll is also used as a base for orbital rocket launches with the Pegasus XL rocket, and previously had a base for SpaceX for their Falcon 1 rocket.

Kwajalein is the 14th largest coral atoll as measured by area of enclosed water. Comprising 97 islands and islets, it has a land area of and surrounds one of the largest lagoons in the world, with an area of The average height above sea level for all the islands is about
The atoll was formed when volcanoes on the seabed from 165 to 76 mya built up enough lava that the land rose from beneath the sea. It cannot be determined how far above sea level the original land rose. Then coral started growing around the land/volcano, about 56 mya. Kwajalein Island is about north of the equator. Islands often have alternate names: The first is the Marshallese name, the second was assigned somewhat arbitrarily by the U. S. Navy prior to their attack on the atoll during World War II. The original name was considered too difficult for English speakers to properly differentiate among the islands. The latter has often been retained by English speakers. The exception to this is Kwajalein itself, which is close to the native name; the received spelling is from German, however.

Kwajalein Island is the southernmost and largest of the islands in the atoll. The area is about It is long and averages about wide. To enlarge the island, the Americans placed fill at both the northwestern part of the island above the pier (within the atoll, by 1953), the northern part extending towards Ebeye, and the southwestern parts of the island (by 1970). The northern extension was used for housing, the remainder for industrial purposes. Kwajalein Island's population is about 1,000, mostly made of Americans with a small number of Marshall Islanders and other nationalities, all of whom require express permission from the U. S. Army to live there. Some 13,500 Marshallese citizens live on the atoll, most of them on Ebeye Island.

SAR Pass (Search And Rescue Pass) is the closest to Kwajalein on the West Reef. This pass is man made and was created in the mid 1950s. It is very narrow and shallow compared to the natural passes in the lagoon and is only used by small boats. South Pass is on the West Reef, north of SAR Pass. It is very wide. Gea Pass is a deep water pass between Gea and Ninni islands. Bigej Pass is the first pass on the East reef north of Kwajalein and Ebeye.

Kwajalein (Kuwajleen) Atoll is an important cultural site to the Marshallese people of the Ralik chain. In Marshallese cosmology, Kwajalein island is the site of an abundant flowering zebra wood tree, thought to have spiritual powers. Marshallese from other islands came to gather the "fruits" of this tree. This, explain many elders, is a Marshallese metaphor that describes the past century of colonialism and serves to explain why Kwajalein is still so precious to foreign interests. This story was the origin of the name Kuwajleen, which apparently derives from Ri ruk jan leen, "the people who harvest the flowers".

The first recorded sighting of Kwajalein by Europeans was during the Spanish expedition of Ruy López de Villalobos in January 1543. The atoll was charted as Los Jardines (The Gardens) because of its fresh appearance and trees. Los Jardines remained well located in most 16th and 17th century charts in the 8–10°N, as reported by the Villalobos expedition chroniclers. However, at some point in the late 18th century, due to some transcription error from the old Spanish maps, they start to appear in the nautical charts shifted northwards to 21°N, thus creating phantom islands of Los Jardines that, even if sought and never found, remained on charts of the Pacific until 1973. The atoll came under the control of Spain but was largely ignored by European powers during the 17th and 18th centuries except for some short lived missionary expeditions, minor trading posts and demarcation treaties between the Iberian kingdoms (Portugal and Spain). In 1828–1829, Russian Navy captain Ludwig von Hagemeister made his final circumnavigation on the ship Krotky. During this journey, he surveyed the Menshikov Atoll (Kwajalein) in the Marshall Islands, plotting it on the map and specifying the location of some other islands. At the time, the atoll was known as Kuadelen and Kabajaia to Spain. In early November, 1875, a typhoon resulted in an 8 feet (2 m) storm surge, drowning everyone on Kwajalein Island. The German Empire annexed the Marshall Islands, including Kwajalein Atoll, as a protectorate on October 15, 1885.

Japan had developed an interest in what it called the "South Seas" (南洋) in the 19th century, prior to its imperial expansion into Korea and China. By 1875, ships from the newly established Imperial Japanese Navy began to hold training missions in the area. Shigetaka Shiga, a writer who accompanied a Navy cruise to the region in 1886, published his Current State of Affairs in the South Seas (南洋時事) in 1887, marking the first time a Japanese civilian published a firsthand account of Micronesia. Three years later, Shiga advocated for annexation of the area by claiming that doing so would "excite an expeditionary spirit in the demoralized Japanese race." Despite the appeal imperialism had for the Japanese public at the time, neither the Meiji government nor the Navy seized any pretexts to fulfill this popular aspiration. It was through the commercial operations of fisherman and traders that the Japanese first began to make a wider presence in the region, which continued to grow despite challenges from competing German commercial interests. At the outbreak of World War I in Europe, Japan joined the Triple Entente and seized the Marshall Islands against only token resistance. In 1922 the islands were placed under Japanese administration as a League of Nations Mandate, whereupon it was referred to as Kwezerin kanshō (クェゼリン環礁) in Japan, part of the Nan'yō gunto. The islands of the Kwajalein Atoll, especially the main island, served as a rural copra trading outpost administered by Japanese civilians until the beginning of World War II in the Pacific in December 1941. Before the Pacific War, Japanese settlement in Kwajalein Atoll consisted mostly of traders and their families who worked at local branches of shops headquartered at nearby Jaluit Atoll. There were also local administrative staff at Kwajalein. With the establishment of Kwajalein's public school in 1935, schoolteachers were sent to the island from Japan. Most Marshall Islanders who recall those times describe a peaceful time of cooperation and development between Japanese and Marshallese, although the latter were not considered on the same social tier as Japanese. By the 1930s, immigration from the Japanese mainland had increased exponentially. In some regions of the Nan'yō, colonial settlers outnumbered Micronesian natives by as much as ten to one, amounting to the most significant violation of Japan's League of Nations mandate. In the furthest eastern areas, however, immigrants remained in the minority. Contemporary testimony and postwar investigations have attested that Japan honored their agreement under the mandate to administer the islands peacefully. Nevertheless, Kwajalein along with the rest of the territories in the Nan'yō began to be fortified militarily after Japan's departure from the League of Nations in 1933. With the assistance of the Imperial Japanese Navy, local infrastructure was improved between 1934 and 1939. The first combat units, from the Imperial Japanese Navy's 4th Fleet, arrived in February 1941. Prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor, militarization of the Nan'yō, including Kwajalein, had been considered meagre enough that it alarmed Admiral Shigeyoshi Inoue, who in January 1941 strongly urged the Ministry of the Navy to immediately expedite the process. A few months later, a naval officer stationed in Kwajalein sent a memorandum to the Naval Ministry denouncing the failure to ready the region for war. Both warnings were ignored by the Naval Ministry. Korean forced laborers were ordered to work throughout the Pacific beginning in the early 1940s. Over 10,000 were sent to the Nan'yō area alone, mostly from the southernmost provinces of Chōsen. In some atolls, such as Wotje, those forced laborers were joined by Japanese prisoners from Hokkaido, most of them political dissidents. In order to build the aerial runway on Kwajalein Island, the Japanese public school was demolished and, along with the civil administration, moved to Namu Atoll. Islanders were forcibly moved to live on some of the smaller islets in the atoll. The trauma of this experience, together with the influx of these young and underprepared soldiers, surprised the local population. Islanders who survived this period make clear distinctions in their recollections of civilian and military Japanese for this reason. This is the first known instance of forced relocation in Kwajalein Atoll, although similar events took place throughout the Marshall Islands. Archaeological evidence as well as testimony from Japanese and Marshallese sources indicate that this militarization would likely not have begun until the 1940s; it was left incomplete at the time of the American invasion in 1944. On February 1, 1942, the USS Enterprise (CV 6) launched a series of raids on the Roi Namur airfield and merchant shipping in Carlos Pass, where they sank several ships. In Kwajalein, forced laborers from across the empire and Marshallese volunteers known as teishintai (挺身隊) built military facilities throughout the atoll. These construction teams would repair the resulting damage from American bombing raids. A second wave of Japanese naval and ground forces was dispatched to Kwajalein in early 1943 from the Manchurian front. These soldiers were between the ages of 18 and 21, poorly trained, and had no experience in the tropics. The supply ships that were meant to provide them with food rations were sunk by American forces before reaching the atoll; many Japanese succumbed to illnesses like dengue fever and dysentery, as did many of the laborers. As the military situation worsened and the pressures of military ideology increased, soldiers at Kwajalein became harsher and more violent toward Marshall Islanders, whom they often suspected of spying for the Americans. Kwajalein was also the site of a prisoner of war camp, whose detainees were not registered with the Red Cross. The island acquired the nickname "Execution Island" because of the treatment and killing of prisoners at the hands of Japanese military staff. The Japanese military also tested biological warfare agents on prisoners there. After the war, a US Naval War Crimes court located on the atoll tried several Japanese naval officers for war crimes committed elsewhere; at least one officer was condemned to death.

On January 31, 1944, the 7th Infantry Division, spearheaded by the 111th Infantry Regiment performed an amphibious assault on Kwajalein. On February 1, 1944, Kwajalein was the target of the most concentrated bombardment of the Pacific War. An estimated 36,000 shells from naval ships and ground artillery on a nearby islet struck Kwajalein. B 24 Liberator bombers aerially bombarded the island, adding to the destruction. Of the 8,782 Japanese personnel deployed to the atoll, including forced laborers, 7,870 were killed. U. S. military documents do not differentiate between the Japanese and Korean dead. However, the Korean government's Truth Commission for Forced Labor Under Japanese Imperialism reports an official figure from the Japanese government of 310 Koreans killed in the American invasion of Kwajalein. Whether this figure represents Kwajalein islet or the whole atoll is unclear. Since no distinction was made between dead Japanese soldiers and Korean forced laborers in mass graves on Kwajalein, both are enshrined as war hero guardian spirits for the Japanese nation in Yasukuni Shrine. This enshrinement is solely due to the mingling of Korean and Japanese corpses in this one case and has not occurred with the remains of other Korean forced laborers elsewhere. Additionally, while many of the native Marshallese successfully fled the island in their canoes just before the battle, an estimated 200 were killed on the atoll during the fighting. Kwajalein was one of the few locations in the Pacific War where indigenous islanders were recorded to have been killed while fighting for the Japanese. Many Marshallese dead were found among those killed in bunkers. The flat island offered no other protection against the heavy bombardment. Taking refuge in bunkers resulted in many Marshallese deaths when their shelters were destroyed by hand grenades. Some Marshallese were reportedly induced to fight by Japanese propaganda which, as would occur later in the Battle of Okinawa, stated that the Americans would indiscriminately rape and massacre the civilian population if they successfully took the atoll. On February 6, 1944, Kwajalein was claimed by the United States and was designated, with the rest of the Marshall Islands, as a United Nations Trust Territory under the United States.

In the years following, Kwajalein Atoll was converted into a staging area for campaigns in the advance on the Japanese homeland in the Pacific War. After the war ended, the United States used it as a main command center and preparation base in 1946 for Operation Crossroads, the first of several series of nuclear tests (comprising a total of 67 blasts) at the Marshall island atolls of Bikini and Enewetak. Significant portions of the native population were forced to relocate as a result of American weapons testing and military activity in the islands between 1945 and 1965. Government leaders and landowners were hopeful that this extension will allow for more money to be paid to the land owners. The U. S. Army Garrison Kwajalein Atoll (USAG KA) installation has been downsizing, in part because of budget constraints and technological improvements (such as a new trans oceanic fiber optic cable) that will allow the testing range to be operated extensively from sites in the United States, thus minimizing operation costs and the need for on site workers or residents. Recently, the American population of the Kwajalein installation has dropped dramatically. The aluminum sided trailers that housed the bulk of the contractor population are systematically being removed from the main island. Nevertheless, the enormous investment in these new technologies and recent statements by Army leadership indicate that the United States is committed to remaining in the Marshall Islands at Kwajalein Atoll for the foreseeable future. In 2009, American ambassador Clyde Bishop commented that future funding to the Republic of the Marshall Islands was dependent on the use of Kwajalein. Kwajalein Atoll has been leased by the United States for missile testing and other operations from well before independence for the Marshall Islands. Although this military history has influenced the lives of the Marshall Islanders who have lived in the atoll through the war to the present, the military history of Kwajalein has prevented tourism. SpaceX updated facilities on Omelek Island to launch its commercial Falcon 1 rockets. The first successful Falcon 1 orbital space launch from Omelek was conducted in 2008. Since 2000, Kwajalein has become one of five preferred locations from which Pegasus rockets can be launched into equatorial orbit. mostly on Ebeye Island.

Kwajalein and Roi Namur are the main islands used by the U. S. personnel. Provision is made for family housing. Personnel whose family members are not with them live in hotel room style housing.

Of the 97 islands, 11 are leased by the United States. They are part of the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site (RTS), formerly known as Kwajalein Missile Range. The lease is active from 2006 to 2066, with an option to renew for another 20 years. Leased islands include Kwajalein, Meck, Eniwetak, Omelek, Gellinam, Gagan, Ennugarret, and Roi Namur on the eastern side of the atoll and Ennylabegan, Legan, and Illeginni on the western side. RTS includes radar installations, optics, telemetry, and communications equipment, which are used for ballistic missile and missile interceptor testing, and for space operations support. Kwajalein island hosts the $914 million Space Fence radar, which tracks satellites and orbital debris. Kwajalein has one of five ground stations used in controlling the RTS range, which also assist in the operation of the Global Positioning System (GPS) navigation system.

Very few Japanese or Korean remains were ever repatriated from the atoll; thus both Kwajalein and Roi Namur have ceremonial cenotaphs to honor this memory. The memorial on Kwajalein was constructed by the Japan Marshall Islands War Bereaved Families Association in the 1960s, and the memorial on Roi Namur was constructed by American personnel. The memorial sites are dedicated to Japanese souls and to the sacrifices of Koreans, Marshallese, and Americans. U. S. Marine Corps intelligence records and photographs at the U. S. National Archives, together with the testimony of U. S. veterans, indicate that there was a mass burial site consolidated into one place on Kwajalein islet, at or near the current cemetery. However, remains are scattered throughout the islet, at Roi Namur, and in places throughout the atoll. Bereaved Japanese and Korean families have mixed sentiments about whether or not to return these remains to their home countries, as none of them are identifiable, and "bone collecting" missions are sometimes perceived by families as an insult to the dead or a political stunt by the Japanese government. Japanese bereaved family members consider the sites of sunken Japanese shipwrecks in Kwajalein lagoon to be sacred gravesites. They object to the activities of American divers who attempt to explore these wrecks. A ceremony is held at Japan's Yasukuni Shrine annually in April (originally held in February to coincide with the anniversary of the battle), where the memories of the Japanese soldiers are honored and surviving families offer prayers to their spirits. Small groups of bereaved Japanese families have made pilgrimages to Kwajalein on a semi annual basis since the 1990s. The first of these groups was the Japan Marshall Islands War Bereaved Families Association, which negotiated its visit with the U. S. Army as far back as 1964 and made its first visit in 1975 at the invitation of the Kwajalein Missile Range. The bereaved families of conscripted Korean laborers have also recently traveled in groups to the Marshall Islands and other parts of Micronesia, the Philippines, and Indonesia, with funding from the Japanese government, although they have not yet paid a group visit to Kwajalein.

There was a private flying club from 1963 through the mid 1980s. They owned two aircraft, tied down outdoors off the Bucholtz airstrip. Because they used avgas, they were forced to dissolve when the Army switched over to turbine powered aircraft and no longer stocked avgas.

Kwajalein Island has several recreational accommodations, including two saltwater pools, multiple tennis courts, racquetball courts and basketball courts as well as playing fields for baseball, soccer, and other sports. The Corlett Recreational Center (CRC) is on the northeast side of the island and features several rooms for use by inhabitants as well as a full size, indoor court where community and youth basketball, volleyball and indoor soccer can be played. The island features a nine hole golf course near the airport, a bowling alley, libraries, a fitness center and two movie theaters. Inhabitants can rent boats for water skiing and fishing at the Kwajalein marina. Residents spear fish, deep sea fish and scuba dive. The island also has a food court with a Subway, Burger King, and American Eatery, as well as a bar for evening drinking and relaxation.

On Kwajalein Island, housing is free for most personnel, depending on contract or tour of duty.

Under the constitution of the Republic of the Marshall Islands the government can own land only in limited circumstances. Practically, all land is private and inherited through one's matriline and clan. Since the United States began leasing land, the issue of proper land payments has been a major issue of contention for landowners which continues today. "Landowners" here refers to the consortium of irooj (chiefs), alaps (clan heads) and rijerbal (workers) who have land rights to the places used for military purposes by the United States. In the case of Kwajalein Atoll in particular, a "senior rijerbal" is assigned a role to represent families who have claims to land as "workers" of that location. Unclear and insufficient in the opinion of these landowners, the original lease arrangements for Kwajalein Atoll with the U. S. were finally negotiated only after the landowners and their supporters demonstrated in the early 1980s with a peaceful protest called "Operation Homecoming," in which Islanders re inhabited their land at Kwajalein, Roi Namur, and other restricted sites. Although Operation Homecoming did not achieve the level of recognition for all people with land title at Kwajalein, the resulting agreements at least set a precedent for future dealings with the United States government. One of these early agreements was the first official Military Use and Operating Rights Agreement (MUORA) between the United States Army and Government of the RMI, which was linked to the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) that was written into the larger Compact of Free Association with the United States. Article 3 of the MUORA obligated the RMI to lease specific sites from their owners through a Land Use Agreement (LUA) and then sub lease them to the United States. Effectively, this rendered the land negotiations for use of Kwajalein Atoll a "domestic issue" between the national Marshallese government in Majuro and local "landowners," even though Kwajalein, where the local Marshallese population deals on a daily basis with American military activity, is a considerable distance from Majuro. Many Kwajalein Atoll residents have complained in the past that Majuro is out of touch with the realities of Kwajalein Marshallese, and downplays their suffering while profiting from the income provided by the testing site. The first MUORA guaranteed total payments of roughly US$11 million to the landowners through the year 2016, the majority of which went, via the provisions of the LUA to the irooj (chiefs), who had the largest stake in the land. Some American and Marshallese observers claimed that these land payments were "misused." However, the recipients of these funds strongly maintain that these have always been "rental" payments (like a tenant pays to a landlord) that landowners could use at their own discretion, separate from whatever funds the U. S. earmarked to help develop or improve Kwajalein Atoll, which were funneled into the Kwajalein Atoll Development Authority (KADA). In advance of its expiration in 2016, this LUA was renegotiated in 2003 as part of the Compact of Free Association, with the U. S. agreeing to pay the landowners (by the Republic of the Marshall Islands) $15 million a year, adjusted for inflation. In exchange for these payments, the Compact stipulated a new MUORA that gave the U. S. the option to use Kwajalein through 2066, renewable through 2086. The landowners, affiliated under the Kwajalein Negotiations Committee (KNC), were very unhappy with the proposed LUA, since they believed they should have been receiving at least double that amount in funds and that, more importantly, the LUA did nothing to provide for Marshall Islanders' welfare, health care, safety, and rapidly increasing population on Ebeye. By their independent land appraisals and calculations, the KNC had determined that the minimum acceptable compensation they should receive for Kwajalein lands was at least $19.1 million annually, adjusted for inflation. The landowners also claimed that there were many other terms by which they wished the U. S. would abide should the lease be extended, including providing better support and infrastructure to Ebeye, improving health care and education, guaranteeing that the missile testing was not creating environmental hazards, and providing a comprehensive life and property insurance policy. Despite a consensus among the landowners to refuse to allow the Compact to be signed with this inadequate LUA proposed by the U. S., the new Compact (and the MUORA, by extension) was finalized by officials of the RMI national government and went into effect in 2003. Stating that they had not been consulted about this agreement, the landowners went on to protest it, and mounted an organized boycott of the new LUA. Although the new Compact and its component MUORA was ratified in 2003, they have since held out and refused to sign the LUA of 2003, insisting, through Kwajalein Atoll elected representatives, that either a new LUA should be drafted that considers their needs or the U. S. will have to leave Kwajalein when the active LUA (which began in the 1980s) expires in 2016. The U. S., however, considers the Compact to be an "internationally binding" agreement that has been concluded. It thus pays an annual $15 million to the landowners, as agreed provisionally in the MUORA laid out in the 2003 Compact renegotiation; however, as this new LUA has not been signed, the difference of roughly $4 million has been going into an escrow account. The Compact stated that if the Republic of the Marshall Islands and the landowners did not reach an agreement about land payments by the end of 2008, these funds in escrow would be returned to the U. S. Treasury. Referring to this incentive to reach an agreement, then Senator Tony deBrum stated that it would be "insane" for the Marshallese people to put up with another 70 years of lack of access. Under the terms of the agreement, the United States was granted access until 2066, with an option to extend to 2086. A sum of over $32M held in the escrow account was then made available to the Kwajalein landholders. The landholders' spokesman, Christopher Loeak, referred to the agreement as "a compromise which we’ve agreed upon to safeguard our future."

The atoll is the setting of a clandestine spacecraft launch site in Neal Shusterman's third novel in his Arc of a Scythe series, The Toll.