British claims The
British laid claim to Canton Island during the 1850s. The American ship allegedly responded in kind, following which both captains agreed to "cease fire" until instructions could be received from their respective governments.
Washington and
London quickly ordered no further escalation, and both parties observed the solar eclipse together, "though officially a bit cool." In response to the British reoccupation of Canton in August 1937, seven Americans from the
American Equatorial Islands Colonization Project landed on the island on 7 March 1938. Although the
British ambassador to the United States requested removal of markers claiming U.S. sovereignty, President
Franklin Roosevelt had formally placed the island under control of the U.S. Interior department on 3 March 1938. Both parties continued to press their competing claims until 6 April 1939, when the U.S. and Britain agreed to hold Canton under joint control for the next fifty years as the
Canton and Enderbury Islands condominium. The U.S./U.K. tenure proved cordial and cooperative thereafter, with each party enjoying the other's hospitality and working together to ensure smooth operation of island facilities. A United States office was open between 1940 and 1965 and from 1970. Canton Island Post Office opened on 25 January 1941 and closed around February 1968.
Airplane oasis Pan American World Airways (Pan Am) arrived on Canton on 18 May 1939, to build facilities for their planned New Zealand flying boat service. It was shelled three times in late 1942 by Japanese submarines, and bombed once on 25 March 1943. Damage was reported as "slight". The island was defended by approximately 1,200 combat troops and support personnel, but Japanese forces never attempted a landing. It was the site of at least two airplane crashes during the war: on 19 July 1944 and 5 December 1945. After the war moved west, it became the homebase for the
Roman Catholic chaplain in this area of the Pacific.
Post War Administration and international airline service In November 1946,
Pan Am resumed service to Hawaii, Australia and New Zealand via Canton with
Douglas DC-4 aircraft.
British Commonwealth Pacific Airlines (BCPA), Australia's first trans-Pacific airline, served the island via a cooperative agreement with
Australian National Airways (ANA) initially with Douglas DC-4s on a routing of Sydney - Auckland - Fiji - Canton Island - Honolulu - San Francisco - Vancouver, with the inaugural flight departing Australia on 15 September 1946. BCPA then began flying luxurious
Douglas DC-6Bs on the Sydney to Vancouver route.
Qantas took over this service shortly thereafter as BCPA subsequently ceased all operations and went out of business.
Canadian Pacific Airlines also used the island as well for its Douglas DC-4 service between Vancouver and the southern hemisphere. A full-scale community was established to support these airline operations, including an electrical power station, a hotel for the airline passengers' use, a medical dispensary, school for dependent children of station personnel, and other necessary facilities. The island was jointly administered by the United Kingdom and the United States, and the British and American post offices were both operated from a single building. The American administrator, who was an employee of the
Civil Aeronautics Administration (predecessor to the
FAA) and island manager for that agency, also served as the U.S. resident administrator under the Department of the Interior and as a U.S. special deputy marshal under the Department of Justice. William J. Evans held this position from 1952 to 1956, during which time a crew from
National Geographic magazine visited the island and highlighted it in the magazine's January 1955 issue. Vice-president
Richard Nixon and his wife visited the island in October 1953, en route to New Zealand, where they stayed overnight and were interviewed by Fred Carpenter for the local radio station KIBS. By 1956, Pan Am was operating a
Boeing 377 Stratocruiser service into the airport from Los Angeles and San Francisco, via a stop in Honolulu, with these flights continuing on to
Sydney with a stop at
Nadi Airport in
Fiji. In 1962,
South Pacific Air Lines was offering
flag stop service on demand into Canton Island via its scheduled passenger flight between Honolulu and
Pago Pago operated with
Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellation propliners. Ultimately, the introduction of long-range jet aircraft spelled the end of Canton's usefulness as an aircraft refueling station, and all airlines ended their operations there by the late 1950s—except for Pan Am, which continued a monthly service with
Douglas DC-7C prop aircraft via Auckland, Nadi, Pago Pago, Kanton, Honolulu and return. This service was conducted using the outbased DC-7C aircraft N743PA and N744PA, which provided feeder service from Auckland to three points on the jet service schedules. The last Pan Am flight was in November 1965 when the final DC-7C returned to Miami after the opening of a new airport in Auckland, enabling New Zealand to be added to Pan Am's
Boeing 707 jet routes. Canton's airport remained operational, however, as an emergency landing field.
After the airlines In 1960 a tracking station for the
Mercury program was built on Canton, and used through November 1965. The U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Space and Missile Systems Organization continued to use the island for missile-tracking operations through 1976. That year marked the complete end of the American presence; the airfield was abandoned and all U.S. personnel were removed. The British closed their
post office, ending their presence on Canton as well. With the independence of
Kiribati from Britain in 1979, the Anglo-American condominium was formally terminated, and the island transferred to Kiribati sovereignty. Canton's post office was reopened by the Kiribati government, and the island was repopulated with a few people from the more crowded atolls of the
Gilbert Islands Canton is occasionally visited by Republic of Kiribati vessels, the
U.S. Coast Guard and various fishing boats. In 2008, Canton and the rest of the Phoenix Islands became the Phoenix Islands Protected Area (PIPA), the world's largest
marine protected area, covering a total area of of land and ocean. In 2007 it was submitted, together with the rest of the PIPA, as a UNESCO World Heritage site. A station of the
Global Seismographic Network, IU KNTN, hosted by the Kiribati Weather Service was established in 2007 with current data shown as of August 2016. In 2010, a British yachtsman and his crew, who were sailing from Hawaii to Australia, stopped at Canton and discovered the 24 islanders (14 adults and 10 children) were dangerously short of food. An expected supply ship had not arrived and the islanders had been living on fish and coconuts for several months. The yacht crew contacted the
UK Coastguard, who contacted the U.S. Coast Guard to arrange relief supplies. ==See also==