The
East Indiaman was wrecked on Pratas Island on or about 22 October 1800 with the loss of all aboard. At the time the island was known to British sailors as "Perates". In 1851, the British
screw sloop wrecked on the south-east bend of Pratas Atoll while going to the aid of another wrecked vessel; the crew were all saved. Decades later, the boilers and parts of the machinery of the wreckage of HMS
Reynard remained visible on the atoll. In 1859–1861, there was a correspondence between the
British Colonial Office and the Hong Kong colonial authorities about building a lighthouse on the main island on the atoll. Despite an offer by a British businessman in
Xiamen (Amoy) to build it, it was decided that the cost was too great and the matter lapsed. It is clear from the correspondence that no one supposed the atoll to be a part of any known jurisdiction, so negotiations might have been required to ensure that any construction would be legal. One consequence of that initiative was that, in 1858, the
Royal Navy survey ship completed the first detailed survey of the atoll, resulting in the
Plan of the Pratas Reef and Island, J. Richards and others, April 1858, being published by the British Admiralty. On the resulting chart three positions are proposed for a lighthouse: on Pratas Island, on the north-east corner, or on the southern edge near where HMS
Reynard had stranded. In the north-east corner of the lagoon the chart notes "Anchorage for junks", indicating regular use by fishing and other small vessels taking shelter. The chart's rubric noted that the available safe draft for vessels entering was only , so it was restricted to relatively small vessels only. In 1866, naturalist
Cuthbert Collingwood visited Pratas Island and later published a description of it. After a diplomatic confrontation, Chinese sovereignty was re-established, and Nishizawa withdrew, after being compensated by the Guangdong provincial government, and after paying compensation for the destruction of a Chinese fishermen's shrine. In December 1930, the schooner (Sweden) ran aground on a coral reef off Pratas Island and was wrecked. On 22 May 1944, the
Japanese gunboat was
torpedoed and sunk by the US
submarine , in the
South China Sea off Pratas Island at , while towing the disabled passenger-cargo ship
Tsukuba Maru. Casualties are unknown but her commanding officer was killed. Japanese naval personnel occupied Pratas Island during
World War II. The Japanese Navy used the island as a weather station and listening post. On May 29, 1945, at 10:22 AM, a landing party consisting of Australian commandos and US naval personnel from the submarine raised the US flag, declared the island a United States territory, and named it Bluegill Island. The landing party destroyed a radio tower, weather station, fuel and ammunition dumps, and several buildings. They encountered no resistance because the Japanese had left the island prior to the arrival of
Bluegill. Pratas Island was later restored to
Guangdong Province of the
Republic of China (ROC). On September 12, 1946, the navy of the
Republic of China took over and garrisoned Pratas Island. While underway in the
South China Sea on 18 July 1965, the
USS Frank Knox ran aground on Pratas Reef, and was only freed on 24 August after a very difficult salvage effort. On 13 April 1996, the jurisdiction of the Taiwan
Kaohsiung District Court was extended to include Tungsha Island (Pratas Island). In May 1999, Kaohsiung Mayor
Frank Hsieh visited the island and hung an address plate on the island's fishing service station. In January 2007, the ROC government designated the Pratas atoll as the
Dongsha Atoll National Park, the first marine national park in Taiwan. On 8 January 2013, an office of
Chunghwa Post was established on Pratas Island. In September 2020, the
PRC conducted air drills over the waters between the main island of Taiwan and Pratas Island that intruded into the
ROC air defense identification zone (ADIZ). The planes were issued radio warnings by the ROC military until they left. On 15 October 2020, a regular civilian charter flight by
Uni Air had to abandon its trip from the main island of Taiwan to Pratas Island when
Hong Kong air traffic controllers told the captain of the aircraft that there were "dangerous activities" happening below and that the Uni Air aircraft could not enter the Hong Kong
Flight Information Region (FIR). The transcript of the conversation between the pilot and air traffic control was released by the ROC
Civil Aeronautics Administration. The next day, the ROC Minister of National Defense
Yen Teh-fa called on PRC not to "disrupt the order of international aviation". On 20 October, Deputy Chief of the ROC General Staff, Lieutenant-General Li Ting-sheng (
李廷盛), visited Pratas Island. He made an inspection of the living facilities of the military personnel and gave them instructions. On 26 October, the same Uni Air aircraft made the round trip flight between the main island of Taiwan and Pratas Island. On 27 October 2020, a
Y8 PRC military aircraft entered ROC
air defense identification zone (ADIZ) between the main island of Taiwan and Pratas Island for the twenty-first time that month. On 28 October,
Zhu Fenglian of the
Taiwan Affairs Office of the PRC was asked whether, in light of
PLA military exercises in
Fujian and
Guangdong, there was or was not a plan to take Pratas Island from the ROC. Feng responded that she did not have to answer hypothetical questions. On 2 November, eight Chinese
PLAAF aircraft breached the ROC ADIZ above an area of sea near Pratas Island. On 3 November, Y-8 plane entered the ADIZ of the ROC in the area between the main island of Taiwan and Pratas Island. On 4 November, the ROC Minister of National Defense,
Yen Teh-fa, stated in a legislative hearing that since January 2020, 276 PRC military planes had entered the airspace between the main island of Taiwan and Pratas Island, activity that Yen associated with plans by the PRC for a creating its own ADIZ in the South China Sea. On 6 December, a PRC air force Y-8 plane entered the Taiwan ADIZ between the main island of Taiwan and Pratas Island, the fifth day in December that PRC military aircraft entered Taiwan's ADIZ. == Geography ==