Canton Island Airport is located on a sparsely populated island in the Phoenix Islands of the Republic of Kiribati. It has a single runway in length, paved with asphalt. Once a major stop on commercial trans-Pacific airline routes, today the airport is for emergency use, being for the most part abandoned.
Construction
During World War II, Canton Island was considered part of the British-controlled Gilbert and Ellice Islands colony. A low, narrow rim of land surrounding a large, shallow lagoon, at its widest to the west, the atoll is 4½ miles, narrowing to the east over a distance of just. The airfield was built on the island's northwestern point between 1938–39 by Pan American Airways as a stopover on their route from Hawaii to New Zealand. The Pan American pioneered the central air route of Hawaii to the Philippines and Asia, by way of stations at Midway, Wake and Guam passed through the Japanese controlled islands with serious concerns about its safety growing in 1941 even as the Army had reinforced the Philippines with a flight of B-17 bombers by way of Midway, Wake and Port Moresby in September. The War Department approved a plan with orders effective 4 October 1941 to build an alternate air ferry route skirting the mandated islands and capable of handling planes such as the B-17s. While a commercial firm was engaged for most of the island stops of the new route, the Canton airfield was under construction by a team of Army Engineers and civilian contractors with a target opening of bomber capability by January 1942. The effort began on 3 November with a transport carrying 130 troops and civilian contractors and towing four barges of equipment departed Honolulu arriving at the island 14 November after losing two of the barges. By 28 December, despite considerable difficulties, the field was declared suitable to accommodate heavy bombers. On 31 January 1942 garrison forces for the island, then codenamed "HOLLY," sailed from San Francisco. The political status of the island was uncertain at first, with American and British settlers occupying two separate camps on the island. On March 3, 1938 President Franklin Roosevelt placed Canton and Enderbury Island under jurisdiction of the United States Department of the Interior, but this claim was strenuously resisted by the British government. In April 1939, Canton and Enderbury were placed under joint British and American control for fifty years, and "thereafter until such time as it may be modified or terminated by mutual consent".
World War II
The airport was used as a military airfield during World War II by the United States Army Air Forces in 1942 and 1943, initially being used by the 40th Ferrying Squadron, Ferrying Command as an airfield for moving combat aircraft to forward combat units. The airfield saw various aircraft, including A-20s, B-17s, B-24s, B-25s, B-26s, P-38s, P-40s, C-46s, and C-47s transit the base. In February 1943, the long-range B-24 Liberator Bombers of the 392d Bombardment Squadron were sent to the airfield. The Imperial Japanese Army did not invade Canton, although the airfield was bombarded on 1 November 1943 by the Japanese submarine I-36. After the war, it was returned to civilian control.
After the war
Canton Island airport continued to see use during the 1950s as a trans-Pacific stopover for DC-4, DC-6B and DC-7C aircraft for Pan American, British Commonwealth Pacific Airlines, QANTAS and Canadian Pacific Airlines, but with the advent of long-range jet aircraft during the 1960s, their need for the island faded, and the airfield and its associated facilities were ultimately abandoned in 1965. It saw occasional use thereafter in conjunction with subsequent U.S. government projects on the island, but with the abandonment of these endeavors, the airport was finally closed for good in 1975, although Air Tungaru used it as an occasional refueling stop on its Tarawa-Kiritimati-Honolulu route well into the 1990s. It remains available as an emergency landing field.
